Anthrax Hits Mail at Federal Reserve

Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit


ANTHRAX IN FEDERAL RESERVE MAIL

[Perhaps the Bushies and Bolton should be attending to bioterrorism a
little closer to home than Cuba, Syria, or Libya...  or even Osama
bin Laden. -- NY Transfer]

BBC online Thursday, 9 May, 2002, 16:22 GMT 17:22 UK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1978000/1978030.stm>


Anthrax found in Federal Reserve mail

The US Federal Reserve says it has found traces of anthrax on 20
pieces of mail.

"Routine preliminary tests, administered late Tuesday and Wednesday
by board and contract employees wearing protective environmental
suits, detected anthrax spores in small batches of mail totalling
about 20 pieces," the Fed said in a statement.

The routine screening is held in a mobile trailer parked behind the
Federal Reserve's main buildings in downtown Washington.

Such preliminary tests are often inaccurate and further tests are
being conducted.

"The affected mail was routine commercial and business mail and did
not have any of the characteristics identified by the FBI as
suspicious," the statement said.

If further testing shows that the letters are indeed infected, it
will be the second time the central bank is exposed to the deadly
bacteria, which killed five Americans last year.
 
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nytact-05.09.02-13:13:15-21258