ready for the amount of weird mail we get,” Grant Balfour, a Sun writer, told Newsweek.
On Thursday, the team ferreted out additional spores in a receptacle in the AMI mailroom. Blanco had placed his letters on a stack of copy paper and that paper in turn had contaminated every copier in the building. The spores trailed Blanco’s route as he made his regular rounds from the first- floor mailroom up stairs and elevators to dozens upon dozens of desks and cabinets. The path was densely contam- inated. Spores presumably were stirred up and transported as mail was sorted and delivered and in the daily movements of the staff. The EPA eventually took 462 samples from inside AMI. 2 A total of eighty-four places were found to be contaminated. Seventy-eight percent of the contaminated samples were from the first-floor mailroom. Sixty-six anthrax-laden samples were found on the first floor, includ- ing thirty-five from desks, computers, keyboards, file cabinets, and mail slots of cubicles. Spores were found in air filters and vacuum-cleaner bags. An additional thirty-one samples were vacuumed from the first floor.
On Saturday, October 13, Dr. Perkins learned five more of Stevens’s coworkers had been exposed to B. anthracis. He was glad he had already put them all on the powerful antibiotic Cipro. He did not expect the five to develop the disease. Apparently, there was no explanation why, unless one considered them simply lucky. They probably did not die because few spores do not cause illness and the immune system stands ready to defend against them. Seven days
2 The EPA teams took their samples from October 20 to November 8, 2001.
later, their blood tests would show anti-anthrax antibodies. But how had they been infected? Several of the infected worked in offices for the National Enquirer. The Sun ’s Carla Chadick pointed out that those offices “are way the heck down the hall and around the corner.”
The business of America, even if it was gossip, had to go on. The AMI operation moved to another Boca Raton building after their headquarters was closed. The CEO dis- cussed returning to their space off Yamato Road within a year if enough AMI employees agreed. It was doubtful they would. Stephanie Dailey was at home resting, taking anti- biotics and on the road to complete recovery. Dailey, a young woman with delicate features and big eyes, had shown up on the news dressed in a black shirt and faded jeans. She was flanked by her supportive parents. Her fa- ther’s face, as long and worried as a bulldog’s, showed the family’s deep concern. Blanco’s condition gradually im- proved and (on oral ciprofloxacin) he would be discharged from the hospital “miraculously cured of the usually fatal disease after twenty-three days at death’s door.”
No anthrax-tainted letter was found in Stevens’s office though they tore the place apart. “We still don’t have a letter,” one fed said bitterly. “We still have a death, and a lot of anthrax that was there.” Spores should have been found at points leading out of the building. AMI burned its own trash and stockpiled paper for burning. No trail of spores led to the disposal bin. Had more than one “weird” letter been sent to AMI? The mystery of the misaddressed J-Lo letter had to be solved. Since the letter was not recov- ered and since no trail showed it leaving the building, it might still be somewhere inside the AMI plant.
The EPA’s first findings had suggested a less-dangerous anthrax preparation: one with spores that fell where they were released, not airy spores that hung in the air waiting for victims. No one appreciated that anthrax powder could act like an aerosol, floating long distances or being carried on a person to infect others hundreds of feet away. After testing, they were surprised by how far the material had spread throughout the three-story AMI building.
Spores fell not just in the mailroom, but also in such
remote places as atop a room
On Thursday, the team ferreted out additional spores in a receptacle in the AMI mailroom. Blanco had placed his letters on a stack of copy paper and that paper in turn had contaminated every copier in the building. The spores trailed Blanco’s route as he made his regular rounds from the first- floor mailroom up stairs and elevators to dozens upon dozens of desks and cabinets. The path was densely contam- inated. Spores presumably were stirred up and transported as mail was sorted and delivered and in the daily movements of the staff. The EPA eventually took 462 samples from inside AMI. 2 A total of eighty-four places were found to be contaminated. Seventy-eight percent of the contaminated samples were from the first-floor mailroom. Sixty-six anthrax-laden samples were found on the first floor, includ- ing thirty-five from desks, computers, keyboards, file cabinets, and mail slots of cubicles. Spores were found in air filters and vacuum-cleaner bags. An additional thirty-one samples were vacuumed from the first floor.
On Saturday, October 13, Dr. Perkins learned five more of Stevens’s coworkers had been exposed to B. anthracis. He was glad he had already put them all on the powerful antibiotic Cipro. He did not expect the five to develop the disease. Apparently, there was no explanation why, unless one considered them simply lucky. They probably did not die because few spores do not cause illness and the immune system stands ready to defend against them. Seven days
2 The EPA teams took their samples from October 20 to November 8, 2001.
later, their blood tests would show anti-anthrax antibodies. But how had they been infected? Several of the infected worked in offices for the National Enquirer. The Sun ’s Carla Chadick pointed out that those offices “are way the heck down the hall and around the corner.”
The business of America, even if it was gossip, had to go on. The AMI operation moved to another Boca Raton building after their headquarters was closed. The CEO dis- cussed returning to their space off Yamato Road within a year if enough AMI employees agreed. It was doubtful they would. Stephanie Dailey was at home resting, taking anti- biotics and on the road to complete recovery. Dailey, a young woman with delicate features and big eyes, had shown up on the news dressed in a black shirt and faded jeans. She was flanked by her supportive parents. Her fa- ther’s face, as long and worried as a bulldog’s, showed the family’s deep concern. Blanco’s condition gradually im- proved and (on oral ciprofloxacin) he would be discharged from the hospital “miraculously cured of the usually fatal disease after twenty-three days at death’s door.”
No anthrax-tainted letter was found in Stevens’s office though they tore the place apart. “We still don’t have a letter,” one fed said bitterly. “We still have a death, and a lot of anthrax that was there.” Spores should have been found at points leading out of the building. AMI burned its own trash and stockpiled paper for burning. No trail of spores led to the disposal bin. Had more than one “weird” letter been sent to AMI? The mystery of the misaddressed J-Lo letter had to be solved. Since the letter was not recov- ered and since no trail showed it leaving the building, it might still be somewhere inside the AMI plant.
The EPA’s first findings had suggested a less-dangerous anthrax preparation: one with spores that fell where they were released, not airy spores that hung in the air waiting for victims. No one appreciated that anthrax powder could act like an aerosol, floating long distances or being carried on a person to infect others hundreds of feet away. After testing, they were surprised by how far the material had spread throughout the three-story AMI building.
Spores fell not just in the mailroom, but also in such
remote places as atop a room
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