Last Updated

01 Feb 2003

Source: The Globe and Mail, March 6, 2002.

Key dates in U.S. anthrax crisis

Sept. 18, 2001: Letters postmarked in Trenton, N.J., are sent to the New York Post and NBC anchor Tom Brokaw. They will later test positive for anthrax.
Sept. 30: Bob Stevens, photo editor at the supermarket tabloid Sun in Boca Raton, Fla., starts to feel ill.
Oct. 2: Mr. Stevens is admitted to a hospital.
Oct. 4: First public announcement that Mr. Stevens has contracted anthrax. It is dismissed by U.S. Health Secretary Tommy Thompson as "an isolated case and it's not contagious," adding that there is no evidence of bioterrorism.
Oct. 5: Mr. Stevens dies, the first U.S. death from inhaled anthrax since 1976.
Oct. 9: A letter postmarked in Trenton is sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. It later tests positive for anthrax.
Oct. 12: Officials announce that Erin O'Connor, an assistant to Mr. Brokaw at NBC, developed skin anthrax; she had noticed a lesion on Sept. 28.
Oct. 15: A letter containing anthrax is opened in Mr. Daschle's office. The office is quarantined.
Oct. 16: Twelve Senate offices are closed; hundreds of staffers get tests.
Oct. 17: About 30 people at the U.S. Capitol test positive for exposure to anthrax. House of Representatives closes for testing. Senate stays open two more days. New York Governor George Pataki's Manhattan office is evacuated after anthrax is detected.
Oct. 18: Carrie Fletcher, an assistant to CBS News anchor Dan Rather, tests positive for skin anthrax. A New Jersey postal carrier who developed a lesion on Sept. 27 is diagnosed with skin anthrax.
Oct. 19: The New York Post announces that an editorial assistant, Johanna Hudon, has skin anthrax; she had noticed a blister on her finger on Sept. 22. Another New Jersey postal worker tests positive for skin anthrax. Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge says anthrax bacteria strains in Florida, New York and Washington may have been from same batch.
Oct. 20: Tests confirm anthrax traces found in mail-bundling machine at House office building near the Capitol.
Oct. 21: Washington postal worker Thomas Morris dies of inhalation anthrax. Another postal worker, Joseph Curseen, goes to Maryland hospital complaining of flu-like symptoms and is sent home. Officials close two postal facilities, begin testing thousands of postal employees.
Oct. 22: Mr. Curseen returns to hospital by ambulance and dies of inhalation anthrax. House and Senate reopen.
Oct. 23: Anthrax is found on machinery at military base that sorts mail for White House; all tests at White House itself come back negative.
Oct. 24: U.S. Surgeon-General David Satcher admits "we were wrong" not to respond more aggressively to tainted mail in Washington.
Oct. 25: An employee at the State Department's mail facility is taken to hospital with anthrax and the Postal Service sets up spot checks at facilities nationwide. Mr. Ridge says the anthrax in the Daschle letter was highly concentrated and made "to be more easily absorbed" by its victims.
Oct. 26: U.S. Supreme Court building is ordered shut down for anthrax testing.
Oct. 27: The search for the bacteria widens to thousands of businesses in Washington and 30 mail distribution centres.
Oct. 28: A New York hospital worker, Kathy Nguyen, goes to hospital with symptoms of anthrax.
Oct. 31: Ms. Nguyen dies of inhalation anthrax.
Nov. 1: Investigators establish the bacteria that killed Ms. Nguyen were virtually identical to germs found in letters to New York news outlets and Mr. Daschle. New Jersey asks for immediate federal help to test every post office for anthrax and track the germ's path in three tainted letters sent out of a Trenton post office.
Nov. 21: Ottilie Lundgren, a 94-year-old retiree, dies of inhalation anthrax in Connecticut. It is speculated she was infected by mail that touched other anthrax-tainted mail.
Dec. 17: For first time, White House says it is "increasingly looking like" the anthrax bacteria had a domestic source, perhaps in a military lab.
Feb. 25, 2002: Federal authorities subpoena documents and anthrax samples from U.S. scientific laboratories in attempt to narrow source through genetic analysis.

Associated Press