Chronology of Anthrax Events in December, 2001
Senior officials of the Department of Health and Human Services said that some tens of thousands of letters processed weeks ago might have been contaminated with trace amounts of anthrax spores merely by coming into contact with intentionally poisoned mail.
Racial issues surfaced as the director of the Washington, D.C. health department related complains of black postal workers. They felt that white Capitol Hill employees were getting better and faster antibiotics after an anthrax-tainted letter was sent to Sen. Tom Daschle.
Government scientists open the anthrax-laden letter sent to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and find it to be "virtually identical" to one mailed to a colleague, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
Officials assure government workers that all federal mail is being irradiated to render any anthrax spores harmless.
Employees of American Media Inc. in Boca Raton, the first place anthrax was discovered, end their 60-day course of the antibiotic Cipro.
At at a CDC meeting called to discuss the anthrax attacks, first public disclosure is made of Sept., 2001 Canadian study that reports unopened envelopes containing anthrax posed health risks to mail handlers. Notice of the study had been sent to CDC via email on Oct. 4, 2001 but the email was not opened.
The Washington Post reports that an Army biological and chemical warfare facility in Utah has been quietly developing a virulent, weapons-grade formulation of anthrax spores since at least 1992, and samples of the bacteria were shipped back and forth between that facility and Fort Detrick, Md., on several occasions in the past several years.
The White House says that it is "increasingly looking like" anthrax sent through the mail system came from a source in the United States.
The federal government states it will begin offering anthrax vaccine as an experimental treatment to thousands of people potentially exposed to the deadly bacteria during the earlier outbreak. Alternatively such persons may take another 40 days of antibiotics.
Fewer than 100 people of the thousands eligible to receive an experimental anthrax vaccine in wake of the bioterror attack have been inoculated, although federal health officials count more than 800 taking additional 40-days of antibiotics.
Source: Modification of table in Sun-Sentinel News December, 2001.