ANTHRAX SPORES IN ABC MAILROOM  



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Last Updated

11 Jun 2003

Source: Newsday, November 7, 2001.

Anthrax Spores in ABC Mailroom

By Margaret Ramirez, STAFF WRITER

City health officials revealed yesterday that traces of anthrax spores were discovered last month in a mailroom at ABC News.

The positive finding sheds light on how a 7-month-old baby boy who visited the news offices with his mother in September may have contracted skin anthrax on his left arm.

An ABC News spokesman said 126 environmental tests were conducted at the network’s offices at 47 West 66th Street last month.

Results released to the network last week found two tests indicated anthrax spores inside a second floor mailroom. The area was decontaminated and employees have returned to work at the building, said the spokesman.

Greg Butler, a spokesman for the city health department, said the findings were relayed to ABC News employees immediately, but were not released to the public.

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, the union representing workers at the Bellmawr post office planned seek a court injunction ordering the facility closed until tests can prove that anthrax has been eliminated from the building.

The union planned the court action after a government-hired contractor cleaned the wrong machine Tuesday, union president Tom Woodford said. Cleanup crews worked on a different unit instead of the computer screen of a barcode sorting device that had been found to be contaminated with anthrax spores.

The Bellmawr facility reopened Sunday after being shut down the day before when FBI tests detected the spores on the computer screen.

Employees were given the option Tuesday of leaving the Bellmawr facility, but were told the work floor posed no immediate threat.

The area around the sorting machine was closed. Woodford said few postal workers worked in the building Tuesday night out of concern for their safety; a few more had reported for work Wednesday, but he did not know how many.

He said the union advised its members to apply for appropriate leave or time off, and warned postal officials not to consider the requests an illegal work stoppage.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.