ANTHRAX — STILL NO ANSWERS: FIVE YEARS AFTER



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26 Aug 2008

Source:  New York Post, October 18, 2006.

ANTHRAX — STILL NO ANSWERS: FIVE YEARS AFTER

By JOHANNA HUDEN (case 1)

October 18, 2006 -- IT'S a strange anniversary. Five years ago, what looked like a crank "letter to the editor" containing anthrax landed on my desk. We were too busy to open mail in those post-9/11 weeks; I stuck it in a box next to my desk - where it sat, just at head-level, for two weeks.

What if we'd opened the letter? When I think about what could have happened - to me and to the many co-workers surrounding my old desk in the Post newsroom - I'm particularly thankful for these last five years.

It was a scary time for me and two other Post workers infected by spores that leaked out of the envelope. Happily, all I'm left with is a bizarre story to share with my grandchildren and a scar on my finger. In retrospect, I had what amounted to a nasty skin infection, from which I promptly recovered. Probably the most traumatic memory is an unflattering photo of my weary face on a famous Post front page.

My life went on: I got married and gave birth to a precious and healthy daughter last year. I count my blessings every day.

What we should remember most are the five souls who weren't so lucky - those who were murdered through the mail in the fall of 2001: Robert Stevens, 63, a photo editor at American Media in Boca Raton, Fla.; Thomas Morris, Jr., 55, a postal worker in Washington D.C.; Joseph Curseen, 47, also a D.C. postal worker; Kathy T. Nguyen, 61, a stockroom worker at the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital; Ottilie Lundgren, 94, a retiree from Oxford, Conn.

I can't imagine what it must be like for their loved ones. The anthrax deaths aren't officially connected to 9/11, so, to them, the killing of their family members must seem like a near-forgotten footnote of that historic period.

And astonishingly, there are still no answers. It's hard to believe that no one has been held accountable for those horrific and painful deaths, for the suffering of the other 17 victims of inhaled and cutaneous anthrax exposure. Nobody has had to face the consequences for frightening an entire country still reeling from a national trauma.

The FBI and the Postal Service have been working on the case for five years, and recently appointed a new lead investigator to track down those responsible. But with no arrests or even publicized leads, we've missed out on the chance to learn something from the attacks; not the least of which is how to protect ourselves in the future.

If updates provided to those exposed and their families are to be believed, we're no closer to catching the anthrax terrorists than we were five years ago. And that's just sad.

Those families deserve answers. It must have been horrible for them to say goodbye to their loved ones without any resolution. They surely deserve some sense of closure. But, at this late point, I wouldn't be surprised if we never get it, though I hope I'm wrong.

Johanna Huden was a Post editorial associate in 2001 when she contracted anthrax, as did op-ed editor Mark Cunningham and mailroom worker William Monagas.