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American Morning

CBS Employee Tests Positive for Anthrax

Aired October 18, 2001 - 11:29   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to pick up on the news of the morning. A CBS employee, said to be an assistant for anchorman Dan Rather in New York has tested positive for anthrax infection, the cutaneous form. Again, that is the skin form, again, that we have heard about so often over the past ten or 12 days.

Jason Carroll, in New York tracking these developments now. Jason, what more do you have?

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I can tell you that CBS employee handles mail on a regular basis. And back on October 1 her face became swollen. She went to her doctor, her doctor prescribed penicillin. A test later revealed that she did in fact have the cutaneous form of skin anthrax. At that point, she was prescribed Cipro.

Earlier today, the CBS news president Andrew Heyward said that she is being treated with antibiotics and she is expected to make a full recovery and in fact, she says, this woman is feeling fine. Hayward also said that the network is reaching out to the different organizations that have been dealing with this all week, the Fbi, the New York City Police Department, health officials as well.

In fact, he said that health officials are headed over to CBS. What they are going to be doing is conducting more tests. They are going to conducting interviews with some of the employees there as well. Earlier today, New York City's mayor, Rudy Guiliani, had the opportunity to speak on this issue.

All week long, Bill, he's really been pushing for people to keep this in perspective. He's been pushing for calm. He had that same message again this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDOLPH GIULIANI, MAYOR, NEW YORK: People should just not overreact to this. They should just -- I know it is hard it say this, but we have to keep saying this, that is to relax and deal with it, work with it. Remember, worse case scenario, this is a disease, if you get it, and very few people have gotten it, that is treatable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: So right now, just a recap, Bill, we have three people here in New York City that we know of that have been infected with the cutaneous form of anthrax.

First you have the NBC employee, the assistant to Tom Brokaw, who opened that suspicious letter. That seems to be the source. Second, the seven month old baby boy, the son of the ABC news producer, still don't know what the source is there. And now, again we have this woman at CBS, the source of the anthrax there still unknown.

Now, I have to explain where I'm standing. I'm in mid-town Manhattan right now, on East 40th Street. The reason why I am here is because I am in front of the governor's office. My story initially this morning was to talk about what had happened here. Authorities found anthrax spores in a secure office. And what they did as a precaution, they shut down his offices here. His offices are expected to reopen on Monday. That's why I'm here as opposed to being over at CBS. But you understand with this story, things just happen so quickly, you have you to get the information on the air.

So again, Governor George Pataki's offices will remained closed while they do an environmental sweep. His offices are expected to reopen Monday. In terms of CBS, they say they say they have no intentions of closing at any point. It is a network and they are going to get the news on the air -- Bill.

HEMMER: And Jason, I think we all can understand how this story moves so quickly as it has for the better part of five weeks now.

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