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American Morning
Anthrax Investigation: New Evidence of Contamination Found in Hart Building
Aired October 25, 2001 - 10:40 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: While we were listening to Tom Ridge, the Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle, also met with reporters.
Kate Snow is on Capitol Hill to bring us up to date on what's happening and what's moving in Washington.
Kate, good morning.
KATE SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.
Some new evidence this morning that we're learning about of contamination of anthrax -- just a trace amount found in an area that accesses a freight elevator in the building called the Senate Hart Building. If we look at the map, that building is up in the top left of your screen. That is the building where Sen. Tom Daschle's office is. But what's interesting this morning is they found this new trace near this elevator in a different part of building, the southwest corner of the building; Tom Daschle's office is in the southeast corner of the building.
Sen. Daschle, speaking a short time ago, said that he is concerned about it, but he thinks the situation is under control.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TOM DASCHLE (D), SOUTH DAKOTA: I am very confident that we will be able to seal it in a way that will provide us with complete confidence that we can access the rest of the building without any hazardous exposure. And I think it is important we get under way and get that job done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SNOW: That Hart Senate Office Building remains closed this morning, so that they can get to work on decontamination, the senator suggesting that that might happen over this weekend.
As far as people being exposed to anthrax, the good news is the number remains at 28 people. There are, however, about 400 people as a precaution who have been put on 60 days worth of Cipro, the antibiotic. Dr. John Eisold, speaking a short time ago -- the Capitol physician -- about whether or not if you're on that full 60 days of Cipro, does that guarantee that you won't get sick? (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. JOHN EISOLD, U.S. CAPITOL PHYSICIAN: I am confident that nobody will. Has there ever been a clinical study on human being that will answer that for me? I'm doing it now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SNOW: A bit of a startling statement from John Eisold. But he also went on to say, Bill, that he too believes the situation is being handled very well. He commented also on a journalist who, we understand, is in the hospital near here, in Maryland, Dr. Eisold saying that that journalist has symptoms, certainly, but no proof that that journalist has actual anthrax. And he noted that they are watching a lot of people who have flu-like symptoms. And it is the flu season; it could just be that they have the flu. They are taking extra precautions, just to be sure -- Bill.
HEMMER: We're going to talk about the flu season in a moment.
There is some good news. Some of those offices will reopen today. Is that correct -- on the house side, anyway?
SNOW: That's right, in fact, two of them already opened, at 9:00 Eastern time. So just about an hour ago, Bill, they opened up two of the House office buildings. One remains closed down. On the Senate side of the campus, one of the Senate building is opened today, the other two still shut down.
HEMMER: Slowly, slowly, we say.
Kate, thanks again.
You mention the flu, Kate Snow, on Capitol Hill. Let's bring in Dr. Sanjay Gupta to talk more about that. We're coming into that season.
Flu-like symptoms are said to accompany infections or exposures to anthrax. How do we discern for people between the two?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It's an excellent question, Bill. I've talked to a lot of doctors about this. I'm not sure there is a good way absolutely to be sure, unless you get tested, whether or not it's a flu or it's anthrax.
I guess that brings up two things. One is try to prevent the flu. Get your flu vaccine; it's still a good idea to try to prevent the flu.
The second thing is, if you are truly concerned about it, get tested.
Incidentally, it's a lot easier to rule out the flu. A simple swab test comes back within 15 minutes to say that you don't have the flu. That will be another piece of information which you can use.
HEMMER: So go ahead and do it is still the medical advice.
GUPTA: Get the flu shot.
HEMMER: We continue to trace the source of this letter: where it went, who is in contact with it, did the anthrax leak out of these letters. You did a rather interesting experiment last night, at CNN. You put baby powder into an envelope. We have some videotape we can show our viewers. Take us through what you were trying to see throughout this process.
GUPTA: Like you said, we took some standard powder and a standard envelope. I sealed it just like I seal any other envelope. I tried to recreate maybe what would happen with some gentle manipulation of the envelope. Certainly, you can see some of the powder coming right out of that. Bill, some of that's coming out of the sides, as you would expect. Some of it's also coming right through the paper.
I made some calls about that, to figure out what are we talking about here, just in terms of size. And the talcum powder granules that are in there, Bill, are about 30-40 microns in size. Compare that to the anthrax spores we've been hearing so much about, about 1 to 5 microns in size. Those are the ones that cause the inhalational anthrax.
HEMMER: Considerably smaller.
GUPTA: Even smaller. The size of the pores in the paper is about 100 microns in some of the standard papers. Certainly, it's not surprising that both the powder and the anthrax spores could can get not only through the sides, but through the paper itself, as that demonstrates.
HEMMER: As you have mentioned many times, as a frame of reference, a single human hair is roughly 100 microns.
GUPTA: Exactly. Exactly. Very small things here.
HEMMER: Nothing scientific there, but interesting.
GUPTA: Just wanted to show it could happen. We've been talking about it a lot.
HEMMER: Thank you, Sanjay.
It's the flu season: Beware.
GUPTA: Absolutely.
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