Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
Machine Will Use Electricity to Sterilize Mail
Aired October 29, 2001 - 09:03 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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Now to the brave new world of delivering mail. The postal service hired a private contractor the Titan Corporation to sanitize the mail going into Washington.
Gene Ray is the founder of Titan he is with us this morning from his headquarters in San Diego. He is going to give a demonstration on how it works. Dr. Ray, good have you with us.
DR. GENE RAY, TITAN CORE CHAIRMAN: Good morning Miles, it's a pleasure to be with you. Actually, I'm here in our medical products sterilization facility in San Diego, where we have been sterilizing medical products for the past seven years.
O'BRIEN: Well give us the broad overview and remember we're a lay audience -- we're not experts on microbiology here -- or physics for that matter -- give us a broad sense of how this works.
RAY: Sure, Miles. We use electricity, just regular commercial electricity. As you know electricity is the flow of electrons. We take the electrons and the electricity, accelerate them through what's called a linear accelerator to high speeds, they come out as beam of energy which then will penetrates boxes -- whether the boxes is filled with mail or whether it's filled with medical products, and will kill the bacteria inside no matter what that bacteria is, including anthrax, in the mail.
So it's -- it's a technology that will eliminate anthrax in the mail. And we're actually sanitizing or sterilizing mail, as we speak now,in our facility, in Ohio.
O'BRIEN: Can -- can you give us a sense, of how it works right there? Can you point something out? Are you near the machine?
RAY: Sure, Miles -- sure, right here, you can see mail, on these carriers, you put the mail on the carriers, the mail then will go through, the system -- let's turn the system on. Turn the system on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bringing it up.
RAY: Okay, good the system will be brought up in just -- just a minute. The system actually runs 24 hours a day, and you can run the system continuously, you will see the mail going through, here.
O'BRIEN: Dr. Ray, while we're waiting for the system to come on, a couple things come to mind. First of all, in order to get the mail to where we see it right there, doesn't somebody have to handle it? .
RAY: Yes. The mail that's coming to us in Ohio is in -- is in -- is packaged in boxes. It is already in hazardous material package, that are sealed, in fact double hazardous material packages that are sealed -- and in boxes that are sealed. So that's how the mail is coming to us in Ohio see.
O'BRIEN: But as you look toward installing these perhaps in other mail sorting facilities, how do you protect the people that are sort of upstream of your machine, if you will?
RAY: The machine would be wrapped when the mail comes into the system. So you sterilize the mail before it goes through the system.
O'BRIEN: Alright. Why don't you tell us what's happening right now.
RAY: Yes, right now we have the mail that is going in, it will go in through our system, pass in front of the gun, come out on the other side, sterilized. We have medical products that we also will do exactly the same thing with.
This facility actually runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As you can see, the carriers move pretty fast. And you can actually do a trailer truck load of mail in literally a few hours.
O'BRIEN: Alright. A trailer truck load in a few hours. When you consider the volume that the U.S. Postal Service deals with every day. Could your machines possibly keep up with that pace?
RAY: Oh, no. It would take -- it would take several of these. You would need these kind of machines in all the major post offices around the country.
So it would take -- it would take a few hundred of these facilities to do that.
O'BRIEN: A few hundred -- and how much....(CROSSTALK)
RAY: Now you see medical products --
O'BRIEN: Okay. How much is each machine, Dr. Ray?
RAY: We have -- we announced on Friday, and the U.S. Postal Service announced on Friday, that we have -- that they have purchased 8 of our machines for 40 million dollars, and have an option to purchase an additional 12. They have indicated that the machines would first be used in the Washington, D.C., area.
O'BRIEN: Alright, just to clarify. The letters in this case, or medical products whatever the case may be, there is no radiation involved, here, is there?
RAY: No. What it is, it uses electricity to accelerate the electrons. So there is no nuclear radiation involved whatsoever. It is as safe as radiation comes from light. Radiation that comes from microwave ovens. So it's a -- uses electricity as its source of energy.
O'BRIEN: How close are you, actually to the electron beam and do you -- should anyone have any concern working in and around electron beams?
RAY: Oh, no. Not none whatsoever. The electron beam is just behind us, just in front of me. As we talk. And, absolutely no concern. As you can see, we all stand here -- this facility as I said operating over seven years, and, we have another facility that's operated over eight years so there is absolutely no safety concern, none whatsoever.
O'BRIEN: Alright. Well, let me ask you this, Dr. Ray, in this facility in Ohio where you're helping sanitize the mail, if you sanitize it, does it leave any sort of remnants or trace so you would know one way or another if you found any bad mail?
RAY: No. It does not leave a trace. It kills -- it kills all the bacteria that is inside it. So, when the mail comes out it is sterilized, it is sanitized. So if there's anthrax in the mail -- or for that matter some other bacteria in the mail, it would -- the bacteria would be eliminated.
O'BRIEN: So I guess the conundrum here is that, in a sense, as effective as your machine is, it might ultimately destroy criminal evidence.
RAY: But it eliminates the threat. It takes away from the terrorist the threat of using the mail as a weapon. Which is very important to us at this time, I think.
O'BRIEN: And besides anthrax, does this machine work well on anything that is you know microbiological threat?
RAY: Yes, it certainly does. It certainly does. When it kills anthrax it kills, all the other known agents at this time.
O'BRIEN: Dr. Gene Ray is the founder of the Titan Corporation. He joins us from his facility in San Diego.
Thanks for demonstrating it for us, Dr. Ray. We appreciate your time this morning.
RAY: Thank you, Miles.
O'BRIEN: Alright. That was interesting.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: And I actually got it. No, you're right, I mean, sometimes it's hard when -- when obviously someone has so much exposure to the science involved it in, but he made it very easy to understand this morning
O'BRIEN: Yeah, he's got a Phd, but he still can explain it. That's good.
ZAHN: Like that very much. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
