Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Investigators in Connecticut Appear No Closer to Learning How 94-Year-Old Woman was Infected with Inhalation Anthrax

Aired November 26, 2001 - 07:40   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome back at 42 minutes after the hour. Back to the issue of anthrax - after days of swabbing and testing, investigators in Connecticut appear no closer to learning exactly how Ottilie Lundgren was infected with inhalation anthrax.

The 94-year old woman died from the disease last Wednesday. She was buried on Saturday. The lack of firm answers is frustrating to state officials eager to reassure nervous residents. Connecticut Governor John Rowland now speaks with us this morning about the unique challenges posed by this particular anthrax case. Welcome governor, good to have ...

JOHN ROWLAND, GOVERNOR OF CONNECTICUT: Thank you Paula.

ZAHN: ... you with us this morning. Are you any closer to figuring out exactly how Ms. Lundgren came into contact with anthrax?

ROWLAND: We're really not any closer to solving the mystery. I would liken it to the 61-year old woman in New York who contracted anthrax and died and it's been a dead end. The good news is as we continue to do tests in the postal facilities and at Mrs. Lundgren's home, we're finding that there's no trace of anthrax. And I say that's good news because I was worried about postal employees from two different facilities, and we have found no one else with any symptoms.

The bad news is, of course, that the mystery continues. We can not, you know, really at this point, finger exactly where the anthrax came from. At 94 years old, she was limited in her travel, so we're pretty much recreating the last three weeks of her life to see if we can determine some other location she might have gone to, and we continue to do some work at the house.

ZAHN: "The Wall Street Journal" is reporting this morning that under serious consideration is the possibility she may have gotten infected through soil. Now as I understand it some of those soil test results are already back in. Are those negative, in fact, as well?

ROWLAND: I haven't those in particular, but some of the initial reports were negative and you're right, the talk of natural anthrax is one of the possibilities. We did some research and we found that in the last 100 years, there's probably been about 11 cases of natural inhaled anthrax. So it's a - it's a very minimal possibility if you think about a 94-year old woman in a kind of remote area of the state of Connecticut and limited travel, then we have to look at the natural possibility.

So we'll continue doing that. The FBI and Tom Ridge has been very, very involved and the Centers for Disease Control will continue to lead the investigation. So it may take days or weeks to find out exactly what happened, but indeed that's one of the theories that it might have been naturally contaminated.

ZAHN: So right now no one in Connecticut that came into contact with Mrs. Lundgren is taking any kind of antibiotic ...

ROWLAND: Well we've tested ...

ZAHN: ... prophylactically?

ROWLAND: ... well we've tested about 450 people and ranging from postal employees to family members and no one has been infected. We have given antibiotics as a precaution to probably close to 1,000 postal employees that work at the two facilities - again as a precaution. There have been no symptoms.

The other thing we're doing, I've ordered that we go back literally over the last two months to look at anybody that has died in the hospital due to pneumonia like symptoms -- have we missed an anthrax case and right now our public health officials are contacting every single hospital and trying to do a little bit of background to find out if somebody else may have had anthrax and we don't think that's the case, but we want to be doubly sure - maybe other states are doing that same thing as well.

ZAHN: The other case that remains just as much a mystery this morning is the case of Kathy Nugyen, the New York hospital worker, of course, who contracted inhalation anthrax as well. Can you describe to us this morning the kind of information that has been traded between the investigators on that case and the investigators on Mrs. Lundgren's case?

ROWLAND: Well the FBI, as you would expect, are pretty close mouthed about some of that information, but indeed the FBI from New York is here in Connecticut, and they're trying to compare any path that they might have crossed and mail they might have received - anything that might have been similar.

I think it's important to point out that on any given day there are hundreds of millions of pieces of mail that are sent across the country, yet only a handful of people have contracted anthrax. So it remains a mystery. We don't know if there's any connection between the two individuals. At this point, we don't think so, but we're following every single lead.

There's 100 theories out there ranging from the natural anthrax to the postal delivery to you know, could these two women have somehow been in contact over the last month or so. And the mystery that really continues, why didn't anybody else get affected? Why a 94-year old woman in a pretty remote section of Connecticut - why was she affected and no one else? So we're still learning about anthrax and I have a lot of confidence in Centers for Disease Control and the FBI and Tom Ridge and so I'm hopeful that we will come to some conclusion on this mystery, but in the meantime, I want people in Connecticut to know that they are safe; that we've done all the testing throughout these facilities; it's all come up negative; and people should go on living their lives.

ZAHN: And we'd love to have you come back when you arrive at some conclusions to settle everyone's minds ...

(CROSSTALK)

ROWLAND: I hope we have some answers.

ZAHN: OK Governor Rowland.

ROWLAND: Thanks Paula.

ZAHN: Take care. Good luck.

ROWLAND: Thank you.

ZAHN: Thank you for your time this morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com