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CNN Live At Daybreak

Irradiation Causes Damage to Mail, May Affect Health

Aired February 13, 2002 - 05:37   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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The anthrax scare that came right after the September terrorist attacks led the post office to take some drastic measures. The most obvious was zapping the mail. The more technical term is irradiation. But there are now questions about potential problems caused by all of that zapping.

CNN's Jeanne Meserve opens the envelope on this story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A white pearl turns gray when subjected to irradiation like that now used on some U.S. mail. A blue sapphire after irradiation is orange.

GENE DEL POLITO, ASSOCIATION FOR POSTAL COMMERCE: The irradiation most definitely is not the answer to our problems.

MESERVE: The bombardment of mail with electron beams was begun after the anthrax attacks on selected mail to Washington zip codes, which include Capital Hill, the White House, federal agencies and a small number of homes.

It kills anthrax spores, but it turns out that irradiation and the heat it generates does a lot more than that. At the National Archives, where they restore old documents like original of the Monroe Doctrine, new publications are arriving prematurely aged.

DORIS HAMBURG, NATIONAL ARCHIVES: And it's very brittle, and if we were to turn this, we would probably see it break off again, which it just now did.

MESERVE: At the Smithsonian Libraries, a collection of damaged items.

HAMBURG: I don't like to open it very often, because it smells horrible.

MESERVE: This is, or was, a photograph in a plastic sleeve. This is a floppy disk.

HAMBURG: Okay. Maybe there is still data on this disk, but there is no way to get it out.

MESERVE: Journals arrived with pages fused together, CDs were warped. So the Smithsonian, concerned about its collections, took action.

HAMBURG: We decided that we would go around the postal service and secure a postal post box in a non-government zip code.

MESERVE: A report by a manufacturer of irradiation equipment lists other potential problems. Its likely many pharmaceuticals will show a reduction in their efficacy and/or stability, and irradiation will expose unprocessed photographic film.

And then, there are the health complaints of people handling irradiated mail, one of them a member of Congress.

REP. BILLY TAUZIN (R), LOUISIANA: And whether it was a coincidence or not, I had an awful night, I mean, awful headaches and really strange feelings.

DEBORAH WILLHITE, V.P., U.S. POSTAL SERVICE: You know, I put my head down in it. I have handled it with my hands.

MESERVE: Deborah Willhite says she has not gotten ill.

WILLHITE: So far, there has been no medical or scientific evidence found that irradiated mail contains anything toxic that would make anyone feel sick.

MESERVE (on camera): The postal service says wider use of irradiation is still its plan, though no additional anthrax letters have been found.

DEL POLITO: The postal service has a very, very hard time of saying "we overreacted or it was not necessary," and that's really the dilemma that they are in.

MESERVE (voice-over): Indeed, as evidence of problems has mounted, the timetable for deploying irradiation equipment has slipped, and some experts now believe it will never happen.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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