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American Morning

America Under Attack: New Concerns About Threat of Bioterrorism

Aired October 09, 2001 - 10:02   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: Back here in the United States, there are some new concerns about the threat of bioterrorism. CNN has learned that federal investigators are looking at whether a letter could be the source of anthrax bacteria that killed a Florida man, infiltrating an office building and also exposing a coworker. The anthrax investigation is centered in South Florida at an office building that houses several popular supermarket tabloids.

John is in Del Ray Beach, where employees are being tested.

Good morning, John.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

What happened of course last week was that Bob Stevens, who was a photo editor at "The Sun," he died on Friday afternoon of the anthrax. Now, since then, Ernesto Blanco, a coworker, has come down with anthrax exposure. A nasal swab confirmed that. He is in hospital in Miami. Immediately upon this second case, what they decided to do was to immediately bring all of the workers of American Media in to begin testing.

Yesterday, long lines here at the Del Ray Beach Health Department annex, Palm Beach County Health Department annex; 743 workers were tested yesterday, given nasal swabs, and also given antibiotics to begin taking. Today, an additional 53 workers have been tested.

Now, to join us this morning, Alina Alonso.

Alina, you are, of course, in the middle of all this right here. What do the people, first, of Palm Beach County need to know.

ALINA ALONSO, PALM BEACH HEALTH DEPT.: Well, they need to know that if they worked for the company and they were inside the building for more than an hour to come test it. If they were not, they do not need this testing.

ZARRELLA: What about the people that are still out there? How many more do you think are going to be coming in today? There haven't been a lot yet.

ALONSO: Right, we have 58 numbers given out right now as of this moment. We expect another 25, maybe another 50 employees to come through today. These are the people that weren't able to get here yesterday. If there is any other employees who have not been tested yet, we do recommend that they come in and they contact us so that we can do the same thing for them.

ZARRELLA: Obviously, the people you are seeing are concerned, they are worried, for good reason.

ALONSO: Right.

ZARRELLA: What do you tell them? Just take the antibiotics.

ALONSO: Well, we are explaining, answering as many questions as we can in terms of anxiety, their fears that they may have in trying to explain why we are doing this, and that we are erring on the side of caution in order to give them their antibiotics, and by doing their nasal swab, then we'll know whether or not they were actually exposed.

ZARRELLA: It's going be a wait for them, though, some anxious days for all of these people, because you're going to get the results of those nasal swabs right away, are you?

ALONSO: anywhere between four to seven days?

ZARRELLA: You expect that you might have to bring people back in for retesting? I understand that there may be some people who have been called back in for retesting, or have been?

ALONSO: We won't be retesting anybody here. What they may need to do is have some blood testing done in addition to the nasal swabs, and that is being worked out through their company.

ZARRELLA: Alina, thank you so much for taking time out.

Very busy times here in Palm Beach County at the Del Ray Beach health annex. Again, about 58 people so far this morning, Paula, that have been coming in on a fairly regular basis this morning. They are still trying to contact other people, people who may have just been in the building delivering packages, the mail carriers, people from express companies -- Federal Express -- anybody who might have come into the building since early August, who needs to come in, they are telling them, and at least get the test -- Paula.

ZAHN: Thanks so much, John.

But the officials in Virginia are a breathing a little bit easier this morning, saying a Manassas man apparently does not have anthrax. Authorities were worried, because the man, who as hospitalized with some symptoms similar to those of on anthrax, had a connection to that Florida company where two other cases were reported. Hospital officials in Virginia are saying final confirmation should be in hand within 24 hours.

We begin to see the steps the U.S. has taken to improve security at airports and in many other public places, but now many Americans are worried about an unseen danger, bioterrorism. Charles Garcia is former counterterrorism agent, trained in defending against biological warfare. He says the anthrax threat is real, but is not the only threat.

Charles Garcia joins us this morning from Miami.

Charming way to begin an interview. It's all very scary to most Americans to hear any of this information. How real is the threat of bioterrorism?

CHARLES PATRICK GARCIA, FMR. COUNTERINTELLIGENCE AGENT: Good morning, Paula.

Well, there is two things we have to see. One is, can terrorists actually deliver biological weapons into this country? What exactly is the threat? And what is our response to that threat? The office of -- the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment in 1993 issued a report that if 220 pounds of anthrax were delivered in an aerosol form over Washington, D.C., up to 3 million people could die, and that's worse than a hydrogen bomb. We know the threat is real. So the question is, can they actually do this.

ZAHN: Do we know the answer to this?

GARICA: Well, there is only two ways, Paula, that they could do this. The first way is, that they would have a have a state or a country that has access to biological weapons, such as anthrax or smallpox to assist them. We know that there is five countries that support terrorism that potentially could be helping bin Laden or other organizations. And those are Libya, Iran, Iraq, Syria and North Korea.

ZAHN: But do they have anthrax?

GARCIA: In 1995, Saddam Hussein admitted to the United Nations that he had enough anthrax, which by the way, during the Gulf War, were on warheads, he had enough anthrax to kill every man, woman, and child in the world. So we know that. And we also know that Mohamed Atta met with a high-ranking official of the Iraqi intelligence within the last six months. So we should take this very seriously.

But we have also found, and not a lot of discussion has been made about the Soviet capabilities. The Iraqi capability for anthrax or smallpox is dwarfed by the Soviet capability. In 1992, what we discovered is 65,000 full-time scientists working on the Soviet biochemical warfare capability, and they were producing up to a hundred tons, 100 tons of anthrax and smallpox every year. And the United States government has determined that about 7,000 of those scientists, which includes microbiologists, pathogen experts, and aerosol physics engineers, could have proliferated to other countries or be hired by other organizations.

So we know that terrorists, our enemies, have the capability to hire individuals from the Soviet Union, former scientists, or to align themselves with countries such as Iraq. ZAHN: So you are making it very clear that it isn't that we shouldn't trust the Russians right now. It's the fact other countries have hired away either the Russian or former Soviet workers from what is left of the Soviet Union.

GARCIA: That's correct. And I think there is a great opportunity with the Russians, in fact, if they had 65,000 scientists working on chemical warfare, you would think they had one or two of those working on antidotes, vaccines, and we need to collaborate very closely with them and create a coalition not only to go on the offensive, but a coalition to go on the defensive. And we haven't even begun to talk about our own capability to treat and vaccinate against anthrax.

ZAHN: All right, so what's the best advice you can give Americans that are hearing this information this morning and shuddering with fear?

GARCIA: I think that this government has the ability to respond and respond quickly. One of the problems, we have to think creatively. In a Department of State press release, June 11th of this year, four months ago, they stated that they were slowing down the vaccination of military servicemen and women with the anthrax vaccine, and the reason is that they only had 24, 000 doses left, and it takes six shots to be fully vaccinated, which means they could only vaccinate 4,000 members of the armed services, because they were having problems with the FDA approving Bioport, which was the only licensed manufacture, based in Lansing, Michigan, that could actually produce the vaccine.

But we're not the only country that vaccinates against anthrax. There is a lot of other countries that we need to talk to, we need to work with to help us out on this global problem.

ZAHN: All right, well, Charles Patrick Garcia, you have given us an awful lot to think about and debate. We appreciate your perspective this morning. Thank you.

GARCIA: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: The government's ability to deal with the threat of bioterrorism will certainly be the focus of a Senate hearing today that is now actually getting under way.

CNN medical correspondent Rea Blakey is in D.C.

Sorry about butchering your name. You know, I've never met you in person. I'll get it right when you see you in person.

REA BLAKEY, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm doing great. That's all right.

Let me give you an update of what's going on at that Senate committee meeting. First of all, at this time, Senator Frist is speaking, and he's basically indicating that the U.S. is not fully prepared for a bioterrorism threat, which is very much what Mr. Garcia just said. Also, that terrorist organizations do in fact have the motive, which I don't think comes as a surprise to any of us.

You see Senator Kennedy there. Just moments ago, he was commenting about the response thus far, which would include the cases of anthrax in Florida that you talked about earlier, both the one confirmed case that resulted in a death, and the gentleman who in fact had been exposed through the nasal cavity.

Mr. Kennedy, Senator Kennedy, said the response so far has been good, but much more needs to be done. And he pointed out specifically that we need to strengthen the hospital system, that we need to also make vaccines available, something again, that Mr. Garcia touched on. And we need to also come up with more creative ways to make the infrastructure of the public health system communicate easier, both on the state and local level and on the federal level.

Some of the other speakers that you are going to hear from in this particular hearing Georgia Senator Max Cleland, who will talk about increased security, what he calls the need for increased security, at the CDC, where there's a stockpiling of many diseases, obviously for research purposes.

Also you will hear from Senator Evan Bayh from Indiana, who will propose a number of HHS grant programs that will help the states, give them more money so that they can increase their preparation against bioterrorism threat.

Also, New Jersey Senator Jon Corzine is expected to bring up a proposal which may not be well regarded. We will have to see. But he is talking about mandates to establish certain hospitals as bioterrorism centers. But there could be some strings attached to that, which may present a problem.

Along with the increased security issues, you will hear other proposals to increase homeland preparedness as a potential for bioterrorism strike, and also a second panel of experts will talk about the current level of preparedness. We've heard, Paula, a number of times, about the General Accounting Office reports, both in the last few weeks, both on the 20th and 28th of September, basically saying -- quote -- "Coordination of federal terrorism research preparedness and response programs is fragmented. That's not a good sign, but obviously, the Senate wants to make sure that we work forward, that the U.S. works forward in regard to making sure that there are fewer fragments and more of cohesive effort there.

Another bioterrorism expert who's expected to talk as the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense, his name, D.A. Henderson. He will very likely discuss the increased need for a surge capacity among the nation's hospitals, just in case there is a threat.

So there will be a broad range in this Senate hearing today, and we'll be monitoring that for you, Paula, just to keep you abreast of what's going on. Also, some American public health officials who will also talk about the need to be more cohesive in any kind of preparedness and/or response.

ZAHN: All right, Rea Blakey.

I got it right, didn't I.

BLAKEY: You did.

ZAHN: Finally.

BLAKEY: Thank you.

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