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CNN Sunday Morning

Anthrax Investigation Continues in New Jersey

Aired October 21, 2001 - 07:07   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.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: At least three of the letters that contained anthrax were mailed from Trenton, New Jersey. And that's where CNN's Brian Palmer joins us now for more on that phase of the investigation.

Brian, what's the latest?

BRIAN PALMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Jeanne.

It's actually very quite here as day breaks in Ewing Township. We're right across from the West Trenton Post Office. This is the workplace of the female letter carrier who contracted cutaneous anthrax, apparently from handling a piece of tainted mail.

We've gotten no new word overnight from investigators, but we do know that FBI investigators, U.S. postal inspectors were canvassing the neighborhood where she delivered mail in Ewing Township. They were knocking on doors and asking people if they've seen any suspicious activity, if they'd seen any cars with out-of-state plates. They've also been swabbing mailboxes, trying to detect traces of anthrax.

But just to give some perspective on this, the two most recent cases of anthrax that we've been reporting, the "New York Post" editorial assistant and a 35-year old mail sorter in a different mail sorting facility in Hamilton, New Jersey, which is about 15 to 20 minutes away from here -- they contracted cutaneous anthrax.

That's the least serious form of the disease. There are three forms: cutaneous, gastrointestinal and inhalational. Now, just to give you an idea, the fatality rate for cutaneous anthrax is 20 percent when left untreated -- that's untreated. When it's treated with antibiotics, about 99 percent of people recover and do fine. And, in fact, all of the people who have been exposed are being treated with antibiotics. And we're told by the Department of Health and other authorities that they are indeed doing fine.

Now the postal workers who work at this facility and who work at the Hamilton Township distribution and processing center have been given the option of taking a seven-day precautionary course of Cipro. We've talked to several mail carriers, and some are taking Cipro, but very many are not. They say they're not terribly concerned about it -- Jeanne. MESERVE: Brian, update us on one phase of the investigation. Tom Ridge said on Friday that they believe they had found the mailbox where these letters might have been mailed. Is that information incorrect now?

PALMER: Incorrect is not a term that I would use. What we were hearing from Washington seemed to be a lot more specific than what we were hearing from agents here on the ground. What the agents here on the ground were telling us is that they perhaps identified a sorting bin through which this letter may have passed.

It's -- there's a fair amount of qualification, because they don't want to release definitive information until they've crossed all their "T"s and dotted all there "I"s. So I wouldn't call it incorrect, but I would say that what they're telling us, they're making progress, but they're very -- they're being very sparing about the details that they release, lest they jeopardize their investigation -- Jeanne.

MESERVE: Brian, thank you so much for the clarification.

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