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CNN Sunday Morning
Interview With Leonard Cole
Aired September 28, 2003 - 07:37 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.
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. Tuesday will mark the second anniversary of the beginning of the anthrax attacks that had Americans on edge for months. In the fall of 2001, five people died and 22 others got sick after someone mailed letters containing anthrax. The letters postmarked Trenton, New Jersey, were sent to NBC Anchor Tom Brokaw, Senators Tom Daschle, Patrick Leahy, and "The New York Post."
So far, no arrests have been made in those attacks. Well, the memories are relived. In Leonard Cole's book, "The Anthrax Letters: A Medical Detective Story," he is now joining us from New York.
Thanks very much for being in this morning.
LEONARD COLE, AUTHOR, "ANTHRAX LETTERS, A MEDICAL DETECTIVE STORY": Pleased to be with you.
CALLEBS: And CNN's Susan Candiotti, national correspondent joins us from Miami. She covered the initial outbreak. And she has been following the investigation. Susan, thanks so much. We want to get to you in just a second.
Leonard, I'd like to begin with you first by -- you call it a detective story. And to give people an idea, you've been following bioterror for 25 years. What was it that drew you to this story? And how concerned are you that basically no one has been arrested and as far as we know, there are no serious suspects out there?
COLE: Yes, well, that's certainly true. But as far as what drew me to this story, well it was a natural for me because I'd been following bioterrorism and the biological weapons issues for many, many decades.
The larger point here is that there are so many open questions. Not only who did, and it's very important that we find out who that would be, it would seem to me.
CALLEBS: Right.
COLE: But the course of the disease among the people who have survived. In many cases, some of them are still quite ill. And on Thursday, this coming Thursday, we're going to be talking about this with all of the remaining inhalation survivors. They're going to be gathering together at a press conference in Washington.
CALLEBS: A couple things. You mentioned they are -- a lot of them are still quite ill.
COLE: Yes.
CALLEBS: And secondly, to give folks an idea of the amount of anthrax that was mailed, I mean, it wasn't like it -- a baby powder thing full. It was a very, very, very small amount.
COLE: We -- right. There were four letters recovered. We think that there were a couple more. In fact, we are sure they are because anthrax appeared in some places where we never did find the letters.
But in each of the letters, we expected there was perhaps an equivalent of a size of two or three aspirin tablets. So you can imagine how little the total quantity was that paralyzed much of America.
CALLEBS: Amazing. And to pick up on that, Susan, I was down there with you for a short while and remember how people were reacting in South Florida and really across the country two years ago. What have you learned since then? Has that area recovered? And how are the victims, their families and other people in that area coping?
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, to a large degree certainly people have recovered from this. It's hard to imagine that it's been two years now since the outbreak initially happened. You remember with the death of Robert Stevens, who is the photo editor at AMI, the National Inquirer related tabloid there in Boca Raton, Florida.
And as a matter of fact, remember the first survivor of inhalation anthrax that Mr. Cole referred to is Ernesto Blanco.
CALLEBS: Yes.
CANDIOTTI: He did recover and he is back at work, although it's been difficult for him as well. Whatever happened to that building? Well, it's still closed, along with some other postal facilities in the Washington area.
CALLEBS: Right.
CANDIOTTI: Brentwood, of course. And so, there's a lot of clean up to be done there. And as a matter of fact, the widow of Mr. Stevens is now suing the federal government because she says they believe that the anthrax was stolen from the Army's medical research facility in Fort Dietrich, Maryland. And she's suing the government because of lax security.
Whether she'll be able to eventually prove that, since that fact has not been established at this time, is of course unclear.
CALLEBS: All right, we covered that to a great degree in our legal roundtable yesterday. But Leonard, want to get back to you for just a moment, and talk about what you think we have learned in the past 24 months? We had Dr. Sanjay Gupta on a couple of weeks ago, talking about in med school, he said his professors simply kind of skimmed over anthrax. It wasn't something they really worried about back then, but a lot of physicians and a lot of people have had to come up to speed really quickly?
COLE: Absolutely. There are three questions. And I delve into them in the book that I just completed. The most important three are who did it? We talked a little bit about that. The second is what's happened to the survivors, although Mr. Blanco has fully recovered, he's the only one of the inhalation survivors who's back to work and fully recovered.
And the third and probably the most important question of all is how much better prepared are we for bio terrorism today than we were two years ago?
And the answer to that is mixed. You'll get different views from different experts. But at the local level, the regional levels, we're much better prepared. Doctors who didn't even know about small pox, anthrax, or plague two or three years ago...
CALLEBS: Right.
COLE: ...are certainly more attuned to that now.
CALLEBS: Susan, what about you? Do -- in your talks with the authorities, do you think that we are -- that they believe we are better prepared to handle some kind of attack like this if and when it happens again?
CANDIOTTI: Well, they'd like to think that we're all better prepared, of course. But you know that our attention span, the American attention span is of course quite short. And so while every one learned a lot about inhalation anthrax, none of us knew anything about that when this first started. It's hard to say how people would react, if this happened again. We learned about Cipro and antibiotic as one way to protect yourself from it. But again, inhalation anthrax, since you can't see it and you can't smell it, and because the anthrax in this particular case was so refined to such a degree that it was able to escape through particles through rather an envelope...
CALLEBS: Right.
CANDIOTTI: ...how -- you can't -- how do you protect yourself against something like that?
CALLEBS: And Leonard, what do you think? Do you think that the country is better prepared?
COLE: Overall, yes. But you know, in the same way that we can't guarantee that somebody isn't take a gun out at Times Square in New York or throw grenades some place, we can't be sure that there won't be a release of a bio agent in the future. It would surprise me if there were none.
But we're better attuned. Just the fact that we had this awful experience, and if I may use the word "only five people died." CALLEBS: Right.
COLE: Bad enough of course. But still, it was a lesson. And in fact, we're putting billions of dollars into bioterrorism preparedness, which certainly was not the case two years ago.
CALLEBS: Well, Leonard, quickly, I want to talk about, you know, just try and remember the way people were back then. On edge, seeing the Senate offices in Washington, D.C. completely closed. People going in in the moon suits, doing that work, all for such a minute amount?
COLE: Right. Well, the really interesting thing, if we can compare the two, keep in mind that the first letters were postmarked just days after September 11th.
CALLEBS: Exactly.
COLE: And September 11th was a horror, but it was a fury and a fiery horror that was over in a matter of hours. The anthrax attacks rolled on for almost two months. And we weren't sure when they were going to stop. One week after another, we learned new things, new locations, new people were becoming infected. That was pretty scary. And as you say, only from, as I say in my book, the volume equivalent to a handful of aspirin tablets. Pretty scary.
CALLEBS: Susan Candiotti, our talented national correspondent, thanks for joining us this morning from Miami. And Leonard Cole. The book is called "The Anthrax Letters, A Medical Detective Story." You've been covering the bioterror filed for more than a quarter of a century. Thanks for coming in. Looking forward to taking a look at that book. Thanks very much to both of you.
COLE: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired September 28, 2003 - 07:37 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. Tuesday will mark the second anniversary of the beginning of the anthrax attacks that had Americans on edge for months. In the fall of 2001, five people died and 22 others got sick after someone mailed letters containing anthrax. The letters postmarked Trenton, New Jersey, were sent to NBC Anchor Tom Brokaw, Senators Tom Daschle, Patrick Leahy, and "The New York Post."
So far, no arrests have been made in those attacks. Well, the memories are relived. In Leonard Cole's book, "The Anthrax Letters: A Medical Detective Story," he is now joining us from New York.
Thanks very much for being in this morning.
LEONARD COLE, AUTHOR, "ANTHRAX LETTERS, A MEDICAL DETECTIVE STORY": Pleased to be with you.
CALLEBS: And CNN's Susan Candiotti, national correspondent joins us from Miami. She covered the initial outbreak. And she has been following the investigation. Susan, thanks so much. We want to get to you in just a second.
Leonard, I'd like to begin with you first by -- you call it a detective story. And to give people an idea, you've been following bioterror for 25 years. What was it that drew you to this story? And how concerned are you that basically no one has been arrested and as far as we know, there are no serious suspects out there?
COLE: Yes, well, that's certainly true. But as far as what drew me to this story, well it was a natural for me because I'd been following bioterrorism and the biological weapons issues for many, many decades.
The larger point here is that there are so many open questions. Not only who did, and it's very important that we find out who that would be, it would seem to me.
CALLEBS: Right.
COLE: But the course of the disease among the people who have survived. In many cases, some of them are still quite ill. And on Thursday, this coming Thursday, we're going to be talking about this with all of the remaining inhalation survivors. They're going to be gathering together at a press conference in Washington.
CALLEBS: A couple things. You mentioned they are -- a lot of them are still quite ill.
COLE: Yes.
CALLEBS: And secondly, to give folks an idea of the amount of anthrax that was mailed, I mean, it wasn't like it -- a baby powder thing full. It was a very, very, very small amount.
COLE: We -- right. There were four letters recovered. We think that there were a couple more. In fact, we are sure they are because anthrax appeared in some places where we never did find the letters.
But in each of the letters, we expected there was perhaps an equivalent of a size of two or three aspirin tablets. So you can imagine how little the total quantity was that paralyzed much of America.
CALLEBS: Amazing. And to pick up on that, Susan, I was down there with you for a short while and remember how people were reacting in South Florida and really across the country two years ago. What have you learned since then? Has that area recovered? And how are the victims, their families and other people in that area coping?
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, to a large degree certainly people have recovered from this. It's hard to imagine that it's been two years now since the outbreak initially happened. You remember with the death of Robert Stevens, who is the photo editor at AMI, the National Inquirer related tabloid there in Boca Raton, Florida.
And as a matter of fact, remember the first survivor of inhalation anthrax that Mr. Cole referred to is Ernesto Blanco.
CALLEBS: Yes.
CANDIOTTI: He did recover and he is back at work, although it's been difficult for him as well. Whatever happened to that building? Well, it's still closed, along with some other postal facilities in the Washington area.
CALLEBS: Right.
CANDIOTTI: Brentwood, of course. And so, there's a lot of clean up to be done there. And as a matter of fact, the widow of Mr. Stevens is now suing the federal government because she says they believe that the anthrax was stolen from the Army's medical research facility in Fort Dietrich, Maryland. And she's suing the government because of lax security.
Whether she'll be able to eventually prove that, since that fact has not been established at this time, is of course unclear.
CALLEBS: All right, we covered that to a great degree in our legal roundtable yesterday. But Leonard, want to get back to you for just a moment, and talk about what you think we have learned in the past 24 months? We had Dr. Sanjay Gupta on a couple of weeks ago, talking about in med school, he said his professors simply kind of skimmed over anthrax. It wasn't something they really worried about back then, but a lot of physicians and a lot of people have had to come up to speed really quickly?
COLE: Absolutely. There are three questions. And I delve into them in the book that I just completed. The most important three are who did it? We talked a little bit about that. The second is what's happened to the survivors, although Mr. Blanco has fully recovered, he's the only one of the inhalation survivors who's back to work and fully recovered.
And the third and probably the most important question of all is how much better prepared are we for bio terrorism today than we were two years ago?
And the answer to that is mixed. You'll get different views from different experts. But at the local level, the regional levels, we're much better prepared. Doctors who didn't even know about small pox, anthrax, or plague two or three years ago...
CALLEBS: Right.
COLE: ...are certainly more attuned to that now.
CALLEBS: Susan, what about you? Do -- in your talks with the authorities, do you think that we are -- that they believe we are better prepared to handle some kind of attack like this if and when it happens again?
CANDIOTTI: Well, they'd like to think that we're all better prepared, of course. But you know that our attention span, the American attention span is of course quite short. And so while every one learned a lot about inhalation anthrax, none of us knew anything about that when this first started. It's hard to say how people would react, if this happened again. We learned about Cipro and antibiotic as one way to protect yourself from it. But again, inhalation anthrax, since you can't see it and you can't smell it, and because the anthrax in this particular case was so refined to such a degree that it was able to escape through particles through rather an envelope...
CALLEBS: Right.
CANDIOTTI: ...how -- you can't -- how do you protect yourself against something like that?
CALLEBS: And Leonard, what do you think? Do you think that the country is better prepared?
COLE: Overall, yes. But you know, in the same way that we can't guarantee that somebody isn't take a gun out at Times Square in New York or throw grenades some place, we can't be sure that there won't be a release of a bio agent in the future. It would surprise me if there were none.
But we're better attuned. Just the fact that we had this awful experience, and if I may use the word "only five people died." CALLEBS: Right.
COLE: Bad enough of course. But still, it was a lesson. And in fact, we're putting billions of dollars into bioterrorism preparedness, which certainly was not the case two years ago.
CALLEBS: Well, Leonard, quickly, I want to talk about, you know, just try and remember the way people were back then. On edge, seeing the Senate offices in Washington, D.C. completely closed. People going in in the moon suits, doing that work, all for such a minute amount?
COLE: Right. Well, the really interesting thing, if we can compare the two, keep in mind that the first letters were postmarked just days after September 11th.
CALLEBS: Exactly.
COLE: And September 11th was a horror, but it was a fury and a fiery horror that was over in a matter of hours. The anthrax attacks rolled on for almost two months. And we weren't sure when they were going to stop. One week after another, we learned new things, new locations, new people were becoming infected. That was pretty scary. And as you say, only from, as I say in my book, the volume equivalent to a handful of aspirin tablets. Pretty scary.
CALLEBS: Susan Candiotti, our talented national correspondent, thanks for joining us this morning from Miami. And Leonard Cole. The book is called "The Anthrax Letters, A Medical Detective Story." You've been covering the bioterror filed for more than a quarter of a century. Thanks for coming in. Looking forward to taking a look at that book. Thanks very much to both of you.
COLE: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
