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CNN Saturday Morning News
NBC Employee Exposed to Anthrax Expected to Make Full Recovery
Aired October 13, 2001 - 09:01 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.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: An NBC employee is expected to make a full recovery from the anthrax she contracted apparently from a letter mailed to the network. Investigators are checking other suspicious letters mailed to Sony, "The New York Times," and a Microsoft subsidiary.
Media outlets around the country are reviewing security in their mail rooms in light of the anthrax case at NBC. CBS, ABC and CNN have all closed their mail rooms, even though no suspicious envelopes have been reported.
CNN's Maria Hinojosa joins us from New York with the latest on the NBC investigation and some other reported incidents. Good morning to you, Maria.
MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Marty. Well, the employee who tested positive for anthrax exposure at the NBC newsroom here in Rockefeller Center is doing well and responding positively to the antibiotics. That employee, an assistant to Tom Brokaw, who on October (sic) 25 opened a business-sized envelope addressed to Tom Brokaw that contained a powdery white substance. Now, that substance has been tested three times, twice by the FBI, once by the CDC. And it has come out negative for anthrax.
The letter to NBC, according to a source close to the investigation, threatened attacks against several U.S. cities.
Two hundred NBC newsroom employees will be tested for anthrax and put on antibiotics as a precaution, including anchor Tom Brokaw. He spoke emotionally last night at the end of his "Nightly News" broadcast.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "NBC NIGHTLY NEWS")
TOM BROKAW, ANCHOR: Thank you for your concern. She has been, as she always is, a rock, and she's been an inspiration to us all. But this is so unfair and so outrageous and so maddening, it's beyond my ability to express it in socially acceptable terms.
So we'll just reserve our thoughts and our prayers for our friend and her family.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HINOJOSA: Now, adding to concerns about the connections between anthrax infections and the media, on Friday "The New York Times" building went into lockdown after a reporter there who covers the Middle East and terrorism opened a letter that contained a powdery white substance. The air quality in the newsroom is being checked. The substance is also being tested. Nobody is known to be infected at "The New York Times," but this letter, according to the FBI, had a St. Petersburg, Florida, postmark, as did the letter that arrived to NBC, and apparently had similar handwriting.
New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has yet again tried to calm New Yorkers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR RUDOLPH GIULIANI, NEW YORK CITY: We got to get used to this. I mean, this is -- we're going to be dealing with this. Anthrax is not contagious. Anthrax is treatable with antibiotics. And as long as we have the right monitoring systems in place and we become alert to it, you know, we'll be able to deal with this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HINOJOSA: Also dealing with this, employees of a media company in Boca Raton, Florida. There, the third woman who tested positive to anthrax is back at work. But reports are that some people are actually trying to shy away from having any contact with employees of the American Media Incorporated company.
And finally, two more cases that are raising concern. The results of tests on a letter received at a Microsoft subsidiary in Reno, Nevada, are expected to be known today. A letter received there was suspicious but did not contain any powdery white substance. And in Culver City, California, an employee of Sony Pictures opened up a letter late yesterday that did have a powdery white substance. He has been hospitalized. The fire and police departments there are treating this as a hazardous materials situation. The powder is being tested for anthrax -- Marty.
SAVIDGE: Maria Hinojosa on the streets of New York, thank you very much -- Jeanne.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: Marty, experts are remaining tight- lipped about the details on the ongoing criminal investigation into the anthrax cases.
CNN's Thelma Gutierrez takes us to one of the nation's most prominent laboratories for anthrax research to get some answers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nestled in the mountains of northern Arizona, in the quiet town of Flagstaff on the northern Arizona University Campus, lies one of the largest repositories of anthrax strains in the nation.
PAUL KEIM, KEIM GENETICS LABORATORY: We're a DNA fingerprinting laboratory.
GUTIERREZ: This high-security lab is one of the only places in the world where genetic fingerprinting of anthrax bacteria is being done. The way these microbiologists describe it, they interrogate the anthrax DNA.
KIMOTHY SMITH, KEIM GENETICS LABORATORY: I would say very proudly that this is the only laboratory in the world that is conducting high-resolution -- as high a resolution DNA fingerprinting.
GUTIERREZ: It is exactly the reason some believe the FBI may have turned to the lab's world-renowned anthrax experts. Doctors called Keim and Kimothy Smith to help identify the fatal strain found in Florida.
KEIM: If any federal agency came to me and asked for their help, I would be glad to do it.
GUTIERREZ (on camera): Have they asked the Keim's genetic lab to help out?
KEIM: It's inappropriate and impossible for me to respond to direct questions concerning this case...
GUTIERREZ: Have you been asked not to?
KEIM: There's clearly a case of criminal investigation here.
GUTIERREZ: How could the DNA fingerprint of an organism actually help the FBI in a criminal investigation? Experts say not only can they identify a strain of anthrax, but more importantly, the geographic location where it came from.
SMITH: We can tell you with a degree of precision, with 95 percent confidence, the geographic area that a specific organism might have come from.
GUTIERREZ (voice-over): Kimothy Smith was recently certified as a United Nations biological weapons inspector. In 1993, he identified a nonlethal strain of anthrax used in a bioterrorism attack by the Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan.
KEIM: The doomsday cult tried to weaponize anthrax, but they failed miserably in their attempt to do biological terrorism.
GUTIERREZ: The world has very little experience dealing with anthrax in humans. But in 1979, Dr. Paul Keim was part of an investigative team that worked on the largest case of anthrax exposure in this century, a release that killed dozens in the former Soviet Union.
KEIM: We know that there was, in fact, an accidental release of anthrax spores by the military in the city of Sverdlovsk in the Ural Mountains. And this accidental release killed nearly 70 people.
GUTIERREZ: Now the threat is no longer abroad. It is here in the United States, and it is likely that some of the detective work will take place here in the Keim Genetics Lab.
Thelma Gutierrez, CNN, Flagstaff, Arizona.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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