Inspectors find spores in Indiana

INDIANAPOLIS -- Trace amounts of anthrax spores were found on a piece of postal equipment sent to an Indiana postal maintenance facility from a contaminated mail processing center in Washington.\nGov. Frank O'Bannon said Wednesday afternoon that one positive test for a few anthrax spores had been found after 44 tests on equipment that had been sent to the Critical Parts Center for cleaning and repairs.\nThis is the first sign of anthrax contamination found outside the Eastern Seaboard.\n"At this level of exposure, anthrax is not a threat to human health in Indiana," he told a news conference. "It did not handle any Indiana mail, so there is absolutely no reason for Hoosiers to be alarmed."\nO'Bannon said 103 people work at the facility, which does not process mail, and no signs of infections have been found.\nThe Critical Parts Center, owned by DDD Co. of Landover, Md., is near the Indianapolis International Airport in Hendricks County, west of Indianapolis. It was closed and sealed off Oct. 23, and testing at the site was conducted three days later on Friday.\nIndiana Health Commissioner Greg Wilson said the equipment was shipped from Washington's Brentwood mail processing center before any signs of anthrax were found there. Two Brentwood employees have died of inhalation anthrax, and the center has been closed.\nWilson said state officials were not notified until Friday -- three days after the Indianapolis facility was closed as a precaution -- of the possibility that contaminated equipment may have been sent there.\nThe same day they were notified, state health officials advised all DDD employees that they should take antibiotics as a precaution against anthrax infection, he said.\n"I am concerned, however, about the way the Postal Service handled this situation as far as notification," Wilson said. "They've known since last week that it was possible that machine was exposed, and that it was in Indiana."\nAfter the Postal Service learned contaminated Brentwood equipment may have been shipped to Indiana, the Postal Service arranged for two private labs in Atlanta conduct tests of samples from the facility, Wilson said.\n"We found out last night there was a preliminary test that was positive," Wilson said.\nIndianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson faulted the Postal Service for not immediately notifying local and state authorities about the preliminary result. NBC News on Tuesday night reported that a positive test had been confirmed.\n"Our disappointment really is that we had no idea of the results of the test until we heard it the same way everyone else heard it, through NBC News," Peterson said.\nGreg Beriault, the U.S. postal inspector in Indianapolis, defended his agency's efforts to keep local officials apprised.\n"We have been working with them from day one," he said. "We talked to them on the phone daily and met with them daily.\n"They were certainly aware of what was happenning at the facility, because there were questions about the employees there and the antibiotics they were going to take."\nO'Bannon said he had spoken on the phone Wednesday with U.S. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge about the notification process in such situations. Ridge agreed on the need to improve notification, O'Bannon said.\nThe preliminary result at Critical Parts Center was confirmed Wednesday through a more definitive test conducted at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.\nWilson said the possibility that any DDD employees were infected was remote, because the number of anthrax spores detected was far below the several hundred to a few thousand spores required to infect someone.\n"My number one concern is our employees," said Don Dilks, spokesman for DDD Co. "DDD does a lot of mail operations throughout the country, so we've been very concerned about this for a number of weeks now."\nDilks declined to say whether the company's other facilities had been tested for anthrax.\nAnother facility in Indianapolis operated by Symbol Technologies was tested for possible anthrax as a precaution because it cleans and services handheld postal equipment.\nNo positive tests turned up there, Wilson said.\nA New York woman died of inhalation anthrax on Wednesday, the fourth person to perish in a spreading wave of bioterrorism. A co-worker underwent tests for a suspicious skin lesion, heightening concern the disease was spreading outside the mail system.