Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch Message Board

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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch

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To: lurqer who wrote (36778)	2/2/2004 10:15:11 PM
From: lurqer	Read Replies (1) of 89467

Letter to Senate Leader May Hold a Poison An envelope containing a suspicious substance was discovered in the mailroom of the Senate office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist this afternoon and officials said preliminary tests determined the presence of the poison ricin. Capitol police said they received the report of the material in a room of the Dirksen Senate Office Building adjacent to the Capitol about 3 p.m. and conducted initial tests that came back positive. The workers, who were on the fourth floor, were evacuated and aides said the material was sent to a military laboratory at Fort Dietrich, Md., for further evaluation. Envelopes containing anthrax were mailed to the Capitol offices of Democratic Senators Tom Daschle, the party leader from South Dakota, and Patrick Leahy of Vermont in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks. The material caused the Hart Senate Office Building to be closed for months for decontamination and took the lives of postal workers in a facility that processed the mailings. A new system for handling Capitol Hill mail was instituted in the aftermath of those assaults and there have been other incidents of suspicious substances since then though they have proven mainly to be false alarms. Officials believe the letter at issue had gone through the irradiation process for Capitol mail. Dr. Frist, a heart and lung transplant surgeon, controls the Senate through his majority leader position and has written a book advising people on how to prepare and respond to bioterror attacks. Ricin is a toxic substance that could make someone sick or potentially kill them if enough was ingested, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A C.D.C. background paper on the material said it would be most hazardous if injected as it was in the 1978 case of a Bulgarian journalist in London who died after he was attacked by a man with an umbrella rigged to inject a ricin pellet.The substance can be made from the waste of processing castor beans. nytimes.com lurqer

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