(Ah-Coup) Frist has his own mail room?
3 Senate Buildings Shut After Ricin Is Mailed to Senator
By CARL HULSE
ASHINGTON, Feb. 3 — Three Senate buildings were closed today after a suspicious substance was found in the mail room of the office of the majority leader, Senator Bill Frist, on Monday afternoon. Officials said repeated tests indicated the presence of the poison ricin. More definitive test results were expected later today.
Early today, Senator Frist's office announced that the Senate will be in session as scheduled, starting at 9:45 a.m.
But the three Senate office buildings, the Hart, Dirksen and Russell, will be closed while all unopened mail is collected and removed, forcing the cancellation of committee meetings scheduled for those buildings. The Capitol will be open, but all tours have been canceled, said Bob Stevenson, a spokesman for Senator Frist.
The Capitol Police said they received the report of the material in a room of the Dirksen building next to the Capitol at about 3 p.m. and conducted initial tests that came back positive for ricin. The workers, who were on the fourth floor, were evacuated, and aides said the material was sent to a location away from the Capitol for testing in a laboratory setting.
At least 16 people on the floor were decontaminated, and others who might have been in the area were urged to contact Senate officials, the Capitol Police Chief, Terrance Gainer, told reporters late Monday night.
Congressional officials said the ventilation system had been shut down and the mail room workers had been moved to another room in the building for medical supervision. Dr. Frist, a heart-lung transplant surgeon who wrote a book advising the public on how to prepare for a bioterror attack, said no one had shown any signs of sickness.
An official with the Federal Bureau of Investigation said Monday night that if the case appeared to be a criminal or terrorist act against a member of Congress, the bureau was prepared to begin an investigation.
Ricin (pronounced RICE-in) could cause illness or potentially death if enough was ingested, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Envelopes containing anthrax were mailed to the Capitol offices of Senators Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Democratic leader, and Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, in 2001, shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. Two postal workers at an office that processed the envelopes died, and the Hart Senate Office Building was subsequently closed for months for decontamination.
A new system for handling mail for the Capitol was instituted after of those assaults. There have been other incidents of suspicious substances since then, though they have proven to be mainly false alarms.
"To the best of my knowledge, in a human being, inhaling it has never hurt anybody," said Dr. Frist, who said the police were following procedures put in place after the anthrax attacks were being followed.
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