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Strategies & Market Trends : Rande Is . . . HOME -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: HandsOn who wrote (55172)	10/8/2001 5:33:46 PM
From: Rande Is	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57584

FBI and health department officials said the second case was confirmed late Sunday. FBI investigating 2nd Florida anthrax case Posted at 3:47 p.m. EDT Monday, October 8, 2001 BY MANNY GARCIA and LARRY LEBOWITZ llebowitz@herald.com The FBI on Monday began looking into the possibility that the anthrax bacteria found in the Boca Raton offices of American Media Inc. resulted from a criminal attack. Agents acted after a second employee showed signs of the rare bacteria that killed Bob Stevens, a 63-year-old photo editor for the Sun supermarket tabloid last week. ``The fact that there are apparently two cases in the same building raises concerns this was criminal intent,'' said one senior law enforcement official involved in the investigation. ``It changes the whole landscape. It certainly does suggest that the first victim didn't get it from drinking in a stream in North Carolina.'' Attorney General John Aschcroft told reporters in Washington D.C. that the case had blossomed into a ``clear criminal investigation.'' He added, however: ``We don't have enough information to know if this could be related to terrorism.'' The FBI and federal health investigators specially trained in detecting hazardous materials swarmed at the offices of American Media, which publishes The Sun, The Globe, The National Enquirer and several other tabloids. ``We have to assume the worst,'' said a federal investigator familiar with the probe. ``You have an airborne bacteria in a building where two workers were exposed.'' Investigators are exploring the possibility that anthrax spores were introduced into the building via the mail or air ducts or that it was spread by someone who had access to the publishing house during construction of a new cafeteria, among other less sinister possibilities. The second employee, initially hospitalized for pneumonia, has not been determined to have anthrax, although a nasal swab showed signs he had been exposed to it, a state health official said. He worked in the mailroom. More than 300 employees of the National Enquirer, the Star, the Globe, the Sun and the Weekly World News who work for AMI are being asked to go to the health department offices in Delray Beach for antibiotics and further testing. On Monday, Florida Health Secretary John Agwunobi urged any employees or visitors ``who have spent more than an hour'' in the AMI building, 5401 NW Broken Sound Blvd., since Aug. 1, to go to the Delray Beach Health center. The health department has also set up a hotline, 1-800-342-3557, for anyone employed in the building or who has visited the building since Aug. 1. Agwunobi said a sample in the building tested positive for anthrax ``within the work area frequented by the first case.'' He said he believed the sample was from the computer keyboard of Stevens, a Sun photo editor who died Friday of inhaled anthrax. FBI and health department officials said the second case was confirmed late Sunday. Tim O'Connor, spokesman for the Palm Beach County Health Department, said the man did not have a ``full blown'' case of anthrax, but the nasal swabs showed signs of the same bacterial spore that led to the fatal case of inhalation anthrax that killed Stevens and led to widespread fears -- so far unconfirmed -- of a bioterrorist attack. ``The building has been secured for the purpose of further environmental public health testing and we have begun to contact employees,'' he said. ``Our intent is to have the employees come to a centralized site in the Palm Beach County area so we can test them, so we can provide them with education, and so that we can provide them with prophylactic antibiotics.'' The company started notifying employees Sunday evening that they were not supposed to show up for work in Boca Raton. Many were initialy instructed to work at the offices of a sister publication, the Spanish language supermarket tabloid Mira! in downtown Miami. Herald staff writers David Kidwell, Lisa Arthur, Lesley Clark and Amy Driscoll contributed to this report.