Dan Rather
CBS News Employee Positive for Anthrax
Thu Oct 18 13:53:46 2001


Thursday October 18 10:26 AM ET

CBS News Employee Positive for Anthrax

By SHANNON McCAFFREY, Associated Press
Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - An employee in Dan
Rather's office has tested positive for the skin
form of anthrax, CBS News said Thursday.

It is the same form of anthrax that infected an
aide to NBC anchor Tom Brokaw after she
handled a letter that was addressed to him.

CBS made the announcement on its morning
radio and television broadcasts.

``She is expected to make a full recovery; in
fact, she feels fine,'' CBS News president
Andrew Heyward said. He said she was being
treated with antibiotics.

It was not immediately known how the
employee became infected. But CBS radio
said the network received a letter containing
anti-Israel and anti-American messages.

CBS officials were talking with the mayor, the police commissioner and
the health department to determine the next steps.

CBS is the third network to have an encounter with anthrax, and the
announcement came a day after Gov. George Pataki's New York City
office tested positive for anthrax bacteria.

Pataki said he is taking the antibiotic Cipro as a precaution, but does not
plan to get tested for the disease that has infected two other people in
New York City. Three more have tested positive for exposure.

``I don't think it's necessary,'' Pataki said Wednesday. ``I feel great.''

He said Thursday that he was following the recommendation of the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites).

``This is a war of terror aimed at our minds and aimed at our way of life,
and that's why we can't overreact,'' Pataki said on NBC's ``Today''
show. ``Yes, we have to be vigilant; yes, we have to be concerned. But
we also have to be confident that government and law enforcement is
doing everything that can be done to protect us.''

A positive result from an initial anthrax test of his Manhattan office came
back Wednesday morning. Results from more sophisticated
environmental tests are due by Friday but Pataki said he believes they
will prove anthrax was present.

In Washington, the Capitol was closed for anthrax testing after 31
Senate employees tested positive for exposure to anthrax. Among them
were 23 members of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's staff. A
suspicious letter was opened in Daschle's office Monday.

Nine New York congressional members flew home after the House shut
down until Tuesday, including Rep. Anthony Weiner, who reassured
New Yorkers that there was no panic. ``We are not gulping Cipro in
Washington,'' he said.

All 80 employees in Pataki's office were relocated to the Jacob Javits
Convention Center and have testing and Cipro available to them, Pataki
said.

The governor suggested the suspected anthrax found on a desk in
``secure'' state police offices could have been tracked in by state police
who accompanied him to two television network newsrooms where
anthrax cases were discovered.

``The state police have been obviously at NBC, at ABC, all over the
environs over the course of the past month,'' Pataki said.

Pataki also ordered the state Capitol in Albany tested for anthrax.

At NBC, where an assistant to anchor Tom Brokaw tested positive for
anthrax, health officials gave a clean bill of health to the network's
headquarters in Rockefeller Center. Tests on some 500 employees all
came back negative.

Dr. David Fleming of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
announced that preliminary testing indicated the strain of anthrax found
in the letter addressed to Brokaw ``appears to match the strain in
Florida,'' where a man died of anthrax and a second man is hospitalized.
Fleming said it is not yet clear whether the Washington anthrax comes
from the same strain.

An anthrax test of the air filters at ABC's Manhattan headquarters came
back negative, the network said. On Monday, the 7-month-old son of
an ABC News producer tested positive for anthrax. The cause has not
been pinpointed.

Besides the CBS and NBC employees and the infant at ABC, three
people in New York have tested positive for anthrax exposure: two
New York lab technicians and one policeman who worked on the NBC
case. They were treated with antibiotics.

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Earlier Stories
Anthrax Found in Pataki's Office (October 18)
ABC Employees Receive Anthrax Tests (October 17)
Environmental Tests Underway at ABC (October 17)

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011018/ts/anthrax_cases_nyc_27.html