**October 30, 2001 **

**THE NEW YORK REGION William Smith, left, president of the New York
Metro Area Postal Union. The union filed a lawsuit on Monday demanding
the closing of New York City\'s largest mail sorting center, where
anthrax spores were found.**

## Possible Anthrax Case Shuts a New York Hospital

##### By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and ERIC LIPTON

**61-year-old Bronx woman is in critical condition with what officials
believe is the first case of inhalation anthrax in New York City, a
preliminary diagnosis that has led the city to temporarily shut down the
Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, where the infection may have
occurred.**

**The case, announced just before midnight at a City Hall news
conference, evoked a much more intense response in the city than any to
date, as the inhalation form of the disease is the most dangerous,
having caused three deaths already in the United States.**

**The woman, whose name was not released, works in the hospital\'s
basement stockroom, where her responsibilities include making deliveries
and sometimes handling mail. She became ill on Thursday, suffering
chills and muscular aches, and by Sunday had severe difficulty breathing
because of fluid in her lungs. That night, she was admitted to Lenox
Hill Hospital in serious condition and was put on a respirator.**

**As of last night at the Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, a regimen of
antibiotics had been prescribed for 25 employees and environmental tests
had been conducted on 40 locations. This morning, the more than 300
full- time staff members will be sent to another location as they arrive
at work. There, they will be interviewed and perhaps also given an
anthrax test and antibiotics, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said last
night.**

**\"It is a serious case,\" said the mayor, who had sought to play down
the risk associated with anthrax cases in the city, given that they had
all been cutaneous infections. \"We have to deal with it,\" he said.**

**Officials are interviewing all patients who visited the Manhattan Eye,
Ear and Throat Hospital, at 210 East 64th Street, since Oct. 11, two
weeks before the woman first experienced symptoms.**

**Earlier yesterday, in New Jersey, officials said that a 51-year-old
New Jersey woman had contracted skin anthrax, making her the first
person who is not a postal or government worker or connected to a media
company to be infected with the disease during the current crisis.**

**Government and medical officials said they did not know how the woman
became infected, but Acting Gov. Donald T. DiFrancesco of New Jersey
speculated that the cause would be traced back to the Hamilton Township
mail processing center, which handled several anthrax-tainted letters.
At least three postal workers connected to that center have been
infected.**

**The New Jersey woman, whose name was not released, works at a small
accounting firm not far from the Hamilton mail center, but told
officials she had not visited the postal center in recent memory.
Investigators have long entertained the notion that the anthrax-laced
letters that passed through the Hamilton center on the way to Washington
and New York might have contaminated other mail.**

**In announcing the case at a news conference in Trenton, Mr.
DiFrancesco said the woman had recovered sufficiently to be released
from the hospital.**

**The first sign of her illness was a pimple on her forehead that
gradually worsened, and after initial tests for anthrax proved negative,
a biopsy confirmed that she was infected.**

**Last night, police and health officials cordoned off the Mercerville,
N.J., office where the woman works. Federal officials said last night
that the woman worked for Civale, Silvestri & Alfieri in the Center City
Office, a firm that employs between 14 and 20 people. It is just five
doors away from the office of United States Representative Christopher
Smith.**

**Officials said that tests for anthrax were being performed both at the
office and at the woman\'s home.**

**Stephen Ostroff, an epidemiologist from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, said that the new case of anthrax was a cause
for concern and vigilance, but that it would be premature to conclude
that the spores had spread by cross-contamination.**

**\"That\'s certainly one potential explanation, but there are others,\"
Mr. Ostroff said. \"And that\'s why it\'s very, very important to very
thoroughly go over the circumstances of what she was doing before the
exposure and determine how this may well have occurred.\"**

**Mr. DiFrancesco said that although the woman was the sixth New
Jerseyan to be afflicted with the illness, state residents should remain
calm and resist jumping to conclusions about the severity of the anthrax
outbreak.**

**Nonetheless, he and federal health officials cautioned New Jersey
residents to be wary of unexpected letters and packages and to wash
their hands after handling mail.**

**\"I would ask that people remain calm and vigilant,\" he said.**

**One employee at the Hamilton sorting center remains hospitalized with
a case of inhalation anthrax, the most serious form of the disease,
while another employee and a letter carrier who delivered mail in nearby
Ewing have confirmed cases of skin anthrax. Two other workers from the
Hamilton center are suspected of having anthrax, one cutaneous, one
inhalation.**

**Three people have died in Florida and the Washington area from
inhalation anthrax, and four others have contracted it.**

**In New York City yesterday, the largest postal workers\' union filed a
lawsuit demanding that the largest mail sorting center in the city be
closed immediately. Last week, the Postal Service announced that four
high-speed mail-sorting machines at the Morgan Station sorting center,
at 29th Street and Ninth Avenue, had tested positive for anthrax
spores.**

**Asserting that Morgan Station was unsafe, the lawsuit, filed in
Federal District Court in Manhattan, sought to have the sorting center
closed until it was thoroughly cleaned.**

**Postal Service officials acknowledged yesterday that workers at Morgan
were so worried about being infected that the absenteeism rate there was
running at nearly 30 percent --- five times the usual rate.**

**Last Friday, postal officials, seeking to maintain calm and a sense of
normality, had insisted that there was no increase in absenteeism.**

**The high numbers of absentees, postal officials said, has contributed
to delays in handling the mail, as has shutting down the four tainted
sorting machines. Patricia McGovern, a Postal Service spokeswoman, said
that 250,000 pieces of mail that should have been processed and sent out
yesterday from Morgan were not processed and would not be sent out until
today.**

**Morgan takes in and cancels about 2 million newly mailed letters a
day, and helps distribute an additional 10 million pieces.**

**The union, the New York Metro Area Postal Union, has urged the 5,500
workers at Morgan not to report to work until the center is cleaned.
\"The whole facility is potentially contaminated and should be shut down
because there is a real and imminent danger to the workers there,\" said
Louie Nikolaidis, the union\'s lawyer. **

**But the Postal Service continued to maintain yesterday that Morgan
Station was safe except for the part of the third floor with the four
contaminated sorting machines. \"The employees\' health is everyone\'s
No. 1 priority,\" said David L. Solomon, a Postal Service vice
president. \"We\'re going to listen to the advice of the health
professionals. If they tell us there will be a health danger for our
employees, we\'ll close it down.\"**

**Postal authorities say they believe that Morgan was contaminated by
anthrax-tainted letters sent from New Jersey and processed at Morgan
before being delivered to NBC and The New York Post. Yesterday, Post
officials said a third employee had symptoms of skin anthrax and was
being tested.**

**Tom Matte, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, said the federal government had administered 210 tests to
Morgan workers, and of the 19 tests for which there were results, all
had come back negative.**

**The news of the test results has been slow to reach Morgan\'s workers,
and many of them fear becoming infected.**

\"They treat us like we\'re worth less,\" said Wilfredo Colon, a sorter
at Morgan. \"The Supreme Court justices refused to work at the court
because anthrax was in their mail building, so why should we be forced
to work in a building where anthrax was found?\"