In 2001, following the news of Anthrax being discovered at the Brentwood mail facility in Washington, DC, the George Washington University Hospital received hundreds of walk-ins. Also that year, during a U.S. congressional hearing on "risk communication," Representative Chris Shays stated that, "Driven by fear alone, hordes of the 'worried well' could overwhelm emergency rooms and clinics, impeding diagnosis and treatment of the genuinely ill."