U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

76–808 PDF 2002

S. Hrg. 107–214

TERRORISM THROUGH THE MAIL: PROTECTING

POSTAL WORKERS AND THE PUBLIC

JOINT HEARINGS

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

UNITED STATES SENATE

AND THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL SECURITY,

PROLIFERATION AND FEDERAL SERVICES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

OCTOBER 30 AND 31, 2001

Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman

CARL LEVIN, Michigan

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois

ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey

MAX CLELAND, Georgia

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware

JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota

FRED THOMPSON, Tennessee

TED STEVENS, Alaska

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico

THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah

JIM BUNNING, Kentucky

JOYCE A. RECHTSCHAFFEN, Staff Director and Counsel

SUSAN E. PROPPER, Counsel

HANNAH S. SISTARE, Minority Staff Director and Counsel

WILLIAM M. OUTHIER, Minority Investigative Counsel

DARLA D. CASSELL, Chief Clerk

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, PROLIFERATION AND

FEDERAL SERVICES

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii, Chairman

CARL LEVIN, Michigan

ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey

MAX CLELAND, Georgia

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware

JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota

THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi

TED STEVENS, Alaska

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah

Richard J. Kessler, Staff Director

Nanci E. Langley, Deputy Staff Director

Mitchel B. Kugler, Minority Staff Director

ANN C. FISHER, Minority Professional Staff Member,

Brian D. Rubens, Chief Clerk

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Opening statements: Page

Senator Lieberman ........................................................................................... 1, 63

Senator Thompson ............................................................................................ 4, 64

Senator Akaka .................................................................................................. 6, 66

Senator Cochran ............................................................................................... 8

Senator Carper .............................................................................................. 21, 97

Senator Collins ................................................................................................. 23

Senator Levin .................................................................................................... 26

Senator Bennett ................................................................................................ 29

Senator Cleland ............................................................................................. 30, 94

Senator Voinovich.......................................................................................... 33, 91

Senator Carnahan ............................................................................................ 36

Senator Durbin ................................................................................................. 37

Senator Dayton ................................................................................................. 72

Prepared statements submitted for October 30 hearing:

Senator Durbin ................................................................................................. 121

Senator Collins ................................................................................................. 122

Prepared statement submitted for October 31 hearing:

Senator Bunning ............................................................................................... 122

WITNESSES

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2001

Hon. John E. Potter, Postmaster General/CEO, U.S. Postal Service, accompanied by Thomas Day, Vice President of Engineering, U.S. Postal Service;

Patrick Donahoe, Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President,

U.S. Postal Service; and Ken Weaver, Chief Postal Inspector, U.S. Postal

Inspection Service ................................................................................................ 9

William Burrus, President-Elect, American Postal Workers Union, AFL–CIO,

accompanied by Denise Manley, Distribution Clerk, Government Mail Section, Brentwood Mail Processing Facility .......................................................... 43

Vincent R. Sombrotto, President, National Association of Letter Carriers

(NALC), accompanied by Tony DiStephano, Jr., President, NALC Branch

380, Trenton, New Jersey .................................................................................... 46

William H. Quinn, National President, National Postal Mail Handlers Union . 49

Gus Baffa, President, National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association (NRLCA) .... 51

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2001

Hon. Paul D. Wellstone, a U.S. Senator from the State of Minnesota ................ 67

Hon. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a U.S. Senator from the State of New York ...... 70

Mitchell L. Cohen, M.D., Director, Division of Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases,

National Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention (CDC), Department of Health and Human Services ...................... 73

Major General John S. Parker, Commanding General, U.S. Army Medical

Research and Materiel Command and Fort Detrick ......................................... 74

Raymond J. Decker, Director, Defense Capabilities and Management, U.S.

General Accounting Office ................................................................................... 76

Ivan C.A. Walks, M.D., Chief Health Officer of the District of Columbia

and Director, District of Columbia Department of Health (DOH), accompanied by Dr. Larry Siegel and Ted Gordon, Senior Deputies, District

of Columbia Department of Health (DOH) ........................................................ 78

Dan Hanfling, M.D., F.A.C.E.P., Chairman, Disaster Preparedness Committee, Inova Fairfax Hospital ............................................................................ 101

Page

IV

Hon. Tara O’Toole, M.D., M.P.H., Director, Center for Civilian Biodefense

Studies, Johns Hopkins University .................................................................... 105

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Baffa, Gus:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 51

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 151

Burrus, William:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 43

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 131

Clinton, Hon. Hillary Rodham:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 70

Cohen, Mitchell L., M.D.:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 73

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 160

Decker, Raymond J.:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 76

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 178

Hanfling, Dan, M.D.:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 101

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 209

O’Toole, Hon. Tara, M.D.:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 105

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 214

Parker, Major General John S.:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 74

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 174

Potter, Hon. John E.:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 9

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 123

Quinn, William H.:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 49

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 146

Sombrotto, Vincent R.:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 46

Prepared statement with an attachment ....................................................... 139

Walks, Ivan C.A., M.D.:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 78

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 192

Wellstone, Hon. Paul D.:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 67

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 157

APPENDIX

Article from the Washington Post, dated October 26, 2001, entitled ‘‘Two

Men Who Were Just Doing Their Jobs—The Man Next Door: Joseph

Curseen, Jr. Pulled His Community Together,’’ by Phil McComb (submitted

by Senator Akaka) ............................................................................................... 220

Article from the Washington Post, dated October 26, 2001, entitled ‘‘Two

Men Were Just Doing Their Jobs—A Team Player: Thomas Morris, Jr.

Was a Model Worker and Avid Bowler,’’ by Lisa Allen-Agostini (submitted

by Senator Akaka) ............................................................................................... 222

Article from the Washington Post, dated October 23, 2001, entitled ‘‘Anthrax

Crisis Highlights the Quiet Heroics of Postal Service,’’ by Stephen Barr

(submitted by Senator Akaka) ............................................................................ 223

Charles Moser, President, National Association of Postmasters of the United

States, prepared statement ................................................................................. 224

(1)

TERRORISM THROUGH THE MAIL: PROTECTING POSTAL WORKERS AND THE PUBLIC

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2001

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS,

AND THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL SECURITY,

PROLIFERATION, AND FEDERAL SERVICES,

Washington, DC.

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m., in room

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.

Present: Senators Lieberman, Akaka, Levin, Cleland, Carper,

Carnahan, Durbin, Thompson, Collins, Cochran, Bunning, Stevens,

Bennett, and Voinovich.

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN

Chairman LIEBERMAN. The hearing will come to order. This

morning, our Committee begins the first of two hearings on the

question of ‘‘Terrorism Through the Mail: Protecting Postal Workers and the Public.’’ The full Committee is holding this hearing in

conjunction with the Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services, chaired by Senator Daniel Akaka,

and conducting the hearing pursuant to jurisdiction over the U.S.

Postal Service, which the rules of the Senate give this Governmental Affairs Committee.

Protecting the safety of the public and those working for the U.S.

Postal System on what has become an unexpected front line of defense against terrorism is an urgent priority, so I would like to

thank all of our witnesses this morning for rearranging their

schedules to be at this hearing on short notice.

On September 11, as we all know, terrorists wreaked sudden

mass destruction upon the financial and military centers of the free

world. Since then, a slower, more insidious attack has been

launched against our Postal System and into government and

media mail rooms in the form of anthrax contained within sealed

letters and packages.

This new terrorist attack has been difficult to detect and has

emerged slowly over a period of weeks. So far, it has struck in Florida, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and 12 separate places here

in Washington, catching authorities off-guard and surprising even

those who have been preparing for a bio-terrorist attack. Three

people are dead, two of them Postal workers, and at least 10 others

have been diagnosed with either cutaneous or inhalation anthrax.

2

Thirty-two people have tested positive for exposure to anthrax and

thousands are taking powerful antibiotics as a precaution.

In all, Americans are asking themselves a very basic question: Is

it safe to open the mail? This morning, our Committee wants to

find out what the answer to that question is and also whether adequate steps were being taken to protect Postal workers, and for

that matter, anyone who opens their mail, once it was known that

the mails were being used to further terrorize the American people.

We want to take stock of what we have learned from this experience and assess what needs to be done to properly protect those

who work for the Postal Service and those who depend on its services.

The transmission of anthrax through the mail was first confirmed on Friday, October 12, when an NBC employee was diagnosed with cutaneous anthrax after opening a letter addressed to

Tom Brokaw. Federal officials and the Postal Service apparently

thought the risk of inhalation anthrax was negligible and two mail

workers now being treated in Virginia and New Jersey were diagnosed with it over a week later.

The disease transmission model everyone expected was through

the skin, as had been the case with the NBC employee, and apparently no one anticipated that anthrax spores would leak out of mail

envelopes in sufficient quantity to cause infection. So gloves and

masks were not required, and, in fact, as I understand it and will

ask today, are still not required for Postal employees.

The question many are asking, and admittedly, this is with 20/

20 hindsight, is should someone have recognized what now seems

like an obvious concern, not only about those receiving envelopes

with anthrax but about the safety of the men and women who work

in the mail system that delivered them?

In Washington, the Postal Service began environmental testing

for anthrax at its main facility at Brentwood on Thursday, October

18, 3 days after the letter sent to Majority Leader Daschle was

opened in the Hart Building, exposing 28 people. At the time, Postmaster General Potter said he was advised that there was only a

minute chance that anthrax spores escaped into the air at the

Brentwood facility, but 2 days later, contamination at Brentwood

was verified. The facility was closed down and the testing of the

Brentwood workers began the next day. Thomas L. Morris, a worker at Brentwood, died that day, while Joseph P. Curseen, Jr., another Brentwood worker, was sent home from the hospital with a

flu diagnosis and died the next day.

So questions are naturally being asked. Should not health workers have been on the lookout and more sensitive to possible anthrax infection? Should environmental and worker testing have

begun sooner than it did? Did the Centers for Disease Control and

the Postal Service take too passive an approach at first to protecting workers at the post offices and the public?

These are important questions which the Committee will ask

today on behalf of the American people and Postal workers. But I

want to assure you that we ask them in a spirit of analysis, not

accusation, a spirit of urgent analysis which is aimed at finding out

in the midst of this unprecedented and unexpected challenge how

we can better deal with it.

3

It is particularly important, I think, that we end what has been

described as a multi-voiced disharmony from government officials

about the anthrax scares. As this scare has developed and continued, it became clear to all of us, both observing and experiencing

as members of the Capitol Hill family that were also targets of anthrax attack, how much the experts do not know. There is, in fact,

as we have learned now, no relevant clinical experience, no standard survey methodology, no comparable operational history, and no

understanding of the full magnitude of the biological threat being

perpetrated.

As the New York Times said on October 28, inhalation anthrax

is a disease that almost no doctor in the United States has ever

seen. We were originally told, publicly and here on the Hill, that

it takes 8,000 to 10,000 inhaled anthrax spores to become infected,

but I recently read a quote from the head of an infectious disease

program at a major medical center in the United States that that

estimate of 8,000 to 10,000 spores necessary for infection was a

textbook answer based on clinical studies done decades ago of

workers who handled animal hides.

So we ask ourselves, why were we not told that from the outset?

Did the experts who advised us and you, Mr. Postmaster General,

know this and decide not to panic us, or did they not know it?

I must say that in recent days, one of the most encouraging developments to me has been that Governor Ridge has now been designated as clearly the lead governmental spokesperson on such

matters, and I hope and believe that he and others, having gone

through the experience we have all gone through in recent weeks,

he and others in positions of authority will tell the facts as they

know them to the American people when they know them, and if

they do not know the truth, then they will tell us that, as well.

Otherwise, in this time of crisis, the Federal Government risks losing the credibility and trust that it has gained from the American

people in these early stages of the war against terrorism.

In recent days, I am pleased to note, the Postal Service and public health officials have taken increasingly comprehensive, coordinated, and aggressive actions. Mail destined for Washington from

unknown shippers will be irradiated in Ohio until the Postal Service can install irradiation devices more broadly. The Postal Service

is also in the process of revising mail collection procedures to minimize handling prior to irradiation. Over 6,000 DC area Postal employees have been given antibiotics, while an equivalent number in

New York have been tested or are receiving treatment, although it

seems that conflicting advice is being given as to the recommended

length of treatment.

The bottom line here is that the Postal Service we have come to

appreciate again, as a result of this crisis, is at the heart of the

Nation’s critical infrastructure and is one of the foundations of our

daily quality of life. In another sense, businesses and individuals

that depend on the Postal Service comprise a significant portion of

our gross domestic product. So this is simply too important to too

many people to allow these problems or anxieties with the mail

system to fester.

We are in this together. Our unity in this crisis has been perhaps

the greatest source of our strength. And on this Committee, we

4

hope that we will move forward together to find a way to better

protect America’s Postal workers and the people of this country

who depend on their work just about every day of our lives.

Senator Thompson.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR THOMPSON

Senator THOMPSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I

want to commend you on that statement. I think it sets exactly the

right tone. I want to thank the Postmaster General, the union representatives, and the Postal workers for coming here today. I know

this is a difficult time for all of you as you have recently lost two

of your colleagues and others remain ill.

It is my hope that we can use this time to explore procedures,

protocols, and technology which can be used to make our Postal facilities safe and secure for you and your coworkers and the entire

system will thereby be safer for the public in general.

This is not just a Postal Service problem. We are here today because terrorists decided that we would come here to discuss this

subject with this agency today because they chose this one this

time. But it is a government-wide problem and there is no doubt

that we have been, as a government, behind the curve in preparing

for potential biological attacks. For example, it is remarkable that

we know so little about some of the properties of anthrax itself,

how the powder reacts in an envelope, for example, and what

works against it.

For several years, many organizations, including the GAO, the

Hart-Rudman Commission, the Gilmore Commission, and others

have recommended comprehensive threat and risk assessments for

chemical and biological weapons attacks on our soil. As far back as

1997, GAO recommended that these assessments be conducted so

that Federal and State Governments could properly prepare for

such attacks. I understand the FBI finally began work on a domestic threat assessment in July 1999 and it should be completed soon.

Clearly, these assessments should have been completed earlier.

I do believe that the completion of such threat assessments in the

future will help us be better prepared when the next shoe falls. In

all fairness, though, even the experts who thought about mass casualty attacks, as far as my staff have found, these experts never

focused on the use of anthrax through the mails and the potential

threat that posed, even though we must say that the threat certainly was not beyond comprehension because there have been a

number of hoaxes over the years where powder has been sent

through the mail with letters claiming that anthrax was enclosed.

One such letter, I remember, was received in Knoxville, Tennessee,

back in 1998.

But whatever our level of preparedness has been in the past, it

is clear now that we have to do more to protect our workers and

the American public. Congressional staff was briefed last Friday on

new technologies and machinery being considered by the Postal

Service, including ways to make collection boxes safer, to keep air

in our facilities cleaner, and even to kill potentially dangerous biological agents being sent through the mail.

I am glad to see the Postal Service is moving forward with these

new technologies, Mr. Potter. I am glad to see that you are working

5

so well together that you have included the labor representatives

and the employee representatives and that you are working together under extremely difficult circumstances to address these

problems. I think it has implications, really, for all of us, all Americans.

Some have begun to inject doubts into our war on terrorism, both

at home and abroad. The dangers we face now have our full attention, and frankly, I think we are doing a pretty good job of responding to them. As the Chairman pointed out, so many of our public

officials have to rely upon expertise, and the experts, frankly, are

not used to being experts with the particular problem that we have

got right now. So the phrase ‘‘steep learning curve’’ is being uttered

about a thousand times a day in this town and it is true.

But in less than 2 months, we have set up an Office of Homeland

Security and appointed a director. We have engaged the entire

medical community, including the CDC and all other public health

officials. We passed a terrorism bill, we will shortly have an airport

security bill, and we managed to keep to our legislative agenda.

We need to understand that in this process, there will be problems, but we also need to understand that we will overcome those

problems. I suppose I have to take a backseat to nobody in criticizing the wastefulness and inefficiencies and duplication of the

government, but there comes a time when we need to circle the

wagons and there comes a time when we need to see the positive

and good that we can accomplish when we bring the forces of our

government to bear on a national security problem, and I think

that is what we are seeing.

I also believe that this is the one side of the two-sided war that

we see, home and abroad, and I believe that the implications of

how we are handling this here are relevant to the hot war, if you

want to call it that, in Afghanistan. You see headlines in the last

few days, for example, announcing that the war will go on longer

than expected. I do not know who that was news to, but apparently

it was to a lot of people in this town that it was going to be a long

war, despite the fact that the President, the Secretary of Defense,

and all other relevant officials have been telling us that for some

time.

Now we are beginning to see demands from our new allies that

the war be shorter or that we avoid bombing during certain times.

We are now beginning to see the inevitable military and civilian

casualties that come with such an operation. And although some

opinion makers have decided to make this the focus, I think that

the American people understand that we are in for a long and deliberate process, both at home and abroad, and it is important in

the meantime that we pull together and work together to address

these unprecedented problems.

There has never been any doubt about America’s military

strength, but there is substantial doubt around the world about our

determination and our stamina, and we are beginning to see the

inevitable reaction from lack of a quick and decisive resolution of

the problems that we are having at home and abroad. But I see the

spirit that we need to address both of these problems evident with

regard to what you gentlemen are doing and the members of the

labor community.

6

I must say, Congress, as we are looking to assess some responsibility, is going to have to take another look at itself. According to

Paul Light of The Brookings Institute, who is the head of the Presidential Appointee Initiative, there are 164 positions involved in the

fight against the war on terrorism, including homeland defense and

bioterrorism. These include positions in the agencies such as Defense, Treasury, State, FEMA, and some of Transportation, and

others.

Today, 50 percent of the 164 are vacant or have people only on

the job since August 1. Today, 37 percent of the 164 are vacant or

have people only on the job since September 11. Of those with responsibility for biological threats, only 45 of 71 positions have been

filled in this administration. Now, some of these positions that remain unconfirmed include Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for

Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs at Defense;

Director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management at

Energy; also at Energy, Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental Safety and Health; also Special Representative for Nuclear

Proliferation over at State; Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration at State; and two positions at

FEMA, Deputy Director and Associate Director, Preparedness

Training and Exercise Directorate.

So it is important that the administration get these names up

here and that Congress reacts to them promptly. It is a problem

that we have seen government-wide, again, with regard to Presidential appointees and the longer that it is taking now for a new

President to get his team together. I think President Clinton, it

took 8 months. President Bush, it is going to take at least a year.

He will have served 25 percent of his term without his team in

place. Now, that may just be political fun and games until we get

to the situation that we have here now, but we see it has national

security implications and we all must do a better job.

So thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Akaka, for holding

these important hearings today and tomorrow. I believe much good

will come from it. Thank you.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Senator Thompson, for your

thoughtful statement.

Senator Akaka is the Chair of the relevant Subcommittee and I

would call on him now.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much. I am delighted and

pleased to join Chairman Lieberman in today’s joint hearing. The

Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation, and Federal

Services, which I Chair, has been looking into the bioterrorism risk

for some time now. In July, we held a hearing to review government efforts to prepare our communities to respond to acts of terrorism. Sadly, the bioterrorism risk has become a reality and three

Americans have lost their lives in bioterrorism attacks on American soil.

I want to thank the Postmaster General, the presidents and employees of the Postal employees’ unions, and the Postal Service’s officials for being with us this morning. In the interest of time, I will

keep my remarks brief.

7

1Three articles from the Washington Post submitted for the record by Senator Akaka appear

in the Appendix on pages 220–223. 2The prepared statement of Charles Moser, President, National Postmasters Association appears in the Appendix on page 224.

The last line of defense in a homeland terrorist attack should not

be the Congress, nor should the first line of defense be the men and

women of the U.S. Postal Service. Sacrifices being made by our Nation’s Postal employees demand our government’s full support and

available resources to ensure their safety.

These dedicated people never expected to be on the front line of

a war. They never expected their workplaces to become the front

line in a biological weapons attack, and they never expected to lose

members of the Postal family to terrorism.

I know that every American is concerned about the safety of the

mail and I hope our hearings will answer some of their questions.

I also know that the safety of our Postal employees and the public

cannot be compromised. I firmly believe that to better protect

Americans and critical infrastructures like the U.S. Postal Service,

there must be cooperation at all levels of government.

Right now, we have a complex Federal interagency process that

governs our preparedness and responses to terrorism. We cannot

afford confusion or duplicity in program efforts. Rather, we must

strengthen existing programs and add new ones where needed in

order to prepare all communities, from the largest city to the smallest rural town, for biological incidents.

Before I yield back my time, I wish to express my deepest sympathy to the families and friends of APWU members Joseph

Curseen and Thomas Morris, who passed away last week. Like the

police officers and fire fighters in New York and the military personnel and civilian employees at the Pentagon, these two public

servants lost their lives in service to their country. I also extend

my hopes for a speedy recovery to those Postal employees who are

undergoing treatment for inhalation and cutaneous anthrax.

I ask unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman, that my entire statement be included in the record as well as three articles from the

Washington Post—two commemorating the lives of the fallen Postal

employees, and one by Stephen Barr on our heroic Postal employees.1 I also ask that a written statement of the National Postmasters Association be included in the record. Thank you very

much, Mr. Chairman.2

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Akaka. Without objection, we will include all those documents in the record.

[The prepared statement of Senator Akaka follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA

I am delighted to be here and pleased to join our Chairman at today’s joint hearing. The Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation, and Federal Services, which I chair, has been looking into the bioterrorism risk for some time now.

In July, we held a hearing to review government efforts to prepare our communities

to respond to acts of bioterrorism. Sadly the bioterrorism risk has become a reality

and three Americans have lost their lives in bioterrorism attacks on American soil.

As the Chairman mentioned, we held a joint hearing on bioterrorism preparedness

only two days after the anthrax event in Senator Daschle’s office.

I want to thank the Postmaster General for being with us, as well as the presidents and employees of our postal employee unions. In the interest of time, I will

keep my remarks brief.

8

The last line of defense in a homeland terrorist attack should not be the Congress,

nor should the first line of defense be the men and women of the U.S. Postal Service. The sacrifices being made by our nation’s postal employees demand our government’s full support and available resources to ensure their safety.

These dedicated people never expected to be on the front line of a war. They never

expected their workplaces to become the front line in a biological weapons attack.

And they never expected to lose members of the postal family to terrorism.

I know that every American is concerned about the safety of the mail, and I hope

our hearings will answer some of their questions. I also know that the safety of our

postal employees and the public cannot be compromised.

I firmly believe that to better protect Americans and critical infrastructures like

the U.S. Postal Service, there must be cooperation at all levels of government. Right

now we have a complex federal interagency process that governs our preparedness

and responses to bioterrorism. We cannot afford confusion or duplicity in program

efforts. Rather we must strengthen existing programs, and add new ones where

needed in order to prepare all communities—from the largest city to the smallest

rural town—for biological incidents.

Before I yield back my time, I wish to express my deepest sympathies to the families and friends of APWU members Joseph Curseen and Thomas Morris, Jr., who

passed away last week. Like the police officers and firefighters in New York and

the military personnel and civilian employees at the Pentagon, these two public

servants lost their lives in service to their country. I also extend my hopes for a

speedy recovery to those postal employees who are undergoing treatment for inhalation and cutaneous anthrax.

I ask unanimous consent that my entire statement be included in the record as

well as three articles from The Washington Post, two commemorating the lives of

the fallen postal employees, and one by Stephen Barr on our heroic postal employees. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi is

the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee and I would call on him

now for an opening statement.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COCHRAN

Senator COCHRAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think the tone

set by Senator Thompson in his comments is the right one. I think

we need to avoid creating a false sense of security, but we also

need to avoid creating a state of panic about the threats that we

face and the occurrences that we have all witnessed.

In connection with the Postal workers and those who work for

the U.S. Postal Service, I think we want to know from our witnesses today what we can do to help support you in your effort to

deal with this crisis effectively and to make sure that the workplace for all of our Postal workers is safe, and that is my purpose

in being here this morning.

I wish you well. I commend you and all the Postal inspectors who

are working around the clock to try to deal with this situation, and

we wish you well and pledge to you our support in that effort.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Cochran. I think you

have set the right tone in your opening statement, as well.

We are going to go now to the Postmaster General, John Potter,

for his opening statement. Thank you very much for being here.

9

1The prepared statement of Mr. Potter appears in the Appendix on page 123.

TESTIMONY OF HON. JOHN E. POTTER,1 POSTMASTER GENERAL, U.S. POSTAL SERVICE; ACCOMPANIED BY THOMAS

DAY, VICE PRESIDENT OF ENGINEERING, U.S. POSTAL SERVICE; PATRICK DONAHOE, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER AND

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, U.S. POSTAL SERVICE; AND

KEN WEAVER, CHIEF POSTAL INSPECTOR, U.S. POSTAL INSPECTION SERVICE

Mr. POTTER. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Lieberman,

Senator Thompson, and Members of the Committee. I have submitted a detailed written statement, which I would ask be entered

into the record.

Under normal circumstances, I would be here by myself. But

with the situation changing daily, I have brought Patrick Donahoe,

Chief Operating Officer, and Thomas Day, Vice President for Engineering, with me. They are part of the total team that is focusing

on this crisis and they will be able to add value to our discussion.

Mr. Chairman, this is a sad time for us in the Postal Service. We

have lost two of our family, two of our fine employees, Joseph

Curseen and Thomas Morris, to the anthrax attacks. Three others

remain hospitalized and four have been sickened and are recovering. None of them thought when they came to work for the Post

Office that they would be on the front line of a war, but they were,

and thousands of employees are, as well. In fact, this is a war

against all of our citizens.

From the very outset, my overriding concern was for the safety

of our employees and the public. We sought out the best information and the best experts to help us understand exactly what we

were dealing with. Early on, when there was confusion about how

and when anthrax got into American Media in Boca Raton, we saw

no direct connection to the Postal Service and the system that delivers the mail. Nevertheless, on Tuesday, October 9, as a precaution, we provided supervisors and employees with updated information on what to do if they suspected biohazards in the mail.

Then on Friday, October 12, the Postal landscape changed dramatically. An NBC News employee in New York City was diagnosed with cutaneous anthrax. It became clear that the bioagent

had arrived through the mail. Looking back, it is hard to believe

all that has transpired in the last 18 days. We took a proactive

stance in terms of educating our employees and the public. I cautioned that employees, the public, companies, and organizations,

that they needed to handle their mail carefully. If they found something out of the ordinary, they needed to respond appropriately to

law enforcement authorities. Based on the information I had, I

stressed that this was a time when common sense and caution was

needed and that the incidence of anthrax-laden letters appeared to

be very targeted and very few in number.

On Monday, October 15, with Postal inspectors already working

with the FBI, I asked Chief Inspector Weaver to put together a

Washington-based task force that included our union and management association leaders. On a daily basis, we shared and discussed the latest information, what steps we should take, and what

were the right things to do. We brought in advisors from the CDC

10

and others to share information with the unions. Our labor leaders’ comments were valuable and carried equal weight with everyone

around the table, but the facts were sketchy. To that point, the

only confirmed anthrax had been in Florida and NBC News in New

York.

On that day, Monday, October 15, employees in Senator

Daschle’s office opened a letter that had been laced with anthrax.

Then, things began to accelerate almost by the hour. It was clear

that the Daschle letter went through our Brentwood facility in

Washington.

On Wednesday, testing of 28 Capitol Hill employees came back

positive. We were consulting and seeking the best experts we could

find, but it was also clear that the mail and the Nation were facing

a threat that it had never encountered before. We continued to operate under the theory that what had happened—that what had

been sent was transiting our system in well-sealed envelopes.

All along, the Postal Service operated on the principle of open

disclosure. I knew that would be critical in protecting our employees and the public in developing solutions. Knowing that the

Daschle letter came through our Brentwood facility, and after consulting with our unions, we decided to test the Brentwood facility

as a precaution. The preliminary test on Thursday, October 18,

came back negative. We felt good about that, although a secondary,

more comprehensive laboratory examination would take another 48

hours. To that time, we had no indication that Brentwood was contaminated.

Also on Thursday, October 18, we joined with the Justice Depart- ment to ask the American public for help by offering a $1 million

reward. It was on October 18 that one of our letter carriers in

Trenton was diagnosed with cutaneous anthrax. The Trenton and

West Trenton facilities were closed for testing and CDC and the

FBI moved in. Yes, we had discussed with CDC whether or not our

employees should be tested, but all indications and the best experts

said, no need.

Unfortunately, and how I and others wish we had known, it was

Friday, October 19, when our first Washington employee would be

hospitalized with flu-like symptoms. Two days later, on Sunday

afternoon, October 21, we learned of the first case of an employee

with inhalation anthrax. Brentwood was immediately closed. As a

precaution, we also closed the Baltimore-Washington processing facility.

We were operating in good faith, trying to make the right decisions based on the facts at hand and the advice we were receiving

from the experts. In fact, out of those discussions, local health authorities began screening employees and providing them with antibiotics that weekend.

By Monday, we were making every effort to track down all of our

Brentwood employees, even those on vacation. Last week, I said

this is not a time for finger pointing. I underscore that again. The

mail and the Nation have never experienced anything like this.

Where are we today? First of all, the situation remains fluid.

Late yesterday afternoon, we learned that two additional facilities

in Washington, DC, were contaminated, and we closed them pending remediation. In addition, trace amounts of anthrax have been

11

found in our plant in West Palm Beach. That remediation is occurring right now. For 18 days, we have been working to enhance the

safety of our employees and their workplaces. At the same time, we

want to keep mail moving to the Nation’s businesses and households.

Let me share some of the actions that we have taken. We scheduled 200 facilities nationwide to be tested. That is in addition to

those facilities in the immediate area of the anthrax attacks. We

purchased 4.8 million masks, 88 million gloves for our employees.

We changed operational maintenance procedures to reduce the

chance of any bioagents being blown around the workplace. We are

using new cleaning products that kill anthrax bacteria. We have redoubled efforts to communicate to employees through stand-up

talks, videos, and postcards directed to their homes to reinforce our

awareness message. We also had medical doctors speak to our

employees at the worksite on the precautions they needed to take

concerning anthrax and offered employees nationwide counseling

services.

During the last week, we mobilized every resource to get employees screened, tested, and antibiotics distributed. We are purchasing

machines and technology to sanitize the mail. Unfortunately, we

cannot deploy all the machines tomorrow. In the interim, we are

using existing machines and private sector companies to sanitize

targeted mail. The anthrax attacks were targeted and we are responding in a targeted way.

We are increasing our education efforts with the public. Postcards alerting every address in America were delivered last week.

In all our dealings with our customers, we stress the need for vigilance. We modified our website to provide the latest information on

anthrax. In sum, we are focused on getting the message out.

I might also add here that the cooperation and coordination between and among all Federal agencies involved has gotten increasingly stronger as each day has gone by. Governor Ridge has been

instrumental in building bridges and making things happen. He

also has been working to assure that all Federal agencies work in

a focused way to ensure that the equipment and technology we

plan to use is effective.

These attacks on our employees, the Nation, and the mail are

unprecedented. They have hurt us financially. The economic slowdown in 2001 already had an impact. Then the tragedy of the attack on September 11 again stunned the economy. The results have

been reflected in reduced revenue and mail volumes. Although we

are still assessing the economic impact of the anthrax attack, I can

tell you it is sizeable. We will provide information to the Committee when we have a tally.

As I am sure you will agree, protecting America’s freedom by ensuring the safety and the integrity of the mail is at the core of the

Postal Service’s mission. Our 800,000 Postal employees are using

everything they have learned and doing everything humanly possible to keep the mail safe and moving.

I cannot say enough how proud I am of the cooperation and the

spirit I have seen in our employees and Postal customers. They recognize that terrorists have launched an attack on one of America’s

12

fundamental institutions, the Nation’s post offices. We are determined not to let the terrorists stop us.

This concludes my prepared statement, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Mr. Potter.

We will begin questioning now. With the permission of my colleagues, we will do 6-minute rounds, but we will give a few extra

minutes to, other than the four of us who had the chance to make

opening statements, if other members wish to use that to make an

opening statement.

The dates here are, as you stated them, the sequence of events.

On October 12, CDC confirmed that the letter sent to NBC had anthrax in it. A short while after that, we learned that anthrax from

a letter sent to Senator Daschle had contaminated one of the Senate mail rooms and so was capable of contaminating other locations, yet the Brentwood facility continued to operate and now it

appears that there is contamination throughout government mail

rooms in the DC area.

My question is: Given—and this is the question, obviously, that

others are asking, including Postal workers—given the known anthrax exposure at Postal facilities, particularly in New Jersey and

then in Florida, why did the Postal Service not take a more aggressive approach toward conducting testing for anthrax as a precautionary measure, both to protect its employees and the general

public?

Mr. POTTER. Throughout the process, when we started with the

earliest letters at NBC, the advice we were given throughout was

that these envelopes were well sealed. They had been taped and it

gave the appearance that the intent of the sender was that it was

to affect the recipient, the person who the mail was addressed to.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right.

Mr. POTTER. It was not until later on that we found out that the

size of the spores, the anthrax spores, were one micron in size and

that they had the ability to penetrate paper. So we went from a

situation where we had sealed containers and we had no known

cases of anthrax either in Florida or in New York, that is the Postal Service did not, and so the theory that we were operating under

seemed logical, made sense, and given the amount of protection,

tape that was put on the envelopes, that they were contained and

that they were not contaminating until they were opened at the

destination.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So the initial presumption was that to become ill, you would have to have opened a package or letter, as occurred at the NBC offices or, in fact, in Senator Daschle’s office?

Mr. POTTER. Yes. That was the initial assumption and it was

thought that by opening the envelope, and that was the theory behind what happened in Florida, that the gentlemen that were affected opened the envelope and that dust came out of the envelope

and went into their sinuses.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. On what basis did you reach that conclusion? I understand it has a certain common sense to it based on

normal experience, although as we have found out, as you indicated, as time went on, the anthrax was refined to such a small

level that common sense did not make sense in the end. But was

that a judgment that you made within the Postal Service based on

13

the advice of your internal counsel or was it based on advice you

got from others, and if so, who were they?

Mr. POTTER. It was based on the advice that we had gotten from

those who had seen the envelopes. We did not have possession of

the envelopes.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. In other words, those who had seen them

at NBC or here at the Senate?

Mr. POTTER. Right. So it was the law enforcement authorities,

the FBI, our Postal inspectors, as well as the health authorities,

the CDC and others.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Who did you call? Obviously, you are confronted with a problem you did not anticipate and it is a health

problem and the Postal Service is obviously not a health service organization itself. Who do you turn to at a moment like that? Who

did you turn to?

Mr. POTTER. At a moment like that, I turn to the Secretary,

Tommy Thompson.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Health and Human Services?

Mr. POTTER. The Secretary of Health and Human Services, to

ask for his help because it was an unknown entity to us.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right.

Mr. POTTER. We sought out his assistance.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. What did he tell you?

Mr. POTTER. Basically, he put us in touch with all of the experts

at his disposal.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Who were they?

Mr. POTTER. The Surgeon General, the CDC, and many others

who came to our aid to help us analyze this problem and give us

advice.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. And they counseled you at that time explicitly that it was their best judgment that your employees would

have to have opened a package to be exposed to anthrax?

Mr. POTTER. They had counseled me that there was a remote

chance that as the envelopes transited our system, that they would

have contaminated our system, again, based on the fact that they

were well sealed. Early on, there were a couple of letters that later

turned out to be hoaxes that had granular substances in them.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right.

Mr. POTTER. You recall at NBC, there was a focus on a letter of

September 25 that was originally thought to be the letter that

caused the contamination. That later on proved not to be the case

and there was a granular substance in that letter. We subsequently

found out it was a September 18 letter. So, again, it was based on

the facts that were available to them and the facts that were available to me and we relied on the advice of everybody.

I think, without a doubt in my mind, that there was truly a good

faith effort on the part of all. As was stated earlier, people just did

not know that much about anthrax.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Let me ask you this question. To the best

of your knowledge, I presume Mr. Morris and Mr. Curseen, the two

Postal workers who died of inhalation anthrax, were not exposed

to packages or letters with anthrax that were opened, is that correct?

Mr. POTTER. To the best of my knowledge, that is the case, yes.

14

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So is the presumption now that the terrorists who were sending the anthrax through the mail were operating at such a level of sophistication that they had not only refined the anthrax to the one micron, which is not visible to the eye,

but that they had put openings in the envelopes or package coverings that were slightly larger than the one micron, but large

enough when handled to let some of the anthrax spores out?

Mr. POTTER. Mr. Chairman, I think it was a matter of using different paper. I do not know that there was an attempt on the part

of the terrorists, and we will never know until we find that person

and find out what their motives were, but I think there was a different type of paper. That paper was more porous than the previous paper and allowed the anthrax to move through the paper.

That is my assumption. I do not consider myself an expert, but that

appears to be the case.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK. My time is up. Thank you. Senator

Thompson.

Senator THOMPSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and

thank you, Mr. Potter.

I was looking at the time lines here. Of course, some of the criticism that everybody around here is rightfully sensitive to is whether or not there has been some kind of a double standard, and I was

looking at the time lines for the Senate, in particular, and our reaction, and yours. According to my recollection and information, the

Daschle letter was opened up on October 15. Twenty-eight employees tested positive for exposure on October 17 and we closed their

offices on October 18.

And what I found out, or just realized just recently, was that for

3 days, Governmental Affairs Committee staff employees were

walking around that same area up there, some of these folks behind us here, on the same floor, on the sixth floor of the Hart

Building where the Daschle letter was opened, for 3 days before we

closed the buildings.

So obviously it goes to make the point that we were all thinking

that it took some kind of—not only could something not seep out

of an envelope, but you had to have some kind of, apparently, direct contact with it or be in the same room or something with it

in order for it to cause you a problem. I mean, seemingly, that was

the information that we were all operating on at the time.

So we reacted, what, 3 days later, and then, only after several

people turned up positive for exposure, and I was looking at your

time line and you had a private company come in. Of course, you

had the benefit, if you want to call it that, of the Daschle episode.

We should say that. But on October 18, you had a private company

come in and test Brentwood and they received no positive indications at that time, is that right?

Mr. POTTER. We had two separate tests done, Senator. We had

comprehensive testing done by an outside company and then we

had the Fairfax County Hazardous Material Group to come in Fairfax County right across the river, and test our facility on a quick

test. That quick test proved negative. I have since come to learn

that there are no false positives with the quick test but there are

a lot of false negatives.

Senator THOMPSON. And that happened on October 18?

15

Mr. POTTER. That happened on October 18. We had ordered

those tests on October 17. Once we became aware that there might

be—what we learned over this process was the science starts with

where did the contamination occur, and if you think about what

happened in Boca Raton, it appears that only the people who

touched the envelope were affected because no other employee in

AMI, to my knowledge, was tested positive for spores.

So the science that we were following, again, working with the

experts, was you have a case of anthrax. In the case of the Senate,

you backed up and started to look at the mail room. When you

made that move, we made the same move. We started to conduct

the tests, although we were told that, again, there was a remote

chance that anything happened in Brentwood. We scheduled those

tests on October 17. We began the testing on the afternoon of October 18. We had a negative quick test—granted, it is a quick test,

but a negative quick test on October 18 to give us some reassurance that the theory was accurate.

Senator THOMPSON. Let us go from there, then, to the other relevant facts leading up to your decision to close on October 21. That

would take us to October 19, I suppose.

Mr. POTTER. Right.

Senator THOMPSON. I believe you indicated that an employee

showed some preliminary symptoms that could have been diagnosed as possibly as anthrax on the——

Mr. POTTER. Friday night, we had an employee go to the hospital

with flu-like symptoms, and I think I have the dates right. If I do

not, we will correct it.

Senator THOMPSON. Friday night? That would have been October

19.

Mr. POTTER. Right. But the issue that we have now fixed is the

fact that our employees go to a hospital with flu-like symptoms.

They think they have the flu. And what we now have instructed

all of our employees to do is when you go—if you have flu-like

symptoms, and this is throughout the country, we have asked the

employees to tell the attending physician that they are a Postal

employee.

Senator THOMPSON. All right. Let me ask you this now. I want

you to get all this in, but I have got limited time here and I want

to get through this one line of questioning. Did top management

know at the time that that employee went in, that they went in

with those symptoms on October 19?

Mr. POTTER. No.

Senator THOMPSON. You did not learn that until later?

Mr. POTTER. We did not learn that until Sunday night.

Senator THOMPSON. Until Sunday night? That would have been

October 21.

Mr. POTTER. It would have been after we had closed the facility

and after——

Senator THOMPSON. After you had closed the facility?

Mr. POTTER. And after we had begun——

Senator THOMPSON. All right. So that is not a relevant fact in

terms of your thinking as of October 20. All right. What else happened before October 21? I understand that the CDC began testing.

16

Mr. POTTER. No. Our outside company, URS, began testing, but

the tests take, at a minimum, 48 hours. In fact, we did not get the

Brentwood results back for 72 hours.

Senator THOMPSON. All right. So what else happened between

October 19 and your closing of the facility?

Mr. POTTER. What happened on that Saturday, we appealed to

the CDC and to local health officials to begin our employees on

medication. We felt that they should be tested and medicated. We

were told that there was no need to do that.

And then on October 21, we had a confirmed inhalation anthrax

case of a gentleman that was in Inova Fairfax Hospital, and thank

God he is on his way to recovery. It is at that point that we immediately shut the facility down and we began giving medication to

employees.

Senator THOMPSON. All right. I think that is pretty clear, and I

am almost out of time. Well, I will throw something out and follow

up later. In talking about the cost of this equipment, you are talking about the equipment that you are using now, in order to get

it fully in place and implemented in the number of facilities that

you feel like you need, I have seen an estimate of a total cost of

$2.5 billion?

Mr. POTTER. Yes, sir, several billion dollars.

Senator THOMPSON. I just wonder how that is going—obviously,

before this happened, the Postal Service had significant financial

problems, and we have had hearings on that from time to time, an

$11 billion debt and facing a $1.65 billion deficit at the end of fiscal

year 2001. Obviously, you are going to have to rethink your entire

financial picture.

Can you just broadly outline the significance of this? Is this going to require a direct Congressional appropriation for at least $2.5 billion and then start from there with your problems that you have

had for a long time and having to solve them, and what impact is

this—are you going to be able to estimate what impact that this event, notwithstanding the $2.5 billion, assuming that you get that,

what impact this is going to have on the Postal Service, your financial picture, and your competitiveness?

Mr. POTTER. Well, first of all, regarding the appropriation or requesting an appropriation to reconfigure our operation such that

we can sanitize mail, yes, we will ask for that appropriation. We

were in financial straits prior to September 11. As you have accurately said, our loss for fiscal year 2001 was approximately $1.7 billion.

In the month following the September 11 attack, the Postal Service lost, against plan, what we thought we would get, and it was

a very conservative plan, some $300 million. We do not have an estimate of what the impact of this anthrax situation will be. We are

working as hard as we can to restore confidence in the mail. That

is going to take time. So it will have further—it could be several

billion dollars’ worth of impact.

In addition to that, we have costs associated with masks, gloves,

and other operational procedures that are just going to change the

way we do business. We were very grateful that the President

made monies available to us, some $175 million to get us started,

but we know that more money will be needed and it does put the

17

Postal Service’s long-term viability, not in jeopardy, it just makes

it a very difficult road to hoe.

Senator THOMPSON. Thank you very much.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Thompson, and thanks,

General Potter. Obviously, this Committee wants to work with you

on the long-term viability and health of the Postal Service.

We are going to have somebody in from CDC tomorrow at the

second day of these hearings—on the advice that you got that a

sealed package or envelope would not endanger your employees,

which obviously turned out not to be true or accurate, I wonder

whether CDC understood that mail is repeatedly compressed during handling when they gave you that advice.

Mr. POTTER. Mr. Chairman, I would have to let the CDC speak

to that. Obviously, as was said earlier, we were all on a steep

learning curve.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes.

Mr. POTTER. We were trying to understand the medical side of

this issue. They were trying to understand the operational side of

this issue. Again, I think there was a good faith effort on the part

of everybody to work with what we had. Keep in mind that the envelopes in question were evidence. Keep in mind that the envelopes

in question were contaminated. So it was not that people had ready

access to them to do analysis. Again, I think everybody was operating under descriptions that were provided by those who physically handled the mail.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks. Senator Akaka.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much.

Postmaster General, as we know, the Daschle letter was opened

on October 15 and the Hart Building was open October 16 and 17

and closed on October 18. Senate employees were tested October 16

and 17. Did you ask CDC or DC Public Health to test your employees and provide antibiotics at the same time the Senate employees

began being tested?

Mr. POTTER. There were ongoing discussions throughout that

week. I do not think we made an official—I do not think we requested of the DC health officials until Saturday.

Senator AKAKA. When were you notified that the Dirksen mail

room had tested positive for anthrax and did CDC recommend testing and preventative medication at that point?

Mr. POTTER. I do not know that we were ever officially notified,

but we did become aware of it the morning of October 17 and that

is why we immediately began to hire outside testing agencies to

come in and do a thorough check of our facilities.

Senator AKAKA. The Attorney General has said there is credible

evidence of another attack on the United States or its interests

abroad. Given this latest warning and the existing anthrax threat,

what is the Postal Service doing during this heightened state of

alert to safeguard the mail and its employees? Is mail being

screened for high-risk targets?

Mr. POTTER. Senator, the mail is being screened at origins where

we believe the anthrax was deposited into the mail stream, and

what we are doing there is screening the mail to prevent it from

getting into our system to be worked on our machines. I would be

18

happy to give you a lot of detail offline, but I do not think it is wise

to invite people to circumvent what we have put into place.

Senator AKAKA. The Postal Service, I understand, intends to

sanitize mail. Will the Postal Service install such a facility in remote areas like Hawaii so that Hawaii and other Pacific Island

mail will not need to be sent to the United States mainland, and

if so, when would you expect the facility to come online?

Mr. POTTER. Senator, our initial plan, and we are working

through that plan as we speak, is to sanitize all possible entries of

mail, including Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and the continental

United States. Regarding timing, I will turn to our Vice President

for Engineering, Thomas Day, who could respond better to that.

Mr. DAY. Senator, we are still very early in the process of trying

to figure out a time line. The type of equipment that we are looking

to deploy is coming from an industry that primarily served food

processing and medical sterility needs. Our demands on that industry are unprecedented, so we have entered into discussions with

the two major companies that we are aware of in the United States

that make this type of equipment and looking to see what they can

do to ramp up their manufacturing capability. So we are looking

to do it as quick as we can, but we are still very early in that discussion.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you, Mr. Day. New York’s Morgan facility

has at least four confirmed areas of contamination and yet continues to operate. I know that the Morgan employees have been offered the option to work on another floor or across the street if they

have safety concerns. However, how does this reconcile with the

temporary closure of the Princeton, New Jersey Post Office, where

only trace amounts of anthrax were found? I would also like to

know who makes the final decision to close a facility and what criteria is used.

Mr. POTTER. I think it is important that we describe the Morgan

facility and what we have there. We have a 1.8 million square foot

building. We have an area of contamination that is about 8,000

square feet. We have sealed off 156,000 square feet while we decontaminate not only the 8,000 square feet, we are going to decontaminate the whole 156,000 square feet of that facility.

We have traces of spores on our machines that will be decontaminated. We have no spores in any ventilation system in Morgan. We

are very, very careful to check that. If that were the case, that facility would close immediately.

Again, I am not a medical expert, but traces of anthrax are,

when we talk about traces, we are talking about very few spores.

We are not talking about thousands. We are talking about less

than 50. And we bring in and get advice from, in the case of New

York City, from CDC, who is on site, NIOSH, who is on site, the

New York City Department of Health is on site.

We work collaboratively with those folks to determine whether or

not we need to evacuate a facility or whether we can treat that facility. We have done that in other places. Again, we work with the

local and national officials, the experts, to determine what the appropriate course of action is.

As far as the Princeton site is concerned, we have a much smaller facility. We did not have the ability to rope off a 150,000 square

19

foot area because it is a smaller facility. In addition to that, that

is also a crime scene. So any time a crime scene is declared, we

evacuate and we make sure that the crime scene is not disturbed.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Akaka. Senator Cochran.

Senator COCHRAN. Mr. Chairman, one of the questions that I

have is the capacity you have with your Postal inspectors to actually respond to all of the reports that you have received for incidents that may be suspicious or may be threatening to not only

Postal workers but to the general public.

For example, I noticed in one of your fact sheets that you released on Sunday that you say a total of 5,477 suspicious incidents

have been reported to Postal inspectors as of Friday, October 26.

How are you coping with that and what can we do to help you in

regard to that problem?

Mr. POTTER. We only have 1,900 Postal inspectors, so obviously,

our resources are spread very thin. We are working closely with

other law enforcement agencies regarding these hoaxes. That is

both at the local level and national level. So the FBI, working with

our Inspection Service, working with local law enforcement, are

doing the best job that they can to track down those folks that are

committing the hoaxes. That is playing as much on the fear of

Americans as the actual anthrax and we are taking those very,

very seriously and a number of arrests have been made of those

folks who are committing those hoaxes, those folks that are trying

to instill fear in the American public.

Senator COCHRAN. I think the word should go out that that is a

violation of Federal law, is it not, and those who are committing

those acts to alarm or to frighten others are subject to criminal

prosecution, is that correct?

Mr. POTTER. Let me introduce Chief Postal Inspector Ken Weaver, who can accurately answer that question.

Mr. WEAVER. Senator, you are exactly right. It is as vicious as

the crime itself and it is treated as such because it does spread fear

among the population. To date, we have arrested 18 individuals— in the last 3 weeks—for sending prohibited material through the

mail. So you are exactly right.

Senator COCHRAN. When can we expect these facilities that have

been contaminated to be cleaned up and put back in service? Do

you have a time line and can you give us that information now,

when they will be operational again?

Mr. POTTER. Senator, for most of these facilities, it is a matter

of a couple of days, because what we have found are traces of anthrax. However, in the case of Washington, DC, and Trenton, the

contamination is more widespread, so I do not have a good estimate

on when or how long it would take to clean those facilities, or even

looking through, just as you are experiencing in the Senate, what

is the proper process to go through to clean a facility of that size.

In addition to that, those two locations are crime scenes, so we do

not even have access to them right now to go in and begin remediation. I will turn to Mr. Day, if he has anything.

Mr. DAY. I would just say, Senator, that my staff in Environmental Programs has contracted out for those services, and as Jack

has already indicated, until we fully understand the extent of the

20

contamination, it is hard to assess how long. Then the process will

require not just decontamination, but then another round of testing

to ensure that what we did is actually effective.

Senator COCHRAN. Some people have asked us, what has happened to all the mail that has been held up and not delivered? Are

you storing that, and what efforts are being made to sanitize or

sterilize that mail and then to have it subsequently delivered to

those who are entitled to receive it?

Mr. POTTER. All mail that we had in our possession on Monday,

October 21, has been held. It is in the process of being sanitized

in Lima, Ohio, and that will take several days for us to catch up,

and until that time, obviously it will not be delivered. We want to

make sure that mail is safe for the American public.

Senator COCHRAN. There were some people who had heard that

some of the mail that had been accumulated was going to be

burned. That is just a rumor, is it not?

Mr. POTTER. That is absolutely a rumor. The sanctity of the mail

is our top priority. We cannot open mail. We would not destroy

mail, or open mail short of having a warrant.

Mr. DONAHOE. I can clarify. One of the things that we did, Senator, we held any empty equipment. We move equipment throughout our whole system. So what we did, the equipment that was

empty and on trailers for dispatch—we have a recycling area where

we put things back together as far as reuse—we held those trailers

both in Washington and in Trenton and what we are going to do

is remediate some of the equipment and other things, like cardboard trays, that is what will be destroyed. It is not mail, it is just

that type of equipment.

Senator COCHRAN. There was some suggestion, too, that it was

misleading to assure Postal workers that they were going to be

safer if they wore gloves in handling mail, and this is other people,

too, who come in contact with equipment and the like. But that

does not have anything to do with the process by which you contract inhalation anthrax illness, which is the most serious, is that

correct?

Mr. POTTER. That is correct. Again, in terms of what happened

first, the first case of anthrax in the Postal Service was cutaneous

anthrax, and again, there, it was a matter of somebody had

touched, we believe, touched the anthrax and contracted the anthrax through their hand.

We were very careful, by the way, to make sure that we did not

go out and say masks, in general, were going to protect our employees or anybody else—because we found out that the key piece of information that you needed to determine what the proper mask was

was the size of the spore. Once we got that information from CDC,

we bought the appropriate masks for our employees. So throughout

this process, we have been learning, and every time we learn something, we change our behavior in response to what we learn.

Senator COCHRAN. In closing, let me just make sure I understand

what your needs are so we can respond and try to help provide you

with the support you need to do your job. Are you submitting

through the process of appropriation or with the administration a

request for supplemental funding that is needed on an emergency

basis to take care of some of these needs that you have cited?

21

Mr. POTTER. Yes, Senator, we will, but we want to do our homework and make sure that we have a proper estimate of what those

funds would be.

Senator COCHRAN. Well, I think you can be assured that we are

going to respond in this Committee to recommend and try to be an

influence to get those funds to you as quickly as possible.

Mr. POTTER. Thank you, Senator.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Cochran. I thoroughly

endorse the statement you have just made and we will obviously

do that in a bipartisan way.

Senator Carper has to preside in the Senate at 11 a.m., and with

the gracious consent of Senators Levin, Cleland, and Carnahan,

who were supposed to go first, we will call on Senator Carper now.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER

Senator CARPER. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I want to thank

my colleagues, as well, for graciously yielding.

Mr. Potter, welcome, and to you and your colleagues, we thank

you for being here. We thank you for your service.

I have just been sitting here reflecting on how in the last month

and a half we in this country have seen our domestic airliners converted into a delivery system for lethal weapons and used to kill

thousands of people. We have seen how our Postal Service is being

turned into a delivery system for lethal weapons, in this case anthrax, to kill innocent people, not even the people for whom the anthrax was intended.

As we try to retrace what happened or did not happen, what we

could have done better over the last several weeks, one of the

things I am walking out of here with before I go to preside is just

the conviction, the strong conviction that we need to figure out who

is doing this. We need to apprehend them right away and we need

to make sure that they get punished severely for what they have

done to our Postal employees and the kind of predicament they

have put a lot of other people in.

Early yesterday afternoon, I was back in Delaware and I visited

the Hares Corner mail distribution center just south of Wilmington, which is our major distribution center in Wilmington. I

had a chance to meet over the lunch hour with a lot of the employees in a big public setting and share with them a little of what we

are doing here and really invited them to share with me what concerns they would like for me to express to you and to the representatives of the employee unions that are here today. I came away

very impressed with the cooperation that is going on between labor

and management at that facility and was grateful to see that kind

of cooperation.

Among the concerns that the employees raised were the effectiveness of the protective equipment you’re supplying. People said, I

am concerned that some day the money will run out for masks or

gloves, and several people said to me, we walk around here and we

gather things on our shoes and our boots and then we go home. It

would be nice to have disposable boots to wear. Several people

talked about the ventilation system and said it would be wonderful

if we could have a ventilation system that sucked everything that

could be dangerous to us out of here and sent it outside where it

22

would not pose a danger to the general populace. But I just wanted

to share those particular concerns that were raised with us yesterday.

Could you just trace for us the mail process? Someone goes to a

post office drop box in Trenton, New Jersey, for a letter that is addressed to Senator Daschle here in Washington. Just trace for us

how the mail moves through your system before it ends up in his

office.

Mr. POTTER. A collector would go to the collection box, would put

the mail that comes out of that collection box into a larger container, a hamper. That hamper is brought to the Trenton mail

processing center, I think they call it the Hamilton Township mail

processing center—the names change all the time—and it is

dumped into a hopper, where it goes through a canceling machine

that processes that mail at about 30,000 pieces an hour.

It then moves to an optical character reader or to a bar code sorter, depending on whether or not it is machine-printed or not. So

in the case of the Daschle letter, it would move to a delivery bar

code sorter, which is just a big automated piece of equipment, sorts

mail at about 30,000 pieces an hour. On that machine, it would be

held out for DC Government mail in a zip code range of 202 to 205.

That would then be transported to Washington, DC, where it would

move to a machine that is called a government mails machine and

it will be sorted on that machine to the Senate. From there, it will

be put into a tray and transported via government mails to the

Senate office building.

Senator CARPER. In terms of the processing, the actual processing of the mail and different pieces of equipment, I have had the

opportunity to observe the Hares Corner plant before, and as you

said, they sort a lot of mail in a hurry, especially on the bar-coded

mail. But as the mail goes through these machines, if there were

anthrax inside, a very small size, if the paper or the envelope were

porous, one could see how the action of the machines and the movement of the mail through those machines could, even if the envelopes were not torn, cause something to come out of the envelope.

I have also seen, and you probably have seen a lot more than me,

pieces of mail that have been torn as they go through. Odd-sized

letters, especially, they can be torn or come loose in some way or

other.

Mr. POTTER. Yes. If I could comment on that, one of the things

we are looking at, we want to move ahead with the sanitizing of

mail, but in addition to that, on an interim basis, what we are looking at is at spots in that machine where mail is pinched, we are

looking to create a vacuum to collect any dust that comes out of

a letter—and you always have paper dust when you are around a

lot of paper. So we are looking to vacuum that dust up as it is generated.

We are also looking at working with the manufacturer, Siemens,

to see if we can create a downdraft within that machine so that

any dust that might be generated is pulled down into the body of

the machine and is appropriately filtered. That is not something

that we, until this situation, felt was necessary, but now we are a

lot smarter and we are moving ahead with that, as well as moving

ahead with sanitizing equipment.

23

Senator CARPER. That sounds like a good idea. We have appropriated a lot of money to the administration to use and the administration has provided financial assistance, some of which could be

used for providing machinery that hopefully would sanitize a portion of the mail, but of the things that we have done, what has

been particularly helpful? What else can we do that would be helpful at this point in time?

Mr. POTTER. Well, again, the appropriation of that money, the $40 billion from which we will receive some $175 million that was

critical to helping us, and the appropriation that we talked about

earlier. Once we are aware of what our costs are, that would be a

big help to the Postal Service in terms of allowing us to reconfigure

our operations so we can confidently say that the mail is safe and

secure. Those are the two things that are very helpful to us.

Senator CARPER. And in terms of what else we could do, did you

want to add anything else?

Mr. POTTER. Well, again, I think we will call upon you as we

need you. In my statement, I said that Governor Ridge in his new

role has been extremely helpful in terms of providing coordination.

I think we are well down the road to—the government is, in my

opinion, to being able to respond very rapidly to these situations.

But one thing I have learned, though, is that science is not perfect

and every day you learn something new.

Senator CARPER. I would like to ask if there is anything you

would like to share with the folks that are working back in Delaware in that Postal facility that I visited yesterday where those

concerns were expressed?

Mr. POTTER. I would like to thank them for what they are doing.

I would like them to do what we have asked them to do, and that

is update their employee information to make sure that we have

proper addresses, phone numbers, emergency numbers in the event

that something happens. I would like to strongly encourage them

to wear masks, gloves, to be on the lookout, to be diligent about

what they see in the mail, to bring any concerns they have to the

attention of their managers so that we can deal with them.

And I want to thank them for delivering America’s mail and

keeping America connected. They are on the front line now. We are

all a little less confident than we were a very short period of time

ago and I think they need to know that the American public is behind them, that the Congress, the administration, and Postal managers are doing everything they can to make them safe.

Senator CARPER. Well said. Thank you very, very much.

Mr. Chairman, to my colleagues again who have been very gracious in allowing me to go ahead of them, thank you, and I will return after the noon hour and look forward to seeing our next panel.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Carper. We look forward

to your return. Senator Collins.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Potter, at this oversight hearing, I think we cannot say often

enough that the tragic deaths and illnesses of the Postal workers

are the fault of the terrorists. They are not the fault of the Postal

Service managers. They are not the fault of the CDC. They are not

24

the fault of other public health experts. They are the fault of the

terrorists. I think that is important for us to say over and over

again.

All of us benefitting from hindsight wish that different decisions

had been made. We wish that public health officials had advised

you to promptly trace the tainted mail’s path and to undertake

rapid testing of workers and of the environment of the Postal facilities. But again, we are learning that there is so much we just do

not know.

When I hear the description of how mail is handled in response

to Senator Carper’s question, one wishes that public health officials

had realized how roughly the mail is handled and that it would be

likely, given the quality of this anthrax, that some of the spores

would go through the envelopes. But that is information that we

did not have.

An expert in anthrax from the State of Maine, Dr. Merle Nass,

has written to me to advise me that the single most important step

that we could take now would be to undertake accurate, rapid, and

widespread environmental testing. She further has recommended

that the samples be tested in labs that are decentralized to avoid

overwhelming Federal facilities, and I can see Mr. Donahoe is nodding is response to that recommendation.

You have testified that 128 Postal facilities are undergoing some

sort of environmental testing. Could you tell us how they are selected, whether you are able to decentralize the lab work that

needs to be done in order to get the results promptly, and whether

you plan additional testing?

Mr. POTTER. We have tested in those areas that have been targeted, the tests that you talked about that have been completed

and scheduled, initially, they were scheduled and targeted for those

areas where anthrax was found. So that was in New York City, in

New Jersey, in the Washington, DC area, and in Florida.

Since that time, we have decided that we are going to test our

entire system, and this past weekend, we were in 30 facilities

around the country and we began that test. We started with our

larger facilities and we are going to work our way down to the

point where all of the major nodes in our network have been tested,

and that is the plan that we have.

I appreciate, very much appreciate the comment about trying to

use multiple labs and we have found that we did put too much of

a demand on individual labs, and so, therefore, we are looking at

that to try and spread the work around so that we can get quicker

results.

As far as environmental testing and air sampling, I’m not the expert again, but I do have some concerns about quick tests. Again,

I do not want to sound like an expert because I am absolutely not,

but we are talking to someone who had a quick test done that was

negative, that gave me and others some reassurance that our employees were not in harm’s way. So I do have some concerns about

the fact that we do get a lot of false negatives there and we are

looking at every means possible to determine what the appropriate

testing is, what is the right test that is going to give correct information to us.

25

I want to thank, by the way, the American people. I have so

many folks who have reached out to me offering solutions, offering

advice, and I know if I have received 20 messages, I can just imagine what our Vice President of Engineering, Tom Day, received.

So we are looking at everything, but the advice about the spreading out of most of the labs is very sound and we are moving in that

direction.

The advice about the quick tests, we are working with the experts to determine what is the appropriate test, including the EPA.

Part of the monies that were provided for us were to purchase testing equipment to be used in Postal facilities, and once we know

what the appropriate equipment is, we intend to buy it and use it.

Senator COLLINS. Is the Postal Service also looking at the possibility of installing biochemical sensors? There is a lot of interesting

work going on in companies across the United States. There is a

small firm in Maine that is doing a lot of research in developing

sensors. Mr. Day, is that one of the options you are looking at?

Mr. DAY. Yes, Senator. I have a group that is very specifically

dealing with biochemical sensors. We are teamed up with the Department of Defense. The Joint Program Office for Biological Warfare is one group I know of that we are dealing with specifically.

We are very interested in seeing if there is applicable detection

technology. There has been a lot of work done with it. However, I

would caution, we are going to pursue it. We think there are some

things that could work for us.

But up until this point in time, the bio threat was more towards

the military. Bio threat was in large quantities, aerosol sprays,

that kind of thing. And so our type of threat is similar, but not the

same. So we are trying to see how we can modify the technology

to fit our needs.

Senator COLLINS. Mr. Potter, I want to follow up on a question

that Senator Thompson raised. The Postal Service was in a precarious financial situation prior to this crisis. are you seeing a dropoff

in your mail volume because Americans have reservations about

using the mail right now, because if that is happening, that is obviously going to exacerbate the financial strains.

Mr. POTTER. We saw a pronounced dropoff in mail volume following September 11, and the pronounced dropoff was attributable

to a lot of our advertiser mail, in particular, not being sent. The

advertisers felt that the American public was just not in the mood

to buy. We saw that mail begin to bounce back just prior to this

anthrax situation.

It is too early to tell whether or not the American public is reacting to the anthrax situation. Some things that I have seen suggest

that people still have confidence in their mail. They are following

our advice. Basically, people know what comes to their mailbox.

They know the difference between a magazine and something that

might be threatening, or a bill and something that might be threatening. So it is too preliminary to really give you an accurate answer. We will know more a month from now.

Senator COLLINS. Finally, I know that the Postal Service is making the protection of its workers its top priority and that has to be

the top priority for all of us. In that regard, I have heard public

health experts give varying opinions on the effectiveness of wearing

26

gloves. Some recommend it, but others say that when the gloves

are removed, the anthrax spores, if they are on the gloves, will be

dispersed into the air, making it more dangerous than sorting mail

without gloves. Has the Postal Service reached a determination on

whether or not gloves are the right tool for your workers?

Mr. POTTER. We believe that gloves provide some protection. We

are not sure exactly how much. Again, we are not the medical experts. We do not pretend to be. When we hand out gloves, we also

tell people what to do regarding disposal of the gloves. We also advise people and continue to advise people that when it comes to cutaneous anthrax, the best thing that a Postal worker or any other

worker could do is to wash their hands, and that is just for general

health. If you follow general health principles of before you eat,

wash your hands, if your hands are dirty, before you rub your eye,

you wash your hands, that is helpful with cutaneous anthrax.

Now, I was told by the CDC that we are not talking about just

stick your hand under a faucet and take it out. It is to use soap.

I asked if they needed any antibacterial soap and the answer is no.

Regular soap, but you should hold your hands under there for 20

seconds. If you recite the alphabet, that is sufficient. It sounds

funny, and it was not meant to be a joke, but it is very practical

advice to people, and that is the type of thing that we are sharing

with folks. I did not mean to make a joke.

Senator COLLINS. My time has expired. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Potter.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Senator Collins. Senator

Levin.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LEVIN

Senator LEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to each

of you. I want to go back to the chronology, because I have some

questions remaining about it. On October 17, which was Wednesday, that is when you learned that the Senate staffers had tested

positive for exposure, on that day. According to your testimony, you

then contacted the Centers for Disease Control to determine if testing was necessary for employees at the Brentwood center. According to your testimony, you were advised that because the Senate

letter was sealed, that employees were not at risk and no action

was necessary. When you say you were advised, was that by the

Centers for Disease Control on October 17?

Mr. POTTER. I believe so.

Senator LEVIN. The day before, however, at a post office in Boca

Raton, there was anthrax found in a processing area on October 16.

Mr. POTTER. Right.

Senator LEVIN. That was not because the letter was opened.

There was—presumably, the letter was not opened at the processing center, and so the question that I have is whether, when the

CDC told you on October 17 not to worry because the mail was unopened, the day before, they had announced that anthrax had been

found in Boca Raton, and that they, as a precaution, as they put

it, were closing the post office down there for the day while it was

being cleaned. Did you ask them, or did they explain to you on October 17 how it was possible for anthrax to be found in a Boca

27

Raton Post Office without the envelope being opened down there

the day before?

Mr. POTTER. What I have come to know is that anthrax is common throughout the United States and there was a trace of anthrax found in Boca Raton. There was no linkage between that anthrax and what happened at AMI.

What I am told that I should expect as we start to test our facilities, that we are going to find some anthrax throughout our system, not because it is associated with the acts of moving anthrax

through the mail, but we may just find some naturally existing anthrax. There was no definitive way of determining where that anthrax in Boca Raton came from. It was my understanding that it

was on the floor. It could have easily been brought in by somebody’s shoe.

And in terms of shutting it down, what we did was we closed it

down at the end of the day because that is when we were advised.

By the next morning, that facility was open because the area where

it was found had been remediated.

Senator LEVIN. As of last Friday, I believe there were 23 Postal

Service employees in the Washington-Baltimore area that were

hospitalized for suspicious symptoms.

Mr. POTTER. Yes, sir.

Senator LEVIN. Do we know what the outcome of those tests are

for those 23?

Mr. POTTER. We have three cases of inhalation anthrax out of

those 23. Some tests are still pending.

Senator LEVIN. And are there any cutaneous—— Mr. POTTER. Excuse me. I am sorry. There were four cases of inhalation anthrax in Washington, DC.

Senator LEVIN. Out of those 23 that were still in the hospital on

Friday? Those are the ones I am referring to.

Mr. POTTER. OK. There were two cases of inhalation anthrax

that were confirmed. The others, while they tested negative, more

tests are still pending.

Senator LEVIN. And you do not know how many of those have

been tested negative and how many are pending the division?

Mr. POTTER. I certainly can get that for you, but I would not venture a guess off the top of my head.

Senator LEVIN. OK. And then you have also tested all 36 stations

and branches that receive mail from Brentwood, I believe, and if

you can tell us what the results are on those stations and branches.

Mr. POTTER. We had two of those 36 where we had a finding of

anthrax. In one case, it was isolated to a bin for government mail.

That station was closed and remediation is underway and I believe

we might be opening it today. And then we had another case that

we found at another facility, working with the Army Corps of Engineers. It was a trace of anthrax, and overnight, we cleaned that facility. We did not allow employees into that facility once we found

out and the employees that reported today were held out of that

building until the Corps of Engineers advised us that the building

was safe.

Senator LEVIN. As to the equipment in Lima, Ohio, what percentage of the Nation’s mail is going to be going through that particular operation? Is that just Washington mail or is that——

28

Mr. POTTER. That mail is going to be, in terms of percentage, it

is probably less than one-tenth of one percent, a very small percentage of the mail.

Senator LEVIN. And is it your goal in trying to purchase additional sanitizing equipment that all of the Nation’s mail will go

through equipment someday such as that, or what is the goal?

Mr. POTTER. All the mail where the public has open access to our

facilities would go through a sanitizing process. We do have manufacturing processes, like some of our major printers who do things

such as magazines, we are going to go into their operations and

make sure that they are safe and secure and that there is necessary security there. We do not need to sanitize all the mail, just

that mail which anybody could have access to.

Senator LEVIN. In other words, where it is deposited in a public

place.

Mr. POTTER. Exactly.

Senator LEVIN. Then you would want all mail——

Mr. POTTER. A collection box on a street corner, and a collection

box maybe in a large office building where there is open and free

access.

Senator LEVIN. Are you considering a Postal rate increase to pay

for some of your losses here?

Mr. POTTER. Well, we have a Postal rate filing that was filed in

September, and at this point in time, we are going to look to find

other means of remediating or paying for some of the steps that we

have to take for the mail. Certainly, as I said earlier, we are looking for appropriations. We do not feel that the rate payer should

have to bear the burden of the protection from the terrorists that

is required.

Senator LEVIN. So you are not contemplating any request for a

Postal rate increase because of the cost of protecting the mail that

results from these attacks?

Mr. POTTER. At the current time, no.

Senator LEVIN. Is it under consideration?

Mr. POTTER. It will be if we do not have another source of funds,

yes.

Senator LEVIN. Can you tell us whether or not you are considering a mechanism to cancel mail at an earlier point or to identify

a source prior to a large facility, such as the New Jersey facility,

because when you trace back mail, you can only trace it back to

that central point and not to the smaller points, each individual

post office where it may have been deposited. Are you considering

ways of trying to stamp mail or cancel mail at an earlier point so

that you can identify the source at an earlier point?

Mr. POTTER. There is consideration for identifying mail as it

moves through the system, but it is part of our investigation.

Again, I do not want to advise people how to circumvent that. Once

we have the sanitizing process in place, it will be irrelevant because the mail will be safe after it goes through that process.

Senator LEVIN. At least we hope it is.

Mr. POTTER. We are working with all the experts that we possibly can find to make sure, and we will test these systems to assure that they work as expected.

Senator LEVIN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

29

Mr. POTTER. Thank you, Senator.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Senator Levin. Senator Bennett, you are next.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BENNETT

Senator BENNETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Potter, I appreciate your testimony here today and the diligence that you have shown as you have moved through terra incognita and dealt with challenges that you undoubtedly had no idea

you were going to face when you took this assignment.

I want to change the whole subject for just a minute because I

think my colleagues have pursued the time line and the question

of security and safety and so on for your employees sufficiently well

that I would just be re-raking the same leaves if I went back in

that direction.

We are in a war and it is a different kind of war than we have

ever fought before. We have always thought of war as something

that was conducted by the armed forces with the rest of us as the

homefront, providing support, equipment, materiel, etc., for the war

fighter. Indeed, if you talk to people in the military, that is a term

they use, the war fighter, and they talk about the tail, the logistics

tail that comes along behind the war fighter.

We have to break out of that mentality in this kind of war and

recognize, as Senator Carper talked about, that our airline system,

which is an essential part of our whole economic structure, has

been turned into a delivery system for weapons, and the mail has

been turned into a delivery system for those who are our opponents

in this war.

Now, I understand exactly why the media wants to know how

the mails work and why you want to be responsive to the media,

and what I am about to say is not in any sense a criticism of what

has been done, but it is something I think all of us need to start

thinking about.

As the anthrax story has unfolded, the Federal Government, with

your full cooperation, has identified for a potential enemy all of the

key facilities for processing mail for the Federal Government. We

have given them a blueprint of where the next attack should come,

and it has never occurred to us to think in terms of military information security when we are talking about private facilities that

everybody can walk into and walk out of.

Now, we are told that the hijackers of the airplanes did dry runs.

There have been stories in the paper about this, people who have

been identified as being on the airplanes literally taking notes.

Where is the flight attendant at this time in the takeoff? What is

the situation? Where are things going? That they took these flights

in advance of the time they decided they were going to hijack them.

Now, that is not illegal, but it is a demonstration of the new world

in which we are living.

If I were somebody who wanted to cripple the Postal Service, I

would be forced to go into post offices and take notes and look

around and try to figure out how things are going on. But now, all

I need to do is tune in CNN and I can have, in the name of full

disclosure of what is going on, a complete analysis of the entire system so that I can sit in my cave somewhere—probably not AfghaniVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Aug 17, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 76808.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
30

stan, frankly, it will probably be in Hamburg or London or maybe

even someplace in the United States, and say, oh, now I know exactly where to attack in order to use this new paradigm, where our

critical infrastructure and our economy becomes a delivery system

for terror.

So all I am suggesting to you, again, without any criticism of

what has been done in the past because it requires a whole new

set of thinking that we are not used to, from now on, you, this

Committee, the Federal Government, everybody has to think entirely differently about the kind of information we give out.

If I were a terrorist, and I am about to break my own rule here

and speculate, but if I were a terrorist, the next place I would go

would be to the Internet and E-mail because that is the way people

are getting around their fear of communicating through the Postal

Service. And so I want to be very careful as to how much information I give out as I look at this particular issue that a terrorist

might be able to use.

They might be able to say, oh, Senator Bennett just gave a

speech to CSIS in which he outlined our vulnerabilities on the

Internet and I am going to take notes so that I know how to exploit

those vulnerabilities. I am going to change some of the things I say

as I talk about critical infrastructure protection as it begins to

dawn on me just what kind of a new enemy we are facing.

So I simply wanted to take this opportunity to share that view

with you, underscoring for the third time that I am not being critical of the information you have given out and that the Federal

Government in settings like this has asked you for, but to use this

hearing to alert all of us to the fact that we live in an entirely new,

entirely different kind of combat situation than we have ever

thought about before. And you in your position suddenly find yourself not part of the tail but right on the front lines in a war situation that no one has ever faced or understood.

If I can close with an historical note, Benjamin Franklin is credited as the founder of the U.S. Postal Service. Benjamin Franklin

was the Deputy Postmaster or Co-Postmaster for Philadelphia and

later became almost all of New England that he had responsibility

for. One of the reasons the British were after Benjamin Franklin

is that they realized that the way the Revolutionary War spread

throughout the colonies was through the network of the Postal

Service. It was a critical communication system in those days that

made it possible for the Continentals to maintain and mount their

opposition to the British Regulars. And so they went after Franklin

and the Postal Service in a recognition of how important that was

in terms of the war effort. Now, that is 250 years ago, but it is

being recycled now in a deadly new way that we Americans need

to pay attention to.

So I do not have any questions, Mr. Chairman, but I thought I

would share that view while our witnesses are here.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Senator Bennett.

Senator Cleland.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CLELAND

Senator CLELAND. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and

gentlemen, thank you for joining us.

31

Mr. Potter, I think you can be very proud today of your 800,000

Postal Service workers and colleagues. They have withstood the

slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and they are still out there

doing their job, a great testimony to them and to the leadership of

the Postal Service and I commend you for that. You have suffered

tremendous adversity, and yet you are coming back with great

strength and stamina and we appreciate that very much.

A former member of this body, Senator Sam Nunn, played an interesting role last June in a series of events called ‘‘Dark Winter’’

in which it was a mock exercise put on by Johns Hopkins about

what this country would do, how it would react to a biological attack. In this case, it was not anthrax, it was another kind of threat,

smallpox. As a matter of fact, Senator Nunn testified before our

Armed Services Committee, of which I am a member, and we heard

of some of the lessons of that exercise.

One of the things I remember that Senator Nunn said was that

a few days into the exercise—he acted as President and he had his

cabinet and so forth—that a few days into the exercise, he got very

frustrated, he said, with bureaucracy. And a couple of things that

he left us with in terms of lessons learned from that exercise were,

one, the bureaucracy elements did not talk to one another, and two,

a powerful need to communicate with the American people.

We have gone through this anthrax attack and I think we have

picked up on the need to do both of those things. First, the bureaucracies have to communicate with one another and coordinate

with one another. We need Governor Ridge to step in and do a

great job of coordination. Second, we need to communicate to the

American people.

I think, in many ways, the Postal Service, and particularly the

Postal workers at Brentwood, fell through the bureaucratic crack

early on. The reason I say that is this: When we first got into the

anthrax issue, it was in Florida. It was basically cutaneous. How

did we even know it was anthrax?

We are very fortunate that there was a physician on the ward

there that thought that he might try to see if this might be that,

since it was not a common illness in America. He contacted the

Florida State Health Department in Jacksonville and was immediately in the public health channel. They contacted the CDC in Atlanta and the person that contacted the CDC in Atlanta had just

gone through a CDC class on anthrax. So about 3:30 one morning,

it was confirmed as an anthrax case. That is one reason we got

right on top of it. The CDC was called in early on. My understanding is that they were called in also on the New York case, the

Tom Brokaw case.

What happened with the anthrax case here in Washington? Well,

it seems it was handled in a different way through a whole set of

bureaucracies that were different than the public health bureaucracy. I understand that in your public testimony, your full testimony, you say the different focuses of various law enforcement and

health organizations occasionally resulted in parties speaking different languages, and absent an established protocol, lines of authority could occasionally be unclear. I think that is an understatement in terms of what happened.

32

What happened here was that letter went through Brentwood

into Senator Daschle’s office. We were told in the Senate that—

even the term ‘‘garden variety’’ was used, that it was not weapons

grade, that it was not all that dangerous, so to speak. A week later,

that story changed even for us, much less you out there and your

Postal workers on the front line.

But what happened here? It went to the Capitol Police, who took

it to the FBI, who did not send it to the CDC, which was on top

of the case. They sent it to Fort Detrick, Maryland, to a biological

warfare center that is trained to teach soldiers how to deal with

biological warfare in Kuwait, not how to deal with a public health

emergency here. So we got that evidence into another whole channel. It was an FBI–DOD channel, not the public health channel

where the CDC was most familiar and most expert.

So what happened? Ultimately, that Fort Detrick, Maryland, facility communicated with the FBI but not necessarily with the

CDC. Now we know that there has been through the years competition for resources and so forth between the biological warfare

center at Fort Detrick, Maryland, run by the Army and the CDC,

run by the HHS in Atlanta. So there was, like, subtle competition.

But in effect, the right hand did not know what the left hand was

doing.

So when you called for the Brentwood analysis from the CDC,

they came up. The only contact they had with anthrax and the information was the variety that landed in Florida and the variety

that landed in Tom Brokaw’s office. The problem was, when Senator Daschle’s office had a much higher level of quality of anthrax

and it was more lethal, it was more aerosoluble, so to speak, and

smaller in size in terms of spores. Therefore, your employees were

at risk. The CDC did not have that information until later.

The problem is, I think we need one central clearinghouse in this

whole effort to defend ourselves against germ warfare. We need a

totally coordinated effort here. That is one of the things I get out

of your experience and out of the experience of the Nation.

Let me just ask you, do you think that the authority exists in

Governor Tom Ridge’s office to go ahead and instill this sense of

discipline in defending our homeland and have a central clearinghouse for these kind of public health issues rather than it going off

to this agency and that agency and people like yourself not really

knowing who to believe?

Mr. POTTER. I personally believe that Governor Ridge can get

that accomplished. The response from Governor Ridge’s office to

the Postal Service has been nothing short of phenomenal. When we

did run into situations, we spoke to him and asked for some clear

direction on things. I have not had anybody fail to cooperate with

the Postal Service. A lot of what you described is news to me. As

you say, I cannot even comment on it.

But I can tell you this. I have never picked up the phone to ask

for help from anybody in the administration and not received it. I

did not always know who to ask, but Governor Ridge has helped

clarify that. I did not understand, and still to this day I am not totally clear on how the Public Health Administrations work around

the country, and in the health arena, there are a lot of opinions on

33

how to approach anything—the common flu—somebody gets prescribed different medications.

So we are learning as we go here. But I think the Federal Government is lined up now. Governor Ridge is providing the type of

coordination and direction that you speak of and I think, in terms

of me, I am satisfied that we are getting the level of cooperation

that I would expect.

Senator CLELAND. If we had another outbreak of anthrax in the

Postal Service around America, who would you ask? What would

you do? Would you go to Tom Ridge? Would you go immediately to

the CDC? Or would you just depend on Tom Ridge to guide you to

the best experts?

Mr. POTTER. If I knew that we had an outbreak of anthrax, I

would go to Secretary Thompson at Health and Human Services

and seek his advice. He has the medical experts that can help us

with that. He has the prophylactics, the drugs, prepositioned and

can move them into the spots around the country where we might

need them. He has the resources to bring on board to provide the

medical screening that is necessary.

When we set up in New York and in Washington, DC, to have

thousands of people receive medication, it was the resources that

we got from HHS. They provided the doctors. They provided the

screeners. And working jointly with all of the entities that report

to Secretary Thompson, they provided the resources that we needed. That is not to say that initially there was not a little bit of a

learning curve there, but I think certainly this has galvanized everybody in terms of being prepared to respond.

Senator CLELAND. Thank you very much, and thank you for your

response and thank you for your testimony.

Mr. POTTER. Thank you.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Cleland. I think you

know, tomorrow, we have folks here from CDC and, hopefully, from

the military, as well, so we can have some good cross-exchange on

exactly the points you are making.

Senator Voinovich.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I would like to thank you, Mr. Potter, for your service

to our country and the sacrifice of your family. I would like to

thank the many Postal workers that we have throughout the

United States whose families are worried about them, who are

coming to work every day to take care of the mail for the citizens

of our great country, so thank you very, very much.

Mr. POTTER. Thank you, Senator.

Senator VOINOVICH. The day after we had the attack on September 11, I went to mass over at St. Joseph’s and Father

Hemerick said that our lives have changed forever, and our lives

certainly have changed in this country forever. I see that as I walk

around the Capitol and see the barricades being put up and the

permanent blocks and so forth to secure our security here on the

Hill.

People at home are really worried. They have a cloud of fear

hanging over them, and I think it is our obligation, all of us, to do

34

what we can to lessen that fear, to lessen that anxiety. I have been

spending a lot of time just going around talking to people. People

are complaining that they cannot sleep at night. Mothers are worried about their kids. We have got to try to see what we can do

to alleviate that. Those who have strong faith, I suggest that they

ought to let go and let God—I think God has a plan.

But when you think about what you are doing, it has an enormous impact on people’s confidence in this country. Just as airline

security has had an impact on how we feel about ourselves and

about security in this country, the Postal Service has certainly had

a large impact on their lives because it is something that touches

them each day.

I think we ought to admit that we were not prepared for bioterrorism. I am not here to criticize you but to help you. We have not

done a very good job in the Senate, either. The day it happened in

Senator Daschle’s office, we were told not to worry about it. It is

not a problem. It is garden variety. Nobody needs to get the nasal

swab. The next day, we read in the paper that it is a higher level

of anthrax, that everybody ought to get their swabs. There was a

lot of disorientation and miscommunication and a lot of panic. So

you were confronted to a large degree with the same kind of problems that we had.

I think we have to also admit that in terms of physical terrorism,

we are a lot better prepared. I think that they did a marvelous job

up in New York and in Washington. Our local government officials

were there on the spot. Our search and rescue teams were there.

They had practiced. They were ready. They got the job done. I

think they did a pretty good job in Florida, too, in terms of responding to that situation that they had there.

I think the first thing that I am concerned about is taking care

of the families of the people who have lost their lives, and I am

going to ask you a series of questions. I will try to make them brief,

but what are we doing about those families to make them take care

of their physical needs? They are grieving for their loved ones that

they have lost. What is the Postal Service doing to take care of

them?

Mr. POTTER. Senator, from the outset, we have counselors there

with them. We set up, obviously, services for those people. We are

advising the families and making sure they get the benefits due

them. The Postal Service took care of the funeral arrangements

and the Postal Service was preparing a memorial service at the request of those families later this week or earlier next week. We are

not going to abandon those employees’ families. We are staying

very close to those families and we are doing what we can to help

with a very, very difficult transition for those families.

Senator VOINOVICH. I can say this, that the way you treat them

will have a lot to do with the rest of the Postal workers and how

they feel about the Postal Service, and I am very impressed with

what you are putting in place to try and restore their confidence

in going to work. I think it is really important for you to understand that if they feel confident and safe in their workplace and

they are taken care of, then the general public is going to feel much

more comfortable about their particular situation and their mail

delivery.

35

The other issue that is one that has been on my mind, because

I am concerned about the human capital crisis. How many people

in your Postal Service are eligible for retirement? Are you concerned at all about that?

Mr. POTTER. I am certainly concerned about the fact that we

have—I do not know the exact number, but we have better than

50 percent of our employees in that category, that are either eligible or will be eligible in very short order for retirement. So that is

a concern of mine.

One of the things that we are doing is attempting to recruit people with the appropriate degrees and move them into the chain so

that they can move up the management ranks. In 1992, we had a

program called the Management Intern Program that was designed

to do that, and it had been in place prior to 1992. In 1992, we

stopped that. We also stopped an engineering program.

Senator VOINOVICH. Are you covered by Title V of the Civil Service Code or do you have a separate hiring and firing program?

Mr. POTTER. We have a separate program, but we do have the

caps, compensation caps applied to the Federal Government.

Senator VOINOVICH. So you are worried about your personnel

problem?

Mr. POTTER. Right. We are worried about our ability to recruit

and we are worried about the fact that for the last 9 years, we have

not aggressively sought out people who have the same skills that

we need to replace some of the senior people that we have.

Senator VOINOVICH. I understand that you are not ready yet to

come to us with a comprehensive plan or at least a cost for a comprehensive plan to secure the Postal Service, is that right?

Mr. POTTER. We have estimates, but I would hesitate to give you

an exact number for fear of being too high or too low. I can tell you

that for certain it will be several billion dollars.

Senator VOINOVICH. Another thing that concerns me, Mr. Chairman, is that we have this problem and we are going to move forward and come up with a comprehensive plan to secure the mail.

But how reoccurring is this situation going to be in this country?

What kind of anthrax is it? How available is it to the common, ordinary person? If our intelligence and law enforcement people go

out and solve the previous cases, is there any chance at all that we

can eliminate the threat?

You can spend billions of dollars to secure the Post Office and

put in new technologies, but if we are successful in terms of our

law enforcement and intelligence and we eliminate the threat, then

this money has been spent unnecessarily. You have got to look at

it from a cost/benefit point of view. Have you spoken to the people

in the FBI and other places to really get a handle on just how significant this threat is and whether it will continue?

Mr. POTTER. Our evaluation has been that a vulnerability in our

system has been identified. What we are looking to do is shore up

that vulnerability. If one were to capture and arrest one or multiple people who are perpetrating this heinous act on America

today, that does not preclude the fact that somebody a year from

now, 6 months from now, would not choose to take advantage of

that vulnerability. Our goal is to look at all our procedures and try

and eliminate that vulnerability as best we can.

36

Senator VOINOVICH. Mr. Chairman, I would hope that in our

hearings, we could get some information back from the law enforcement people about just how often they believe that this threat will

occur. Is there any way that we can stamp it out so that we do not

have this threat hanging over our heads?

The last thing I want to ask you is an Ohio question. By the way,

it is not Lima (lee-ma), it is Lima (lie-ma), Ohio.

Mr. POTTER. I am from the Bronx. I do not know that place.

[Laughter.]

Senator VOINOVICH. But there has been a lot of talk in our papers about the potentially dangerous shipment of mail coming to

Ohio, and I would like for you to comment about how dangerous

that shipment is.

Mr. DAY. Senator, I have responsibility for that. Members of my

staff are dealing with it. We are being overly, extremely cautious

with the shipment of that product to that facility. We are using an

outside firm. We have contracted for a firm to bag all of that mail

that we send up there. There are no guidelines necessarily in place

for how you would transport anthrax, but we use the highest level

of hazardous material handling process for biohazards. So we are

following all of those procedures, working with the EPA to get it

properly prepared to transport it to Ohio. It is escorted. The Postal

Inspection Service has helped us with that.

Senator VOINOVICH. I guess what I am saying is that there is a

perception today that anthrax is like moving nuclear spent fuel or

hydrochloric acid. Put it on that level for me.

Mr. DAY. Senator, we are being, again, overly cautious. The risk

that there is actually anthrax in those vehicles is minimal, but we

are going to treat it as though there is. We are overly cautious.

There is not a risk that we see. Again, it is a level of caution so

that when it is irradiated, any possibility, and it is minimal, that

it would be irradiated and eliminated.

Senator VOINOVICH. OK. So if the truck tipped over and all the

mail went all over the highway or whatever, there is——

Mr. DAY. Senator, just as an example, it got local coverage in

Ohio. Unfortunately, one of the bags opened. A little bit of mail

spilled out. We filed all the protocols. We tested inside and outside

the vehicle, decontaminated the vehicle, rebagged everything.

Nothing was found. So this is a minimal risk.

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Senator Voinovich. Senator

Carnahan.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARNAHAN

Senator CARNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Clearly, there is a new group of heroes in America today and

they are the working men and women of this country, the Postal

workers, the police, the firemen, and those who are on the front

line in this battle against bioterrorism against our homeland today.

I want to extend my sympathy to the families of those who died

in the line of duty. They died in the performance of public service

and we should all be indebted to them.

We remember them all the more because they were among the

first to fall in this newest battle to preserve freedom, and we

37

pledge that we will do all the more to make it safe to handle and

deliver and to receive mail in this country. But I believe it is a

shared responsibility of the Congress, of the administration, and of

the Postal Service to put into place safeguards that will make it

possible for us to be able to receive our mail and feel safe and good

about it.

We have heard a lot today about the test site and about the decontamination effort. I was wondering if you would take just a

minute to tell us something about the testing. Is it a random testing? Is it something that covers every square inch of the area that

is defined? And then how does the decontamination process work?

Could you just tell us a little bit about that?

Mr. POTTER. I am going to let Pat Donahoe handle that.

Mr. DONAHOE. Senator, first, let us cover the testing. There have

been two types of testing we have done. One is in the areas where

we were suspicious, as Postmaster General Potter mentioned, in

New York, and in Washington. The CDC and the FBI had done the

testing in Trenton and down in Florida.

The rest of the testing we are doing, the additional 200 facilities,

is a precautionary effort. What we are doing is we are going out,

as Postmaster General Potter said, and identifying downstream operations like we had in Washington, DC, downstream operations

like we had in Trenton, and then a random sampling nationally of

our largest facilities to see if anything is out there and to get a

baseline.

From a remediation perspective, we are working very closely

with the Army Corps of Engineers, the EPA, and the local public

health people to really assess what is there. What we are seeing

is different in every case. What we have seen in Trenton and what

we have seen in Washington is a higher level than what we have

seen in New York and Florida. And once it is established what is

there, the local public health and the EPA people have been telling

us, these are the exact steps that you need to remediate. If we find

anything anywhere else in the country, we will follow that same

protocol. Our whole goal here is to assess the system and then

make sure it is safe for the employees and the general public.

Senator CARNAHAN. Thank you. I have one other question. Is

there any particular action that the Postal Service is taking to ensure the safety of the rural letter carriers who may not have the

same access to many of the resources that the Postal workers have

in the urban areas?

Mr. POTTER. All employees have been provided masks, gloves,

have been provided the same training, have gotten the postcard

from my office describing what they should do. The rural carriers

are part of the task force. They are at every meeting. They are not

being treated separately or differently from any other Postal employee.

Senator CARNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Carnahan. Senator Durbin.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DURBIN

Senator DURBIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

38

I would like to follow up on what Senator Carnahan said by way

of her introduction. I just hope for a moment that the critics of public employees and public employee unions are keeping score as they

reflect on the Postal workers, the police officers, and the fire fighters who have ended up on the front line of our war against terrorism since September 11. Many have given their lives, and Postal

workers Thomas Morris and Joseph Curseen served America and

their families deserve our sympathy and gratitude for their sacrifice and I thank you for being here, Mr. Postmaster, as well as

those on the panel.

Last Friday, I went to the Chicago facility. Danny Jackson, your

Vice President for the Great Lakes Region, came down. We met

with not only the postmaster, but all of the labor unions and a

group of employees in the facility and around the Chicago area,

and we had a conversation about safety.

This is a learning process for us on Capitol Hill and it is for you,

as well, in the Postal Service, and I was very pleased with what

I heard at that meeting. There was some confusion at the outset

about what employees could do and what they could wear and

where they could stand and whether they could wear a mask and

be at the window selling stamps and whether they had to wear

gloves. I think that is all starting to be clarified, and all of the answers I heard were extremely encouraging in terms of the attitude

of management toward the safety of the employees. If anything, I

came away with the conclusion that your people are going to err

on the side of protection, err on the side of caution. That is exactly

as it should be when lives are at stake.

One thing, I do not know if it has been mentioned at this hearing, Mr. Chairman, I think it is worth a question on the record. I

understand the Postal Service is going to initiate a system-wide effort to immunize everyone with the flu vaccine in the Postal Service. Can you tell me, Mr. Potter, what your plans are?

Mr. POTTER. I have asked the question whether or not that

would be an appropriate tack to take, and the reason I say that is

because with 800,000 employees, and if you just assume that 20

percent might get the flu, you would have 160,000 people going to

a physician and saying, I am a Postal employee. Consider the fact

that I might have been exposed to anthrax.

So we are working with the medical community to determine

whether or not undergoing an extensive flu campaign is appropriate. The Postal Service is considering paying for flu shots, but

again, not being a medical expert, I am seeking the advice as to

whether people should do that or should people not do that and I

have not gotten a definitive answer yet.

Senator DURBIN. It was my understanding on Friday that the decision had been made, but you are saying it has not been made?

Mr. POTTER. Unless something happened in the interim that I

am not aware of. We asked that question of the medical experts

and we were not given the definitive go-ahead because there were

some people who it is just not appropriate for them to take a flu

shot.

Senator DURBIN. Well, I can understand—— Mr. POTTER. It is my desire that if it is determined that is appropriate, that the Postal Service make the flu shots available to our

39

employees at the Postal Service’s expense. Now, I do not want people to misinterpret that in the sense that there are people who are

out there waiting to get flu shots, because again, I am going to use

the best medical advice that I can get before I make that type of

a decision or recommendation.

Senator DURBIN. Mr. Potter, I am not an expert in public health,

but the advice that is being given to every American is get a flu

shot, and certainly if you are working in a post office and it is

going to be a week or 10 days before it effectively protects you and

the symptoms of anthrax mirror the symptoms of flu at the earliest

stage, it would seem to me to be prudent. But I, too, like you,

would defer to the public health experts, but let me tell you, I

would not wait too long.

Mr. POTTER. I am not.

Senator DURBIN. I think we are——

Mr. POTTER. That is an ongoing issue that is talked about at our

task force meetings, and again, we are seeking the best medical advice. The last thing I want to do is put employees in harm’s way,

so there is a fine balance that I am trying to find here, but what

I just said stands.

Senator DURBIN. Could you get back to me after—— Mr. POTTER. Certainly.

Senator DURBIN [continuing]. Perhaps by tomorrow and let me

know what you have learned? I would appreciate that.

Mr. POTTER. Yes, Senator, I will.

Senator DURBIN. Now, I understand that the Daschle envelope

was a Postal Service envelope, if I am not mistaken, is that true?

Mr. POTTER. That is true.

Senator DURBIN. So you are familiar with the kind of paper that

is used in this envelope and that sort of thing, is that also true?

Mr. POTTER. Familiar with it, but not an expert on paper.

Senator DURBIN. We are all becoming expert in areas——

Mr. POTTER. On a lot of things.

Senator DURBIN [continuing]. We never thought about. Here I

am, a liberal arts lawyer, asking you about science, and I will do

my best. But it is my understanding that the sample in Senator

Daschle’s office is the largest sample of the anthrax that we have

come up with. It is also my understanding that the size of the particles were extremely small, 1 to 50 microns, I am told. Now, I do

not know what a micron is. The only thing I can remember is the

micronide filter when I was a kid, and I have no idea what it

means today.

But what I am trying to get at is this, if we know what the

standard issue is of that sort of paper in that envelope and the size

of the particles in the anthrax sample, are you in the process of

evaluating that in terms of future occurrences and vulnerability?

Mr. POTTER. Well, I can tell you this. We have issued an order

already to pull those envelopes off the public sale at this point until

we can evaluate those.

Senator DURBIN. Because they are too porous?

Mr. POTTER. Well, we do not know. We have to take a look. We

really do not know enough about the degree or the quality of paper

in there, but we want to check that. Again, we have learned a lot

over the last week ourselves as far as the size of the microns, the

40

whole issue, and what we have done is, as this whole investigation

moves along, we have been trying to move very quickly to get

ahead of it and that is one of the things we did.

Senator DURBIN. Let me ask you, Mr. Potter, what is your goal?

In your testimony, you talked about the electron beam system that

is currently being contracted for purchase. What is your goal? What

do you hope to achieve at the end of this process, once you have

brought this equipment in?

Mr. POTTER. My goal is—the goal of the Postal Service is to assure that all mail is safe, and by that, where we have open access

to mail, that we sanitize that mail because we are not sure of what

somebody might put into the mail stream.

Senator DURBIN. When I went to Chicago, we started talking

about how open the mail system is, with mailboxes everywhere and

people can put whatever they want into it.

Mr. POTTER. Right.

Senator DURBIN. I do not want to put words in your mouth, so

please correct me if I misstate this, but your goal is that once the

mail enters the mail system where workers are dealing with it——

Mr. POTTER. Prior to them touching the mail in a plant.

Senator DURBIN. Prior to their touching the mail.

Mr. POTTER. Prior to them introducing the mail into any piece

of equipment, it would be sanitized. Tom Day can talk about it, but

again——

Senator DURBIN. Let me give you my image here of the mailbox

being opened and the letter carrier or someone collecting it——

Mr. POTTER. We are going to look at our collection—we are looking at it from end to end.

Senator DURBIN. End to end.

Mr. POTTER. So we are going to start with the collection box and

look at the collection box to determine how we can have the carriers handle the mail safely——

Senator DURBIN. That is my point.

Mr. POTTER [continuing]. Under the assumption that there is a

problem with that mail.

Senator DURBIN. So it is from letter carrier——

Mr. POTTER. From the time——

Senator DURBIN [continuing]. Mail handler, at the earliest stage

right on through the process.

Mr. POTTER. Right. From the time it is handled at the collection

box until the time it hits the first machine, we are going to set up

safe handling procedures and put a mechanism in to sanitize the

mail before it could enter a machine and potentially become airborne.

Senator DURBIN. Thank you very much. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Senator Durbin.

Mr. Potter, I want to ask you just a few final questions and then

let you go. You have been very good with your time.

I gather from what you said at one point earlier that the Postal

Service has purchased a large number of gloves and masks for employees but that you are not requiring them to wear the masks or

use the gloves. Based on what we know now, why are you not requiring them to do that?

41

Mr. POTTER. We are working through a process of doing that. I

am becoming more and more familiar with laws that I never knew

existed, and again, we are working through that process.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So, what you mean, you are not sure you

can require them to use that material?

Mr. DONAHOE. Senator, what we are doing right now is we are

working with a number of different people. We have got the mask

itself. There are two different types of masks. We are working with

OSHA and with our unions. You have to make sure people have

been properly trained and instructed on how to use the masks.

There is also some testing you have to do with employees to make

sure that they are getting enough air in based on the type of mask

that we use. So we do not want to put people in more harm with

a mask in the short term.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK. Mr. Potter, as you know, for a period

of time, there were these contrasting pictures, that anthrax arrives

in Senator Daschle’s office, health experts come into the Capitol,

the buildings are closed, members and staff people are tested rapidly, and on the other hand, Postal employees who are in the line

of attack are not being quickly taken care of. And the question was

raised, and I want to give you the opportunity to answer it here,

were personnel who work here on Capitol Hill better treated in response to the anthrax scare and attack than employees of the Postal Service?

Mr. POTTER. It is my judgment that the people on the Hill had

anthrax. There was a known case of anthrax there, and that people

responded based on that knowledge. As I described earlier, in

Brentwood, we had no knowledge of that. We were operating under

the theory that the envelopes were well sealed and that there was

little, if any, chance that anthrax would come out of that envelope.

So in terms of the science and how it was handled, I would say

the answer is no. If you look at the end of the day and you use

judgment, with hindsight you have 100 percent knowledge, one

could make the case. But in terms of the thinking and the thought

process at the time, no.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. In a way, your answer may answer the

next one I want to ask you. It is a very tough question. I am sure

it is one you have asked yourself and others in the Postal Service

have asked themselves. Two of your own died, Mr. Curseen and

Mr. Morris. As you look back, is there anything you could have

done to have protected those lives?

Mr. POTTER. Well, certainly had they been wearing masks, they

would have been protected, and we have those out there. Certainly,

some of the employees who have cutaneous anthrax, if they had

been wearing gloves, would have been protected, so we are moving

ahead with that as rapidly as possible. We are moving ahead with

targeted screening, again, to try and keep, as best we can, pieces

of mail that may contain anthrax out of our system. So we have

taken the measures that we know how to take is probably the best

answer I can give you, Senator.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. A final question, and you have answered

it along the way a bit, but just to summarize, from what you know

now, what can we on this Committee or members of Congress do

in the near term to support you in not only protecting Postal workVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Aug 17, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 76808.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
42

ers but keeping the mail system functioning and protecting the

American people who depend on the mails?

Mr. POTTER. Again, the best thing that we can do now is protect

our employees. We are going to have to fund screening, and it may

grow in terms of what we do. So certainly there is a funding issue

associated with the short-term effort as well as the longer-term effort, and I think that is the area where we are going to need help

the most and we are going to work with you, hopefully, to secure

that funding.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. We will work with you, as well, and with

all the people who work for you. Thank you very much for your

time.

Senator VOINOVICH. Would you mind if I asked another question?

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Not at all. Go right ahead.

Senator VOINOVICH. I would be very interested in finding out

from you, not today but maybe in the next couple of days, the kind

of team that you have put together to come back with recommendations on how you are going to protect the Postal workers and the

Postal Service.

As a former governor and mayor, I have found too often that

when a problem arises, outside people come in and evaluate it but

we do not involve the people who are actually doing the job in making the recommendation. So I want to find out who is on that team

that is coming back to you to recommend what you should do in

order to take care of the problem. Second, I would like to know

whether or not the union representatives are involved on that

team.

Mr. POTTER. I would like to, if I could, just respond, and we will

respond in greater detail. But we have, as was described in my testimony, a task force that has been established. That task force has

union-management association representatives on it. In addition,

we are seeking mailer participation in that task force.

We have established a number of subcommittees that are going

to work on issues of a long-term nature. We are meeting on a daily

basis to address short-term issues, but we have established committees, working committees, that are looking at the longer-term

issues to make sure that there is follow-through, and I will be

happy to provide that response to the Committee for the record and

certainly you, Senator. Thank you for asking the question.

Senator VOINOVICH. Yesterday, we had a mail hoax anthrax situation. I would like you to reiterate how serious a crime that is and

how aggressive you are going to be in prosecuting those people that

engage in that kind of activity. Allegedly, this was somebody that

sent some baking powder to an ex-girlfriend of his that ‘‘opened’’

it in the office and people evacuated and it was quite a scene there

in the Cleveland Post Office. I think we have got to make it very

clear to these people that this is serious.

Mr. POTTER. I wholeheartedly agree. We have been extremely aggressive in terms of attempting, working with our Inspection Service, the FBI, and local law enforcement agencies to seek out those

committing hoaxes. We are going to prosecute them to the fullest

extent of the law. It is not a laughing matter. We have gone on

record in terms of our own employees that there is zero tolerance

43

1The prepeared statement of Mr. Burrus appears in the Appendix on page 131.

for anyone involved with perpetrating a hoax, making jokes about

this.

This is not a laughing matter. It is preying on the fear of the

American public and we are doing everything that we can. We are

going after people as aggressively as we can to find those who are

perpetrating these hoaxes. It is not a joke. It is doing a great deal

of damage to the psyche of the American public and we are taking

each and every situation seriously. It is a Federal crime. We are

prosecuting it as a Federal crime.

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Two good points, Senator Voinovich.

Thanks, Mr. Potter. I was just thinking as we were talking about

your need for resources that Congress and the President responded

very quickly with a substantial amount of money to the airline industry after September 11. We really owe it to you, if you will, our

own, and all those who work for you, to do the same and we await

your specific statement of needs and we will do our best to meet

them.

Mr. POTTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. We will now move to the second panel,

Gus Baffa, President, National Rural Letter Carriers Association;

William Burrus, President-Elect of the American Postal Workers

Union, accompanied by Denise Manley, who is in the Government

Mail Section at the Brentwood Post Office; William Quinn, the

President of the National Postal Mail Handlers Union; and Vincent

Sombrotto, President of the National Association of Letter Carriers,

who will be accompanied by Tony DiStephano, Jr., President of the

Letter Carriers Branch 380 in Trenton, New Jersey.

Let me ask all of you to come as quickly as you can to the table.

I appreciate your being with us today and your patience. I guess

we are going to go left to right here this morning.

Therefore, Mr. Burrus, welcome. We are going to call on you first

to offer your testimony. Thanks for being here and we look forward

to hearing from you and working with you.

TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM BURRUS,1 PRESIDENT-ELECT, AMERICAN POSTAL WORKERS UNION, AFL–CIO, ACCOMPANIED BY

DENISE MANLEY, DISTRIBUTION CLERK, GOVERNMENT

MAIL SECTION, BRENTWOOD MAIL PROCESSING FACILITY

Mr. BURRUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the

Committee, and thank you for providing us this opportunity to testify today.

With me today is Denise Manley, who is employed as a Distribution Clerk in the Government Mail Section of the Brentwood mail

processing facility. I believe that she can respond to a question that

was asked earlier regarding the physical handling of government

mail, but based upon the Senator’s admonishment earlier, perhaps

it would be in our best interest that she not explain how that mail

is handled inside the Postal facilities.

The American Postal Workers Union represents approximately

380,000 employees of the U.S. Postal Service. Our members work

in every State and territory of the United States, and the very fact

44

that these men and women have continued to work in the post office since anthrax was first discovered in the mail has been nothing

short of heroic. I am proud and humbled to be representing them

before you today. In the face of unknown and potentially deadly

danger, they have been determined and steadfast in the performance of their duties.

I will submit written testimony for the record and I have an additional statement to make to you this morning.

I want to emphasize that despite the deaths and injuries that

have occurred, the American Postal Workers Union and the U.S.

Postal Service have approached these tragedies and these challenges together. We entered this process in an adversarial relationship. The American Postal Workers Union has traditionally had

major disputes with the U.S. Postal Service.

In fact, just 10 days prior to the discovery of the first Daschle

letter, Postal management had issued a shake test for suspicious

packages and parcels and we were in the process of resolving that

with Postal management, seeking to convince them that if a parcel

had the markings of being dangerous, it would not be in the interests of the Postal Service or the employee to raise that package to

eye level and shake it. We were able to resolve that issue and we

have been able to address many of the anthrax situations together.

The APWU sees this as a situation where we and the Postal

Service must confront a common enemy for the good of the Postal

Service and for the good of the country. The employer has a legal

and moral obligation to provide a safe and secure workplace. In

this crisis, we have sought always to do the best that could be done

to safeguard the lives of Postal workers. We have set aside our

labor-management differences and worked together to protect lives.

We cannot bring back life to our brothers who are now deceased.

All we can do, and we are doing all that we can, is to work with

Postal management and the other Postal labor unions and management associations to try to make sure that we will never again be

required to attend the funeral of a Postal employee whose life has

been taken through a terrorist attack. This has been our approach

and we will continue to work with management to safeguard Postal

lives.

Having said this, I want to alert the Committee to a serious

problem that has been made even worse by this crisis. As Postal

management publicly expresses its sorrow and concern for deceased

Postal workers and their families, they are simultaneously attempting to cut the wages and health benefits of those very workers, using the impact of this act of terrorism as justification for a

reduction in their wages and benefits. Postal workers have been

without a contract since November 2000. Management has refused

to negotiate a new labor agreement and is seeking to impose cuts

in Postal workers’ wages and health benefits. These are proposals

that have been advanced in bargaining before and failed, but this

time, they seem to hope that the anthrax crisis will give them an

opportunity to achieve them.

The APWU cannot understand how management can expect employees who are required to work in masks and gloves to accept a

cut in pay. These employees report to work every day not knowing

if that is the day they will be infected with anthrax. Cipro and

45

masks have become a condition of employment. The APWU will not

tolerate or accept management’s attempt to exploit this tragic situation to achieve their long-sought goal of cutting Postal wages and

benefits.

This is not the time or place for me to go into these issues in detail. I have called an emergency meeting of the APWU’s executive

board to prepare our response to management’s actions, and I have

scheduled a press conference at which time I will make a longer

statement on this subject and respond to questions.

The focus of today’s hearing should be and is the safety of Postal

employees. This is our first and our primary concern. Thank you

for your attention.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Mr. Burrus, very much.

Ms. Manley, do you want to make a statement now?

Ms. MANLEY. Only a small one, if you do not mind.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Please do, and then if I might assist you

in it or what I think is on the minds of Members of the Committee

and then give you the time to respond as you normally would if you

made a statement.

You work in the Government Mail Section at the Brentwood facility, and what is really on our minds is whether you feel, from

what you know of it, based on what you know and what you have

heard today, whether you and the other Postal workers there feel

that you were given adequate protection and treatment, and in another sense, whether since all the facts became clear, anything has

changed where you are working.

Ms. MANLEY. To my knowledge, the employees were quite upset

because they felt that they were not treated accordingly. In my section alone, we felt that we should have been the first ones, since

we handled the mail.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right.

Ms. MANLEY. But the powers to be, it was out of our hands as

being employees. We had to follow rules, regulations, and instructions.

As far as what is happening now as far as the gloves and the

masks, we are getting the gloves. We are getting the masks. There

are times when there is not enough, but they will go out and get

some wherever they can get them. The gloves, the original gloves

that we got were all one size, very thin quality, but they have improved.

At this point, the employees are just very scared. They do not

know who might be next or what might happen and we just want

to make sure that the employees have the safety that upper management is telling you that they are going to provide for us. They

do not want it to be stopped just at this level. They want to really

see it. It is one thing to say it and then it is another not to see

it.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I thank you for that statement. We hear

you. That is exactly the intention of this Committee, to support

what you have asked for and we will come back and ask you some

questions after we hear from the other witnesses.

Mr. Sombrotto, good morning. Thanks for being here.

46

1The prepared statement of Mr. Sombrotto appears in the Appendix on page 139.

TESTIMONY OF VINCENT R. SOMBROTTO,1 PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LETTER CARRIERS (NALC), ACCOMPANIED BY TONY DiSTEPHANO, JR., PRESIDENT, NALC

BRANCH 380, TRENTON, NEW JERSEY

Mr. SOMBROTTO. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of

the Committee. I have a written statement which I have provided

to the Committee and I want that entered into the record, or I

would ask that it be entered into the record.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Without objection, it will be.

Mr. SOMBROTTO. I would like to make some comments about this

whole situation as it involves anthrax and particularly how it affected and continues to affect our membership, the letter carriers

that deliver America’s mail.

At the outset, my first concern was for the safety of the men and

women that I represent. How could I be assured and how could I

assure them that going about their daily tasks of preparing and delivering the mail would not endanger their safety, their health, and

their lives?

To that extent, I had some reassurance because the Postmaster

General, to his credit, acted very quickly by assembling a task force

that was composed of higher management, the Postal Inspection

Service, and all of the unions and the union presidents to be members of that task force, and, I might add, then the management organizations within the Postal Service.

At every step of the way, at every bit of information that the

Postmaster General learned, he brought it to the attention of the

task force and we dealt with those questions and we gave our concerns and our recommendations. He asked us to get feedback from

our members. What were they hearing? What were they experiencing? How could that help them? He felt that we would get information that he would not have access to.

And so we did that and we continue to do it. Every day at 10

o’clock every morning, we all meet with the Postmaster General

and we met with his other representatives to be advised as to just

what the circumstances and conditions are and how we are dealing

with this threat of the proliferation of anthrax throughout the Postal system.

I must say that there have been some incidents that I have to

point out that cause us, certainly the National Association of Letter

Carriers, some concern. When Senator Daschle received the letter,

and we all know that whole story, it has been repeated here many

times this morning, the actions taken were swift and they were

right on target. The staff members of the Senate, those in close

proximity to the Senator’s office, those that worked in that particular facility were tested immediately to see if they had contracted anthrax. They were provided with the proper medication.

They were given the Cipro that would arrest the situation, at least

temporarily, while at the same time in New York City, where a

newscaster, Tom Brokaw, had received a letter that also contained

anthrax.

When we asked for the same sort of rapid treatment from the authorities, and that is that the letter carriers that worked in the faVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Aug 17, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 76808.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
47

cility that that letter went through and the five carriers that are

responsible for handling and delivering those letters were asked to

be tested and to be provided with medication, they were refused.

Of course, it was only with our intervention and continuing haranguing that they ultimately did get tested and were provided

medication.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Could you just go over that again? In

other words, those were five letter carriers, and where did they

work?

Mr. SOMBROTTO. They worked at the Radio City unit that delivers the mail to NBC.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So what they first asked when this came

out was to be tested and given antibiotics, if they——

Mr. SOMBROTTO. That is correct. In fact, all of the employees—

there are 90 letter carriers in that facility—asked to be tested. The

Postal Service was willing to test them, in fact, was willing to pay

for the tests, if necessary. But the CDC said that it was not necessary, it was not appropriate, and they did not have to be tested.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So that is why they were turned down?

Mr. SOMBROTTO. That is correct. And I want to point that out.

That is one incident. Ultimately, they were tested, and ultimately,

they were given the medication. But right here in Trenton, New

Jersey, where we have had another spot where the mail, actually

these letters were deposited and were processed, in the immediate

area, there are some 40 other satellite post offices that in one way

or another are connected to Trenton and the Postal Service announced that all of these employees should be tested. All of them

should be provided with the appropriate medication.

Once again, the CDC stepped in and said that it was not necessary and it was not appropriate, and to this moment, I believe

that they have not been tested nor have they been given the medication. I do understand from personal knowledge that in Trenton,

all of the employees have been given the medication, but I do not

know if all of them have been actually tested, but we have a letter

carrier here from that facility that can speak firsthand to that

issue.

I visited both Brentwood and Trenton. I spoke to letter carriers

in both those facilities. Let me report here with a great deal of

pride that the letter carriers have gone about their business every

day delivering the mail in those facilities. In Trenton, they set up

their own cases in a tent so that they could process and prepare

the mail for delivery and have been delivering the mail. The same

thing is true in Brentwood. They have been delivering the mail,

still again processing it in a tent, and I have pictures here, photographs that show the extent of their involvement.

The fact is that, speaking to these letter carriers, there are over

400, 200 in each site. They all were committed to the proposition

that they have a job to do and they are going to do their job. The

one thing that they insist on knowing is how they are going to do

it in a safe environment. What they asked of me was that was I

assured that everything was being done to protect their safety, and

I could say unequivocally, as far as my firsthand knowledge was,

that the Postal Service has been doing everything humanly posVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Aug 17, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 76808.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
48

sible to protect the interest of not only the Postal employees, but

the American public, as well.

And so as the letter carriers all over this Nation and particularly

in those areas where anthrax has been introduced into the work

stream, they are delivering their mail every day and serving the

American public.

And if I may make a comment, because I heard some of the questions sitting here listening to the Postmaster General’s testimony

about this attack on America, attack on us, just last week, I had

the privilege of meeting with the President of the United States

with the Postmaster General to speak about this issue and he identified this is a war on two fronts, a war, one, being fought in Afghanistan by young men and women of our Nation, our Nation’s

military, and a war that will be fought on our shores here, and

there is a new army with different uniforms and here is one of

them that is wearing that uniform. And then he asked me to convey a message to all of the members of our union, that he is depending on us not to be intimidated by these terrorists that wish

to upset our Nation and intimidate and coerce our Nation.

One of the things that occurred to me was that this was not a

random selection of picking the Postal Service as a target. The

Postal Service is an institution that exemplifies and both characterizes those things that Americans fundamentally respect as citizens

of this Nation and that is our freedom. That is our ability to converse, to communicate, to travel freely and to interact with other

citizens freely. There is no institution in this Nation that has the

same kind of responsibility as the Postal Service has.

When one thinks about it, you can go to any mail receptacle, any

mail collection box in this country. Any citizen or non-citizen can

deposit a letter. All it needs is an address. It does not even have

to have your return address on it. You can do that with the absolute assurance that that letter will not be tampered with, that no

one will examine it, no one will read it, no one will look into it until

it gets to its final destination. That is a form of liberty that people

understand, and when they attack that type of liberty, they attack

the actual foundation of our whole culture. But our Founding Fathers said that this has to be a free and open society.

And so when letter carriers such as Tony DiStephano here go

about their business every day and deliver the mail, they are carrying out that part of freedom that we cherish so much in this Nation and we cannot allow this Postal Service to be intimidated. It

must continue. It must get the type of help that it needs from our

representatives in Congress so that we can show anyone that wishes to declare war on the United States, you can declare war, but

every one of its citizens rally to the flag and rally to the tradition

of defending our freedom and our liberty.

I want to thank this Committee for holding these hearings because it is of vital importance. I go back to my members with the

assurance that we are doing everything humanly possible to protect

their safety and their health and certainly their freedom and their

liberty.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Mr. Sombrotto. Very well said,

and I thank you for that statement.

Mr. DiStephano, we would be delighted to hear from you now.

49

1The prepared statement of Mr. Quinn appears in the Appendix on page 146.

Mr. DISTEPHANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Tony

DiStephano, Jr. I am a working letter carrier currently at the

Hamilton facility located in Trenton, New Jersey. I am also President of Branch 380 of the National Association of Letter Carriers.

Our branch has 542 members, both active and retired.

After our facility was closed on Thursday, October 18, we continued to sort and deliver the mail in a makeshift worksite in the

parking lot behind the facility. Currently, all craft employees are

working together under a tent that has been set up at the location

so we can process and move the mail. I am happy and proud to say

that all craft employees have pitched in to make sure that the mail

is being delivered in a timely manner, despite somewhat the hectic

circumstances.

Mr. Chairman, it is my pleasure to be here today to share with

you the manner in which our letter carriers and other Postal employees responded during this time. I will be happy to answer any

questions you may have. Thank you, sir.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Mr. DiStephano. Thanks for

what you have done and I hope you will convey back to your members and through them to all of the people that work for the Postal

Service—I say the same to you, Ms. Manley—our gratitude and our

intention to do everything we can to protect the vital service you

do for us. I appreciate you being here.

Mr. DISTEPHANO. Thank you.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Bill Quinn is the President of the National Postal Mail Handlers Union.

TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM H. QUINN,1 NATIONAL PRESIDENT,

NATIONAL POSTAL MAIL HANDLERS UNION

Mr. QUINN. Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the

Committee, my name is Billy Quinn. I am the National President

of the National Postal Mail Handlers Union. On behalf of the over

50,000 union mail handlers employed by the U.S. Postal Service,

I appreciate the opportunity to testify about the challenges of safety and security that currently are being faced by the Postal Service

and our Postal employees.

The mail handlers we represent are an essential part of the mail

processing and distribution network utilized by the Postal Service

to move more than 200 billion pieces of mail each year. Mail handlers work in all of the Nation’s large Postal plants and are responsible for loading and unloading trucks, transporting mail within

the facility, preparing the mail for distribution and delivery, operating a host of machinery and automated equipment, and containerizing mail for subsequent delivery. Our members are generally

the first and last employees to handle the mail as it comes to, goes

through, and leaves most Postal plants.

Our paramount concern is the safety of Postal employees, including all mail handlers. To this end, we have been active participants

in the Mail Security Task Force that has been established by Postal management and includes representatives of all unions and employee associations.

50

That task force is implementing plans to prevent infection by anthrax or other biological agents that may be sent through the

mails. Among other issues, the task force is addressing the need to

close affected facilities until they can be certified as safe for all employees, the distribution of necessary antibiotics to Postal employees, the distribution and use of masks and gloves that may be helpful in preventing anthrax infections, the development and delivery

of safety training programs, and the development of revised cleaning methods for mail processing equipment. The task force also is

looking to the future and is considering a host of issues, such as

anthrax vaccines and irradiation of the mail.

I must say, however, that the task force is having great difficulty

keeping up with the news and information cycle that has developed

around the anthrax issue, and even when the task force has current and accurate information, the timely dissemination of that information to more than 800,000 Postal employees and thousands of

Postal facilities is extremely difficult. This problem is exacerbated

by the confusing and often contradictory information that is coming

out of Postal headquarters, the Centers for Disease Control, and

State and local health authorities.

I just returned from a meeting of all our local union officers and

representatives. After a lengthy discussion of the various safety

and medical issues facing mail handlers, our local leadership was

fully informed with as much accurate information as possible. Even

with this information, however, these representatives remain anxious. Certainly they know that mail handlers must exercise caution

while processing the mail, but they are less certain about precisely

what to tell their members about the specific steps mail handlers

should take to ensure their own safety. On the workroom floor,

there is even more anxiety because members have even less access

to accurate information.

The key, therefore, is the timely dissemination of accurate safety

and medical information. That should be the focus of the task force

and that must be the focus of Postal management, the CDC, and

State and local health officials. What is needed now is the constant

dissemination of accurate and, to the maximum extent possible,

consistent safety and medical information to all Postal employees.

Mail handlers and other Postal employees deserve the best available scientific protection against this bioterrorism. Through science

and reason, we can overcome rumor and fear. In that regard, the

most important action Congress can take is to appropriate all of

the funds necessary for the Postal Service to process mail safely

without harm to employees.

It is unfortunate that it takes an incident such as this to make

people aware of the hazards of working in Postal facilities. Ten

years ago, it was the threat of AIDS from needles and blood spills

coming from medical waste in poorly constructed packaging in the

Postal System. With the help of Congressional oversight, that problem has largely been eliminated. Yet, our members still face hazardous working conditions. All of the Postal unions have written to

Congress, have testified about the need for protection from dangerous equipment and terrible ergonomic injuries.

We, therefore, need to take this tragedy and turn it into a positive movement for workers’ safety. This is a unique moment when

51

1The prepared statement of Mr. Baffa appears in the Appendix on page 151.

American citizens have again been made aware of the great importance that the Postal Service serves in our Nation’s communications network. They will rally behind a sustained movement to

make the Postal workplace safe for its employees and a source of

confidence for its customers. To do any less would be to fail in our

commitment to the future integrity of the U.S. Postal System.

I want to thank you and I will be glad to answer any questions

that you may have.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Quinn. Mr.

Baffa, thanks for being here.

TESTIMONY OF GUS BAFFA,1 PRESIDENT, NATIONAL RURAL

LETTER CARRIERS ASSOCIATION (NRLCA)

Mr. BAFFA. Good morning. Mr. Chairman, I submitted my statement and I request that it be made part of the record.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. It will be printed in the record in full,

along with the other statements submitted.

Mr. BAFFA. I have a short statement.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Please proceed.

Mr. BAFFA. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, my

name is Gus Baffa. I am the newly-elected President of the

100,000-plus National Rural Letter Carriers Association and I want

to thank you, first of all, for holding these hearings.

The Postal Service has attempted to do its very best during this

crisis. There is no playbook to follow. This is a road none of us have

traveled down before. It does not matter if we are referring to a

rural carrier, a city carrier, a clerk, a mail handler, the PMG, the

FBI, or the CDC. It is new to all of us. Postal workers are part of

the army of foot soldiers in this war against terrorism and back towards normalcy. As our President said, we must continue life as

normal. Our members are doing that every day. They are reporting

to work, casing the mail, putting it in our vehicles, and delivering

it.

Sure, some are very worried. As a Kentucky rural carrier said in

a National Public Radio interview, when asked if anything had

changed, he replied, ‘‘Sure. Now when I go home every day, instead

of picking up my 3-year-old daughter who is waiting to give me a

welcome kiss with her arms outstretched, I need to take a shower

first.’’

At this time of extreme anxiety, Postmaster General Potter and

Postal employees across the country have stepped up to the plate

to ensure continued delivery of our Nation’s mail. It is now time

for Congress to step up to the plate by appropriating the necessary

funds to ensure safe and ongoing mail delivery.

Mr. Chairman, we are grateful to the White House and the Con- gress for the $175 million as a short-term carry-over for November.

We also appreciate the $63 million that has been sent to the Postal

Service for the destruction of the Church Street Station in New

York City. However, we desperately need additional appropriation

assistance with the enormous costs of sanitizing the mail and the

significant revenue losses associated with this disruption.

52

A high-level task force consisting of Postal Service headquarters,

officers, the presidents of the seven employee organizations and

unions, the Chief Postal Inspector, the Inspector General, and the

CDC have been meeting daily. I am part of those meetings on a

daily basis. These meetings bring concerns and questions from our

membership to management and the CDC. It is management’s opportunity to share the latest actions with us so that we may disseminate them to our members. It is a vital communication in this

period of uncertainty.

These meetings are where we learned that the Postal Service had

purchased the face masks and the gloves for the employees. They

have also, the Postal Service, consulted with the Department of Defense and are purchasing, as heard earlier this morning, the irradiation equipment to kill any and all biological agents.

This war effort will not be cheap or completed without sacrifice.

The Postal Service needs an appropriation for the long-term sanitation of the mail to protect employees and customers alike.

Again, we want to thank you for the opportunity to speak this

morning, and if you all have any questions, I am ready to answer.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Mr. Baffa.

I thank you all for your testimony. As I hear most of you, what

I hear is not criticism of the Postal Service’s conduct in this matter,

and that may not, in fact, be different from what we were hearing

certainly from employees at Brentwood, but the mood of it is certainly different and I just want you to talk about it.

I remember seeing an article in the Washington Post where a

man, who I think was a driver at Brentwood, said that once it was

known that there was anthrax in the letter sent to Senator

Daschle’s office, in the Postal Service, everybody knew or should

have known that that would have come through the Brentwood facility and I do not know if it was done. I remember he used a word

which really struck me when he said they had treated us as if we

are expendable.

I wonder if you would react to that. Do you feel that maybe the

Postal Service, as I have heard you say, did as much as it could

do based on the information it was getting? Mr. Burrus, do you

want to respond to that?

Mr. BURRUS. Yes, Mr. Chairman. The position of the national

union is we have done everything possible to avoid placing blame.

That has not been easy because a lot of our members and some of

our local leaders are seeking to place blame. So we have tried to

walk that fine tightrope of not focusing on whether the CDC or the

U.S. Postal Service played any role in the death of those two individuals and focus the attention of our members on the terrorists.

And my message to our members has been that—I have a teleconference every Friday. Last week, we had 500 different sites that

were clued in to the teleconference, probably reaching 10,000 to

20,000 of our members, and I would expect that the one this Friday

will reach even more. And as I received those inquiries from our

members, it is when is my national union going to blame someone?

I tried to share with them that our responsibility has moved beyond the blame. We have to provide safety for you. And once we

place blame and we do in unison point our finger at someone, we

are no closer to providing safety as we were before we began that

53

exercise. So I have attempted to focus the attention of our members

on the terrorists themselves as well as trying to develop safe conditions for them.

We are going to mourn our brothers. We are going to set aside

the week of November 12 through 16 as a week in their honor, request donations from our members and our locals that we can give

to the families, and we are going to say to America that Postal employees are heroes, too, and we are going to bring that message

through that week in honor of our fallen brothers.

But our message has been consistent. Even though we have had

consistent adversarial relationships with the Postal Service, and

you can detect that in my statement, we have been in this together.

I have avoided the media as much as I can, understanding that we

would best be served with a single spokesperson, the Postmaster

General. It was not an APWU versus the USPS fight, it is the Postal community’s fight.

So I have tried to avoid the media. I have done some spots, but

tried to defer all the attention to the head of this organization, who

is the Postmaster General, and by doing that, I think I have been

able to quell some of the concern of our members, and there is a

desire to place blame. We represent almost 400,000 Postal employees and they want somebody’s scalp, many of them do. And hopefully, I have deflected that anger.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Do any other members of the panel want

to respond to that question? Mr. Sombrotto, if I remember correctly, you said in your testimony that you thought the Postal Service had done or was doing everything humanly possible to protect

the interests of the Postal workers.

Mr. SOMBROTTO. Yes, and there is no question about that. If, I,

for one moment thought that they were not doing everything humanly possible, I would have been in my attack mode. I have spent

my whole career, over 50 years in the Postal Service, attacking

Postal management and I found myself in the unusual circumstance because of their actions, because of the Postmaster General’s concern. He said that he is concerned with the safety of the

Postal employees that are employed by the Postal Service, said he

was going to do everything possible with our help.

And so working in conjunction with, as you have heard, the various organization heads, we have tried to develop strategies that

would best protect the safety of our members and his employees

and, of course, the American public, as well——

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right.

Mr. SOMBROTTO [continuing]. Because we have to serve that

American public and they have to have confidence that what we

are doing is safe and secure for them as well as for us. And so in

that sense, he has done a remarkable job and I feel very secure in

telling our members that we are doing everything possible to protect their health and safety.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Ms. Manley or Mr. DiStephano, do you

want to add anything to that? I know at Brentwood particularly,

people have been understandably feeling agitated and some are

certainly being quoted in the media as feeling that not enough was

done quickly enough to protect the workers.

54

Ms. MANLEY. As I have sat here through this morning and listened to the Postmaster General, I have a better understanding of

the situation as it was earlier. It is unfortunate that my fellow coworkers were not aware of everything that has been done or being

possibly done because that information is not being assimilated to

the workroom floor. It is unfortunate.

Hopefully, I will be able to go back to Brentwood and tell my coworkers that this is a new day, a new situation, and we are still

a Postal family. The Postmaster General is doing everything humanly possible that he can do with the help that he is getting from

wherever he is getting it from. We just have to be patient, work

together, and continue to get our mail out as quickly and adequately as we can.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks. Mr. DiStephano, do you want to

add anything?

Mr. DISTEPHANO. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I just think the experience

that I just went through in Trenton, New Jersey, I think our biggest detriment was the great deal of uncertainty of the higher officials, the people that we depend on to get accurate information,

and I hope today, exchanging this information, that possibly it will

avoid confusion in the future and we can have a set outline, so to

speak, so then we could just go to the book and say, this is the protocol and everybody is on the same page, and that is very, very important, because we got into a situation where it is like gridlock.

One agency is saying one thing. Another agency is saying another

thing.

So I think if we can be constructive today and basically come up

with an outline, I think we will be far better off in the future. Like

you said, we have the safety at hand and people’s livelihoods, so

if we can do that today, I think we will be better off in the future.

Thank you, sir.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you. I must say, I admire your cohesiveness. I know that everybody at the table at one time or another has not hesitated to take on the Postal Service and do it

quite directly. So the fact that you are not here means you have

come to the conclusion that they do not deserve it and that there

is a higher purpose here, which is typical, I think, of the kind of

unity that we have felt around the country since September 11 and

I admire you greatly for it.

I do want to say, if it is any comfort, and maybe it is not, that

here on Capitol Hill as we look back after the letter to Senator

Daschle’s office, we feel—certainly I do, I will speak for myself—

that the information and the advice we were getting was also confusing, contradictory, often incomplete, and changing as this went

on, and maybe that is part of the sad story here.

Senator Voinovich.

Senator VOINOVICH. Mr. Chairman, I first of all want to thank

all of you for being here today and I want to thank you for your

sacrifice and for your service and for your courage. I agree with the

President that you are our new soldiers on the front line. Just as

we have tried to provide them with the equipment and training

and other things that they need to serve our country, we have an

obligation to you to do the same thing.

55

I was interested that Mr. Quinn commented that he felt that you

were getting the kind of participation that you want in terms of the

recommendations coming back from the Postal Service about what

it is that needs to be done to secure your well-being and to protect

the public. Are you satisfied that you are getting the participation

that you need so that we get the best recommendations rather than

some outside group coming in and saying, this is the way we think

it ought to be done?

Mr. BURRUS. If you start in the same order, I guess I would be

first. For the American Postal Workers Union, we are certainly

convinced that we are being permitted to participate fully. We participate in the meeting at 10 o’clock every morning. We have major

input. We are listened to. Many of our suggestions are enacted. We

are sharing information about ongoing activities within the Postal

Service, giving a scorecard as to the employees that are hospitalized and the differences between the infections of the employees. So

we are very well satisfied with the involvement of the unions in the

sharing of information and having the opportunity to have input

into policy.

Senator VOINOVICH. Mr. Sombrotto.

Mr. SOMBROTTO. If I may, I mentioned earlier that I visited both

the Brentwood facility and I visited Trenton and spoke firsthand to

about 200 carriers in each facility. I did that with a great deal of

trepidation. You go there and I expected that I would be inundated

with complaints about numerous things, particularly in view of the

fact that it looked and certainly appeared that those represented

on Capitol Hill were getting faster and better treatment than letter

carriers and other Postal employees in these facilities.

And I must say, it amazes me to this moment that group of men

and women that usually have complaints—there is never an end to

the complaints that they have—I received not one complaint by any

one of those individuals that were in those parking lots. Were they

concerned about their safety? You bet they are. Were there anxieties? You bet there were.

What they needed was assurance that we are doing everything

possible to protect their interests, and as I said, I can say it with

a firm knowledge that we are doing everything that is possible. The

Postal Service is doing everything that is possible. Together, all of

us are doing everything that is possible to protect their interests

and we are going to continue to do that. And so if that is what is

necessary——

Senator VOINOVICH. You believe that you are getting the participation that you need?

Mr. SOMBROTTO. Oh, sure.

Senator VOINOVICH. And everybody else? Mr. Baffa.

Mr. BAFFA. Absolutely.

Senator VOINOVICH. Mr. Quinn.

Mr. QUINN. Yes.

Senator VOINOVICH. Mr. DiStephano.

Mr. DISTEPHANO. Yes, sir. I would just like to reiterate a smaller

note.

Mr. SOMBROTTO. You notice what I said? You can never keep

these guys quiet. [Laughter.]

56

Mr. DISTEPHANO. But we are getting the information disseminated down, I guess, from the higher-ups and it is reaching us and

we are learning on a day-to-day basis how to learn with the issues

and, so to speak, we are writing the book. So I am satisfied that

everyone is trying to do their best to ensure our safety and taking

the precautions—— Senator VOINOVICH. I agree with Senator Lieberman that our information and communications were just as bad as yours. As I

mentioned earlier, my people were told, you do not have anything

to worry about in the Hart Building. You do not have to have your

nose swabbed. This is garden variety stuff. Do not worry about it.

So the next day, they read in the paper this is the high-grade

stuff, you ought to have your swab, and it makes the Senator who

is working with these people look like he does not care about them,

and I know, and I am sure some of the other Senators gathered

their people together and apologized to them and said we were basing our decision on the information that was given to us and it was

erroneous, and then we had everybody swabbed and then we closed

the building and the rest of it.

I know my time is up, but what are your thoughts about whether

communications improved substantially and how it could be made

even better so that your members are more comforted that they are

getting accurate and consistent information?

Mr. SOMBROTTO. Well, as an illustration, we all got together with

the Postmaster General. We made a film about what was happening and it was sent out. The moment we made it, it had—you

talk about built-in obsolescence—it already was—this situation is

so fluid and so dynamic that it changed, so we had to make another film, which has been distributed and shown in post offices

throughout the Nation.

And so in that respect, we are trying, using every mode of communication, individually, together in our own organizations. We

have sent out bulletins and we are doing it in conjunction with the

Postal Service, as well.

Mr. BURRUS. Let me not leave the wrong impression, though, regarding cooperation. While our interaction at the headquarters

level has been excellent and we have shared almost every bit of information with one another and have done a lot of things together,

however, the Postal Service is a large bureaucracy. There are

38,000 facilities. In many of those facilities, there is not the interaction that we are enjoying here at the headquarters level.

Senator VOINOVICH. I noticed you were present at the Cleveland

Post Office.

Mr. BURRUS. Yes. I was going to mention that, since we both

have Cleveland in our backgrounds, 1974 to 1980.

Senator VOINOVICH. Are you now here in Washington, then?

Mr. BURRUS. I am the National President of APWU——

Senator VOINOVICH. You are stationed here?

Mr. BURRUS [continuing]. Effective November 10, yes.

Senator VOINOVICH. But, back in Cleveland, you were just mentioning, is the communication as good there as it is up here?

Mr. BURRUS. No, it is not as good in Cleveland as it is at the

headquarters level. I have set up an internal system where they

can bring those disagreements that they have at the local level

57

through, that we can resolve them at an intermediate level or, if

necessary, here at the headquarters level. But I am in constant

contact with my representatives throughout the country, and many

of them, since we have had such an adversarial relationship over

the years, many of the parties have not found a way, even with this

crisis, to find a way to communicate with one another, so that is

an ongoing struggle, and this is life and death so it is essential.

We have been trying to send the message out from here, and that

is one of the reasons I have deferred to the Postmaster General in

some respects, because we have got to send a unified message and

not continue that friction that exists among our representatives at

the other levels.

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, maybe you can use this as an opportunity to come together and develop some kind of better understanding.

Mr. BURRUS. Well, they have got to sign a contract to do that.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Mr. Burrus, we welcome you to your new

leadership position. If I am not mistaken, the young man that you

are succeeding is in the room here, is that correct? Would you want

to note that?

Mr. BURRUS. Yes, he is, Moe Biller, who has spent a lifetime as

a champion of working people and the citizens of this country. I

have served with him for 21 years as the executive vice president

in the Biller administration. He has now decided that he will retire. I have offered that he could extend his term by another 6

months or a year until anthrax is past us. He has graciously declined and turned it over to me. [Laughter.]

Mr. BURRUS. But Moe has had a charmed life. He has been a

symbol for our union. We named our building after him, and he is

present in the room, my president forever, Moe Biller.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Mr. Burrus. I appreciate it and

am moved by that tribute. It is great to see that transition occurring with that kind of closeness.

I told Moe when I first came to town that I had a recollection

some years ago of reading about this stirring, tumultuous labor

leader who took the Postal workers out on strike at one point, and

I do not even know what year that was, but——

Mr. BILLER. It was 1970.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Nineteen-seventy. I will not tell you how

old I was then, Moe. Anyway, I wanted to note that for the record

and also to wish you all the best as you assume this important

leadership position at this difficult time.

Senator Akaka.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank our distinguished witnesses for being here today

and know that you represent the hundreds of thousands of Postal

employees throughout the Nation. You are here because you care

about the safety and health of all of the employees.

I am also pleased that we have the representatives from Brentwood and West Trenton post offices who shared their experiences

with us today.

I know that our effort in the Committee is to hear you and to

try to help you and the Postal Service to find the best way to proVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Aug 17, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 76808.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
58

tect the safety and health of all Postal employees. I ask this question to the four union leaders who are here for responses.

The Postal Service is proposing the use of electron beam technology to sanitize the mail. This equipment will be operated and

serviced by trained technicians from the manufacturers. Although

Postal employees will not operate and service the equipment, your

members may have concerns that the sanitizing equipment poses

an equal or greater health risk than exposure to anthrax spores.

So my question is, are you concerned about the health risks to

Postal workers who will be in close proximity to the sanitizing

equipment, and have you had an opportunity to discuss the use of

this equipment with the Postal Service, public health officials, and

manufacturers of the equipment? Let us start with Mr. Burrus.

Mr. BURRUS. Yes. I have had my safety specialist do some limited research on the technology that is under consideration to be

used in Postal facilities and it is my understanding that the mail

that will be sanitized will be conveyed into the room where the

process will occur through a conveyor system. So it will not be a

matter of an employee being exposed to the gamma rays or whatever technology is being used. It will be just pushing the button.

The mail and conveyors will go into a room, sit for the prescribed

period of time, come out the other end clean.

So I do not expect, and when we had our first meeting, we were

talking about equipment that would irradiate the mail. I think they

have moved beyond that now. I think they have gone to a different

type of technology. But I must await and see what they finally settle on and determine what the risk exposure may be. But my understanding at this point is the way it will be constructed, there

will be no interaction between the employees and the electronic

rays, so it will not pose a risk to our people.

And more than likely, the mail handler craft, Billy Quinn’s people, will probably be the ones involved in taking it in and taking

it out. But our people are the processors and they are the ones that

will access that mail on the other side of the room.

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Quinn.

Mr. QUINN. Well, that is the first time the APWU has ever said

any work is ours. Thanks, Bill. [Laughter.]

Mr. BURRUS. A little jurisdictional——

Mr. QUINN. Well, certainly with the great deal of scrutiny this

issue has been given, I fervently hope and pray that safeguards

will be put in place. I am confident that with the Postal authorities, with the CDC, I would assume OSHA involved and any other

entity who will be involved that they will take every step to ensure

that Postal employees involved in this process will be fully protected. Obviously, it would be nothing short of inane to take some

action to avoid anthrax and cause a problem that could conceivably

be far more harmful. So it is something that I realize is in the embryonic stages, but I am confident that everybody will be contributing their input and that the processing will be safe for the employees involved.

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Sombrotto, do you have any comment?

Mr. SOMBROTTO. We do not handle mail of that sort, and having

heard about the dangers here, I am very happy about that, as well.

59

I am sure whatever they put in, it is going to be safe. They will

have to ensure the safety of the employees.

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Baffa, would you have a comment?

Mr. BAFFA. The same as Mr. Sombrotto said. Our people really

will not be handling that type of mail. But again, I feel sure that

all precautions will be taken.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much. We hope that it works out

well.

Ms. Manley, do the employees at the Brentwood facility feel they

are receiving accurate and up-to-date information? After all, only

yesterday, public health officials were advising Postal workers to

take 60 days of antibiotics rather than the initial 10 days. How

does such information reach you?

Ms. MANLEY. Let me explain one major factor right here. The

people in Brentwood are scattered in various other Postal facilities

right now since ours is closed. So in order for us to get the information, we are either getting it from the managers from that facility

or the news.

And as far as taking the extra pills, well, we realize that it must

be done to protect our safety and I understand, because I went and

got mine last night, they have changed it and it is not as strong

as the original one. We are able to drink a little more caffeine or

whatever they said we could not do the first time, we can do now.

But this is how the information is getting to us, through the news

media or through the other managers at the other facilities where

we are located.

Senator AKAKA. I know my time is up, but let me finish with Mr.

DiStephano. As the President of your union testified, there are letter carriers casing mail in tents next to buildings because the

building is closed.

Mr. DISTEPHANO. Yes.

Senator AKAKA. That must be quite stressful. How are you and

your colleagues coping with the stress and is the Postal Service

providing appropriate counseling support and adequate information

to its craft employees?

Mr. DISTEPHANO. Yes. We have currently in place the EAP program and it was offered to us right at the outset of this whole situation. So they have been supportive and there were several people

that came down to offer their services, so that is a resource that

we have to tap if we have to.

But to make a comment, I am very proud of the courage and the

dedication of the letter carriers, my members. They deliver the Nation’s mail on a day-to-day basis. Like Mr. Sombrotto has stated,

the complaints are practically remote. There are some concerns.

There is always a heightened sense of awareness. But all I can say

is they come in to work and I think that the rolls as far as sick

leave have improved. They are coming out and doing the job.

They are not going to alter our lifestyle, these terrorists, and I

am very proud of these men and women and so America should be

very proud of them. Like I said, they are not complaining. They are

delivering the mail, and some people are choosing to use the gloves

and the masks and some are not. So with that, I would just like

to congratulate the people that deliver the Nation’s mail.

60

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I have another question.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Go right ahead, Senator.

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Burrus. I have seen commentary in the

newspapers to the effect that Postal workers have not been given

as much protection as they should have received. Of great concern

to me was the suggestion that there was a racial component to this

problem. Would you care to comment on that?

Mr. BURRUS. Yes. It is one of the negatives of the media. They

portray an image, and often that portrayal has a byproduct.

The recent anthrax circumstances have portrayed Brentwood and

the employees that work at Brentwood, and I have heard several

news analysts make references to the racial identity of the images

on the screen, that they were African Americans. Over 70 percent

of my bargaining unit is Caucasian. They are not African Americans.

It is giving the image that all of the Postal Service is staffed by

African American individuals, citizens of this country, and it is just

a—it is an incorrect image. We have every nationality that exists

in this country, 800,000 employees, and in my bargaining unit, almost 400,000 employees. But the vast majority of my bargaining

unit are Caucasians and the minority is African Americans, principally in the urban areas of the country where they become Postal

employees. But we reflect America.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. I have other questions, but go ahead.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Akaka. Let me just say

for the record how good it has been, as always, to work with you

and your staff on this hearing.

Senator Carper.

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are almost 45

minutes into our weekly Democratic and Republican caucus meetings, so I am going to be real brief so that we can go join our colleagues for at least a portion of that.

Before we go, though, I just want to say how much I appreciate

the statesmanship that each of you have demonstrated here today

and in the preceding days. These are tough times for all of us. I

know these are especially tough times for you and the people that

you represent. As you leave here today, I just want you to know

that I am real proud of you and my guess is that the men and

women you represent and their families are, as well. Thank you for

doing the right thing by them and thank you for doing the right

thing by our country.

Mr. Burrus, I understand you are just about to assume the mantle of leadership from one of the giants in the Postal Service.

Mr. BURRUS. Yes.

Senator CARPER. I want to salute him as he prepares to head on.

In the Navy, we used to say fair winds and a following sea, and

we wish you well, Moe. To Mr. Burrus, we very much look forward

to working with you and I congratulate you on the confidence that

your membership has shown in your election.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Very well said, Senator Carper. I thank

you for making that statement.

61

I thank all the witnesses. This has been a very important and

informative hearing, both to hear from the Postmaster General on

the first panel about how he made the decisions he made and why

and what the basis of the information was, and then to hear from

you who are living this and representing the people who live it

about your general feeling that the Postal Service and the Postmaster General did about as much as they could do as quickly as

they could based on the information they had at the time.

You have affected my opinion about this, because I have been

reading in the media and this is a case where I came to the hearing with an open mind, did not know what I would be hearing, and

your attitude, because you are living it every day, has informed me

and I appreciate the way you approach this because you are obviously saying what you believe based on your experience. That is

part of what it means to be a fact finder on a Committee like this.

It does seem to lead directly to tomorrow’s hearing, when we will

have as witnesses public health experts, the people that the Postmaster General was turning to, at least some of them, for the information that he needed to make the judgments that he made, and

then we will have some outside public health experts who will comment on how that happened and the hearing will actually begin

with two of our colleagues who have expressed a special interest

in testifying on this and have special concerns. That is Senator

Clinton and Senator Wellstone.

So for now, I thank you very much for all that you do for us

every day. I thank you for the unity that you have shown today,

which was not reflexive. I know that. Again, to repeat what I know

about each and every one of you and your unions, when you do not

like what the Postal Service does, you say it and directly and without hesitation.

So if you come to this conclusion, it impresses me that you are

all working together, and that is not only important on the substance of the decisions made, but it reflects again what I have said,

that on September 11 we saw the worst of human nature. Since

then in America, I think we have seen the best, and part of the

best is the unity that is ultimately our greatest strength and that

unity hopefully moves us to a position where we will not give way

to the fear that the terrorists are trying to inflict on us.

So what you have all said, what the Postal workers who are here

have said and what you reflect from your membership, they are

coming to work every day and they will be damned if they are

going to let a bunch of terrorists stop them from delivering the

United States mail. We cannot ever thank you enough for that.

God bless you. Thank you for being here today, and the hearing

is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 1:11 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

(63)

TERRORISM THROUGH THE MAIL: PROTECTING POSTAL WORKERS AND THE PUBLIC

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2001

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS,

AND THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL SECURITY,

PROLIFERATION AND FEDERAL SERVICES,

Washington, DC.

The Committee and Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at

9:40 a.m., in room SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon.

Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, and Hon. Daniel

Akaka, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.

Present: Senators Lieberman, Akaka, Cleland, Carper, Dayton,

Thompson, Stevens, Voinovich, and Bennett.

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Good morning. Today the Committee

meets for its second hearing on Terrorism Through the Mail: Protecting the Postal Workers and the Public. We are holding these

hearings in coordination with the Subcommittee on International

Security, Proliferation and Federal Services, chaired by Senator

Daniel Akaka, as the oversight committee for the U.S. Postal Service.

We are here as fact finders, to learn how decisions were made

at various Federal agencies and how information was exchanged

between Federal and State agencies in the wake of this new insidious form of terror through the mails and terror generally. Our goal

is to learn what we can do to keep Postal workers and the mail

they handle and deliver safe and sound.

Yesterday’s hearing I thought was very informative, and in fact,

valuable in terms of our understanding of how the Postal Service

responded to the discovery of contaminated mail at mail facilities.

The tragic fact, of course, is that two members of the Postal Service family died, both of them employees of the main processing facility for the Washington area, Brentwood, through which the letter

opened in Senator Daschle’s office passed. Postmaster General Potter testified yesterday as to why he made the decisions he did

based on the advice he got from public health experts, including

some of the agencies that are represented here today. Union leaders, representing those Postal workers closest to the contamination,

testified that they concluded that the Postmaster and in fact the

Postal Service did all that they could do as quickly as they could

with the information they had to work with.

64

But I must say that I am left with questions about whether the

information they received was adequate and why, and wonder

whether the U.S. Postal Service,should have closed all of its facilities that handle government mail after anthrax was discovered in

the Dirksen mail room on October 18. And I understand that we

are all learning as we go along here, and that is what I want to

speak about with some of the public health officials, and that the

purpose of these hearings is not to accuse, but to learn, and to

learn in a way that will help us do better.

I just was notified by a member of my staff as I walked through

the door to remind everyone, unfortunately, about the seriousness

of what we are dealing with, that apparently the hospital worker

who has come down with anthrax, not as far as we know with any

close proximity to the mail, has died this morning. And this tragic

news perplexes us and gives a special sense of urgency to our quest

for more information from the public health community that is

good enough to be with us this morning.

A larger question that this death this morning makes even more

pressing, that I hope to discuss, is whether our public health system is truly prepared to address the unique, and for America, unprecedented threats of bioterrorism. We have obviously dealt with

public health crises before, and with infectious diseases before, and

while bioterrorist attacks have characteristics that are similar to

those, they are also unique. So we want to ask, do conflicting agency interests lead to a breakdown in communication and coordination, and if so, how do we overcome those conflicts in order to best

serve the people whose lives are at stake?

The various agencies within the Federal Government that have

responsibility in crises like these need to be reading from the same

script and speaking with one voice. It certainly seems to me that

Governor Ridge is the one who must lead and drive the vast resources of our Federal Government during this unfolding anthrax

crisis and prepare us to better meet what may be the next germ

warfare challenge that is directed against the United States.

Senator Thompson.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR THOMPSON

Senator THOMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was not aware

that the lady in New York had passed away, but I was reading this

morning from a New York Post article about that case, and it just

demonstrated again how little we know about what we are dealing

with. It said that public health officials found themselves baffled,

and the CDC Director was saying, with regard to whether or not

there was a linkage to the mail, ‘‘Your guess is as good as mine.’’

And I must say there is a lot to be said for candor nowadays, and

if there ever was a time for modesty among all of us, or humility,

now is the time with regard to what we do not know. While we

have to have accountability, I think it is more and more clear that

none of us really have answers to the questions of what the likely

source of this bacteria is, what the nature of it is, how people are

infected by it, what the likelihood of cross-contamination is, all

these questions. We are just going to have to get on it and deal

with it, and I think we are doing that.

65

I was impressed, as you were yesterday, with the testimony of

the Postal authorities and the Postal workers, who are carrying on

this job and not being intimidated by it, and the fact that they are

working together. There was a lot of hype about acrimony and accusations of racism and all of that in the newspaper, but when you

talk to the people involved, you learn that they are working together. Everything is not perfect, but they are working together to

try to overcome this, and I understand that everybody is trying to

do their best.

But we surprisingly, in many respects, have an awful lot to learn

about what we are dealing with. Although we pointed out yesterday that there have been numerous commissions and agencies

making reports about biological terrorism in the past, I do not

think one of them ever mentioned the possibility that these weapons could be used through the mail. Looking back on it now, it

looks like something that would have logically happened, but understandably, the professional health people and others have been

more concerned with the mass spreading of biological weapons. As

bad as this is, it is nothing compared to what could be out there

in terms of usage and mass contamination.

The GAO has recommended for some time now that the government conduct comprehensive threat and risk assessments, and

clearly we need those. I think we are beginning to get those now.

And I am glad today that you brought in some of the Nation’s leading experts in the areas of infectious diseases and biological weapons, so that we can understand these subjects a little better. I am

glad that we are dealing with people who apparently are secure

enough to be candid enough to tell us what they do not know. I

know the CDC office is overwhelmed, and we appreciate you being

here. And I also appreciate the appearance of the public and private health officials.

At our recent hearing on bioterrorism we were told repeatedly

that training and support of local and private health care professionals should be a top priority, so we need to do that.

One minor matter. Mr. Chairman, you are facing the same problems that I faced when I was sitting in your chair, and that is the

witness statements are getting in later and later. I came from a

breakfast meeting this morning and for the first time saw most of

the statements we are dealing with here today. I know these hearings were hurried up a bit, but it is not just these hearings. For

some time now our Committee rules have become the exception

rather than the rule, and it makes it meaningless if we cannot

have statements in here in time for us to look at them. We cannot

really have a decent dialog with witnesses if we do not know what

their statements are. I mean the statements on this important

hearing today are somewhere in my staff’s files, and they will remain there until after these hearings are over with, and then

maybe we will have a chance to look at them.

So I would hope that both staffs would first of all make it so that

witnesses have time to get these statements in, and then really, require them to submit them at least a day ahead of time so that

those of us who really do want to look and think through some of

these things, have an opportunity to do that. Thank you very

much, Mr. Chairman.

66

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Thompson. I could not

agree with you more. Part of the problem, and this is not aimed

at this administration as compared to earlier ones, it has been always so. Anybody in government has to go through a process of

clearance of statements before they get to us and it takes time. And

you are absolutely right, it makes it harder for us to be as informed

as we want to be as we come into these hearings.

Senator Akaka.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for calling

this joint hearing.

I know that our witnesses share many demands on their time,

and their appearances before this Committee is appreciated.

At yesterday’s hearing I said that the last line of defense in a

homeland terrorist attack should not be the Congress, nor should

the first line of defense be the men and women of the U.S. Postal

Service. You, our public health officials, are our health intelligence

service when it comes to protecting the health and safety of Americans. Just as the terrorist attacks on September 11 exposed shortcomings in our Nation’s intelligence gathering and monitoring capabilities, the response to the recent bioterrorism attacks via the

mail have highlighted areas in our Federal and local public health

infrastructure which are urgently in need of improvement.

We are all concerned about the safety of the mail, Postal workers

and the American public. Our 2-day hearing is reviewing the government’s response to the criminal use of the mails and how this

new threat has impacted Postal operations. Today we will learn

how the public health sector reacted to the spread of anthrax

through the mail and explore where we need to go from here.

The recent anthrax events underscore the need for new detection

methods and information-gathering systems. I recently introduced

two separate but related bills that address the crucial issue of our

national preparedness for acts of bioterrorism. S. 1560, the Biological Agent Environment Detection Act, authorizes appropriations totalling $40 million to support research and development of technologies to detect organisms in the air, water and food that cause

disease in humans, livestock, and crops. My proposal mirrors the

President’s request of $40 million to support early detection surveillance to identify potential bioterrorism agents. As we have

learned from the events of the past few weeks, there is a critical

need to increase funding for research and development of new technologies to detect the use of biological weapons against this Nation.

My other bill, S. 1561, introduced with Senator Rockefeller, authorizes additional funds to develop training programs with community health care providers. We need to enhance the cooperation

between critical elements of our health care system included in the

National Medical Disaster System. These increased funds will support expanded use of existing telecommunication systems, implement a telemedicine training program for VA staff and their community public health counterparts. Remote regions of our Nation

need the assurance that local public health responders will have

the training and information they need to protect and treat citizens

in instances of biological terrorism.

67

1The prepared statement of Senator Wellstone appears in the Appendix on page 157.

The Postal Service has safely delivered the Nation’s mail over

200 years. Prior to last month the Postal Service averaged 80 anthrax threats a year. Until now there had never been a real case

of anthrax transmitted through the U.S. mail. The Postal Service

has never had to deal with toxic contamination like this before.

Their knowledge of the impact of these attacks and their responses

reflect the guidance they receive from the CDC and other public

health officials.

Mr. Chairman, since September 11, the Postal Service has delivered more than 15 billion pieces of mail. The Postal Service is

working with its employees, who know that they are at ground zero

of this assault on America. The more than 800,000 Postal employees deserve our gratitude and our thanks.

I would also like to acknowledge the tremendous work carried

out by all the scientists, technicians, public health officers,

HAZMAT units, environmental remediation specialists, and medical personnel, who are responding to these unprecedented attacks.

We all have to be vigilant. If something in the mail makes you suspicious, do not open it. Do not check it, bump it or smell it. Wash

your hands with soap and water and call 911. Law enforcement officials will respond.

I must tell you last week that happened to me. I received a letter, did not know the name, and it was handwritten. I put it into

a cellophane bag and followed the criteria that is used, and I was

commended for that. And I got a copy of the letter that came to

me. And it was from a school, and the school was asking me for

my photograph. [Laughter.]

Again, Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for convening today’s hearing and our witnesses for taking the time to be with us

today. Thank you very much.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Akaka.

We thank our two colleagues, who have been especially interested in these matters, for being here. Senator Wellstone, why do

you not go first?

TESTIMONY OF HON. PAUL D. WELLSTONE,1 A U.S. SENATOR

FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA

Senator WELLSTONE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You have a full

schedule, so I will be very brief. Let me thank you and Senator

Akaka, and Senators Cleland, Dayton, and Thompson for inviting

me to be here with you.

I wanted to say to Senator Thompson, listening to him speak,

that sometimes we do not want to know what we do not know, and

I think that is part of what we have to deal with as well.

I commend you for holding the hearings. As chair of the Subcommittee on Employment, Safety and Training, I am concerned

about the adequacy of workplace safety measures being taken to

protect the well being of Postal workers, and indeed the public as

a whole, as we face these recent anthrax attacks. This hearing

could not come at a more important time.

Earlier this week Senator Dayton and I hosted several meetings

in Minnesota with Postal workers, managers and State public

68

health officials about issues and concerns in the face of the recent

anthrax attacks, I have to say, Mr. Chairman, that this may be

gratuitous, but I would recommend—Mark and I were talking

about this—that everybody do this back home. It is incredible. The

Postal workers just were so pleased. I would have thought it was

a given. They were just so pleased that we wanted to meet with

them. That is the way they feel right now, and you learn an awful

lot from people who really understand these issues because they

are right there at the workplace, so I would recommend that.

I want to share these concerns with you and hope that the Committee can address them. I also believe that our current response

to the anthrax attack to the mail system presents a microcosm of

workplace health and safety concerns about adequate responses to

acts of bioterrorism or threatened acts of bioterrorism in general.

So again, what you are doing here today is extremely important.

The workers that Senator Dayton and I met with are in a very

stressful situation. Indeed, they are the front-line soldiers in dealing with this latest act of terrorism. I think we all know that. They

are shouldering their responsibilities proudly, and despite their

fears, they are getting up every day to serve their country and the

public by processing and delivering the mail. We, as a Nation,

should be very grateful to them for that.

Here are some of the concerns that we heard at the hearing that

I want to share with you. Medical and testing protocols. In Minnesota there appears to be confusion about who should be tested

for possible exposure to anthrax, who should do that testing, who

should pay for that testing, and when particular work places

should be tested. When a worker encounters a substance that looks

suspicious, that worker either wants to be tested or wants the substance to be tested. That is totally understandable. I recognize that

there are a large number of false alarms, and I am told that since

September 11 there have been at least 5,400 anthrax threats. But

there are also reports of new ‘‘hot spots’’ every day. I would urge

that protocols developed by the Postal Service, in consultation with

the Centers for Disease Control, take into account the human and

psychological toll on these public servants who are under incredible

stress. We need to do whatever we can, reasonably, to ease their

fears.

Second, communications. Related to the above concerns, we also

heard that there was confusion about protocols and practices.

Sometimes workers received different answers to the same questions. Sometimes they felt they were not given all the answers.

This seems to mirror some of the confusion we have been experiencing at the national level as well. I know these are trying times,

and I certainly do not question the hard work or the sincere intentions of everyone who is trying to deal with this horrible scourge,

but it does seem that in dealing with a public health crisis, clear

lines of responsibility and absolute candor are imperative.

Third, worker involvement. We are also hearing about the importance of involving workers—Mark and I heard this all the time—

and their representatives in determining how best to respond to

the latest threats. Front line workers best understand the procedures, equipment and the like that potentially place them and othVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Aug 17, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00072 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 76808.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
69

ers at risk. Their voices need to be in the mix as risks are assessed

and responses are planned.

Let me give you an example. Minnesota is home to one of three

so-called ‘‘mail recovery centers.’’

By the way, Mark, I do not know about you, I had no knowledge

of this until we met with these employees.

What are mail recovery centers? These are the centers that handle mail and packages that have incorrect or incomplete addresses,

lack return addresses, have contents that have become separated

from the main bulk of the letter, or for some other reason cannot

be delivered. In other words, these are packages that fit the profile

of what might be considered suspicious. And the Minnesota Center

receives 100,000 of these very day. It was not until Monday, after

our meetings with the Postal workers and managers, that we heard

that this Center would undergo environmental testing.

I am pleased that this decision has been made, but I also think

it is a useful case in point. If we involve workers up front in risk

assessments and decisions about how to respond, we will inevitably

make better decisions.

Two final quick points. Efficacy of preventative approaches. As

you know, the Centers for Disease Control has issued guidelines for

the use of protective masks and gloves for Postal workers deemed

to be at risk. During our meetings, we heard some skepticism

about the efficacy of these measures. My understanding is that you

will have representatives of the Centers for Disease Control here

today, and I urge you to question these witnesses closely about

these measures.

Training. There seemed to be large understandable gaps in workers’ and managers’ understanding about how to respond to acts or

threatened acts of bioterrorism. Training on effective responses

would seem to be in order. Such training might be delivered

through unions, local health entities or other local agencies. My understanding is that Postal workers have asked specifically for

training in how to use the masks or respirators recommended by

the CDC. As you consider the resources necessary to respond to the

recent anthrax attacks, I urge you to consider the need for ‘‘best

practice training’’ for managers and for workers.

Again, Mr. Chairman, I commend you for holding these hearings,

and I look forward to working with you and my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, on critical workplace health and safety

issues. I thank the Committee.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Senator Wellstone, thank you very much.

That was an excellent statement which is very helpful to this Committee as we both fulfill our responsibility of specific oversight over

the Postal Service, which is given to the Committee, but also our

general governmental oversight to try to improve the way in which

our government is responding to these new challenges.

Senator Clinton, you have been very actively and thoughtfully involved, I know, in these matters. I thank you for being with us

today, and I look forward to your testimony.

70

TESTIMONY OF HON. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, A U.S.

SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Senator CLINTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I

thank you and the Members for holding these hearings.

And I want to associate myself completely with my colleague,

Senator Wellstone’s comments. I think he has very well summarized some of the concerns that I bring to you, and I will not be

repetitive, but I have had the same experience that he and Senator

Dayton have had in talking with Postal workers, talking with people who are responsible for their safety, as well as the Postmaster

General, CDC officials.

And I think everyone recognizes that we are on a very steep

learning curve, but our Postal workers are on the front lines of this

battle against bioterrorism, and I think we have to move expeditiously to give them the protection, the protocols, the training and

the assistance that they need.

I want to express my personal sympathies to the families of Joseph Curseen and Thomas Morris, who were the first of our Postal

workers who died from anthrax inhalation. And once again New

York is at the center of this battle. We just learned that the

woman, Kathy Nguyen, who had suffered from inhalation anthrax,

has just passed away. So now we have even more questions to ask

about how did this woman, who so far as we know, did not work

in the mail room directly, did not handle mail, contract this disease?

I want particularly to focus on the situation in New York. Last

week anthrax was found on four high-speed sorting machines at

New York City’s largest mail distribution center, Morgan Station

in Manhattan, which processes 20 million pieces of mail a day. The

reasons or science behind the Postal Service’s decision to keep the

Morgan facility open were not immediately clear, and workers were

left to wonder how safe was it for them to go into this facility,

while we knew anthrax was present on machines that had been

used, when the machines themselves were shut down for cleaning,

but the area where the machines were found was not quarantined

or in any way sealed off the way that we are now finding is done

in other settings, and the workers were left with a lot of questions.

In speaking with Postal officials, I and my staff determined that

they were doing what they thought was in the best interest of their

workers, of course. They had consulted with CDC, but the absence

of protocols, which are certainly a moving target because we know

more today than we did last week or the week before, meant that

the Postal Service was pretty much flying on their own. They were

being asked to devise their own protocols in consultation with CDC

experts.

We have to reestablish confidence that the guidance health officials provide Postal workers is up to date and the best practice we

know at the time. Federal health officials need to make clear that

their response is based solely on science and not on where those

buildings are located or who works in them. I heard from many

people that there was a deep concern about frankly shutting down

this facility, which is at the heart of a massive mail distribution

system in New York City. But I believe that everyone has to recognize that the health of our people, the health of our workers has

71

to come first, and the inconvenience that comes from shutting down

a facility is just something we have to live with until we understand how to prevent the anthrax from being present and hurting

any of our workers.

I strongly urge that we provide the kind of meetings and town

hall sessions that Mark and Paul did on their own in Minnesota,

that the Postal Service held in New Jersey to address customers’ and employees’ questions, that Eleanor Holmes Norton did here in

Washington. And last week I wrote to the Postal Service and the

CDC, asking that they hold such a meeting in New York.

Now, the media conveys a lot of good information, but it is sometimes contradictory and difficult for a lay person to follow. We also

need a single spokesperson for our Nation on this issue. I strongly

believe that we ought to do that immediately. I know a number of

us have raised that with Secretary Thompson and others. I am

pleased to see Dr. Fauci, with whom I worked in the past on AIDS

related work out there speaking, but we need a credible, reliable,

candid, reassuring, medical scientist spokesperson. And I think

that would go a long way toward easing a lot of the anxiety and

answering a lot of the questions.

Second, I have also called for a standard protocol for responding

to the discovery of anthrax in Federal buildings, from the halls of

Congress to post offices. Each site where anthrax is found should

be treated with the same urgency under the same protocol to prevent further exposure as every other site.

Now, although the forms and potency of the anthrax may vary,

in order to be vigilant, our response should not. And I think we

have to exercise the maximum caution. Again, I reiterate that we

are learning as we go, but what we know today has to be immediately applied. Otherwise, we put our Postal workers, our citizens

at risk.

I believe that the dialogue which is now taking place, and in

large measure thanks to this Committee expediting it, is crucial,

but we are going to need money to respond to these demands. It

is not just good enough for people to come and testify and express

their concerns.

I recently visited a Lockheed Martin facility in New York that is

engaged in automating the mail handling and distribution, but is

also under discussions with the Postal Service to see how we could

create technological sensors and scanners to try to prevent the anthrax or any other biological or chemical agent from ever getting

into our distribution system, from ever getting into the sorting machines where they can be pressed, possibly releasing whatever the

agent is.

I urge very strongly that before the Congress leaves this year we

take steps to give the Postal Service the resources it needs to immediately do what is required, and it is much more than buying

masks and gloves. I mean there are even scientific experts who say

that that is not the best way to proceed. So we have to look across

the board at the Postal Service’s needs and try to fund them.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, as we look at this, we know that we have

to keep two, what seems to be contradictory thoughts in each of our

minds. On the one hand we do have to be aware of the potential

dangers that we face. We have to be alert and more vigilant. On

72

the other hand, we cannot give in to fear which is the most contagious agent around and we have to stand against it. The best

way to do that is what you are doing so long as what you are finding out today is followed by action with resources to act on the recommendations you will be making. We have to send a clear message to Postal workers and citizens, that our government is not

only listening, but acting.

And I appreciate greatly the willingness of this Committee to

focus on this important issue, and I look forward to supporting the

recommendations that you will come forward with.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Clinton, for a very informed, thoughtful and constructive statement. I will share with

you we had a very important dialog with the Postmaster General

here, where he said that the USPS is putting together basically a

budget request, a supplemental budget request, and there was

quite strong bipartisan support from Members of the Committee

wanting to do whatever we could to make this right. So, thank you

very much. We look forward to working with both of you, wish you

a good day.

Senator DAYTON. Mr. Chairman.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes, Senator Dayton.

OOPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DAYTON

Senator DAYTON. If I may just add just briefly, thank you very

much, and I want to commend you for these hearings as well, and

I want to commend both of my colleagues. Senator Clinton and

Senator Wellstone, I know, have been really in the forefront of personal involvement in these concerns.

And just to pick up on one incident which Senator Wellstone and

I heard several times, so I think it is not unique to Minnesota, and

it ties in with what Senator Clinton said about not sparing cost in

these urgent matters. We had a number of Postal workers who

thought they had been exposed, who called the Postal Service. They

were told because it is a part-time medical clinic, partially staffed,

in Minnesota, Minneapolis-St. Paul, to call their private health provider. They identified themselves as Postal workers, at which point

the private health care, the HMO said, ‘‘We do not do this kind of

testing.’’ And the concern was the impression the employees received was that this was because the HMOs did not want to incur

a cost that might, if it were a workplace incident, be covered under

Federal Worker’s Comp. In fact, one case, they were told to call the

Minnesota Department of Health, who did the testing, which was

erroneous information.

So I would like to put the Postal Service on alert that their responsibility is to make sure all of their workers have access to immediate testing, which we have learned is crucial to the identification and possible treatment of this disease. Second, that private

health care providers who are trying to shirk their responsibilities

to provide immediate care, I think are reprehensible and it ought

to be illegal. And third, that we need to have, as both of these Senators have said, a coordinated protocol so that everybody knows

they can get immediate attention and the right information the

first time on one phone call. Thank you.

73

1The prepared statement of Dr. Cohen appears in the Appendix on page 160.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Well said. Thank you. Thank you, our

Senate colleagues.

We will now call the second panel to the table, Dr. Mitchell

Cohen, who is the Director, Division of Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases, National Center for Infectious Diseases at the Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention; Raymond Decker, Director of Defense Capabilities and Management Team at the U.S. General Accounting Office; Major General John S. Parker, Commanding General, U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command in Fort

Detrick; and Dr. Ivan Walks, Director of the District of Columbia

Department of Health.

We are very appreciative of the presence of the four of you. We

are particularly appreciative because we know that you are active

participants in the response to the crisis we are facing, and at the

same time we need to hear from you so you can help us be more

informed and constructive in our own response. We are trying to

make sure that the name plates coincide with the people. [Laughter.]

But you have all become so well known to us in the last several

weeks that I think even without the written names in front of you,

we know who you are. Again, we thank you for being here.

And I suppose what Senator Thompson said is perhaps what— I hope it is encouraging to witnesses, but I share his sentiment,

which is that there is a natural tendency at a time that is unsettling, such as the one we are in, frightening for many, to turn to

experts and want exact answers. And yet, the more we go on with

this, I think we appreciate that to some of the questions, even the

experts do not have answers yet. And therefore the best answer is

probably ‘‘We don’t know yet.’’ That is the best way to maintain I

think our credibility and our sense of working together to find the

answers and respond appropriately.

So with that, what might be called invocation, I will start with

Dr. Mitchell Cohen.

TESTIMONY OF MITCHELL L. COHEN, M.D.,1 DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF BACTERIAL AND MYCOTIC DISEASES, NATIONAL

CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASES, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION (CDC), DEPARTMENT OF

HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Dr. COHEN. Good morning. Chairman Lieberman and Senator

Thompson, I want to first thank you for inviting me to participate

today. I have provided a written statement for the record. As you

mentioned, I am the Director of the Division of Bacterial and

Mycotic Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Our responsibilities deal with very broad areas that deal with

these organisms, including organisms such as anthrax, and involve

laboratory work, epidemiologic investigations, and prevention. We

have been actively involved in all of the investigations that have

been going forward, as with many other people at CDC.

Let me just cut it short and say that I would be very pleased to

answer any questions that you have.

74

1The prepared statement of General Parker appears in the Appendix on page 174.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Dr. Cohen. That was shocking

brevity. [Laughter.]

And we have a lot of questions for you, so we look forward to the

question and answer.

General Parker, do not be constrained by Dr. Cohen’s brevity. Go

right ahead.

MAJOR GENERAL JOHN S. PARKER,1 COMMANDING GENERAL,

U.S. ARMY MEDICAL RESEARCH AND MATERIEL COMMAND

AND FORT DETRICK

General PARKER. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and other distinguished Members of this Committee and the Subcommittee. Thank

you for the invitation to testify before you today in this important

matter.

My name is Major General John S. Parker, and I represent the

outstanding scientists and professionals of the U.S. Army Medical

Research and Materiel Command, and my biocontainment laboratory, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, also known as USAMRIID.

USAMRIID’s mission is to develop the medical products, strategies, procedures, information and training for medical defense of

our service members against biological warfare and endemic infectious diseases that require biocontainment. In recent years this

mission has expanded to include helping defend our Nation against

biological terrorism.

Since September 11, USAMRIID has been fully engaged in supporting the Department of Defense, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Health and Human Services, Congress, and the interagency

community with round-the-clock, cutting edge reference diagnostic

capabilities. A large number of samples have been processed, requiring over 31,750 laboratory assays. The results of these tests are

reported to our customers upon full confirmation of the laboratory

findings.

I am here today to discuss USAMRIID’s support to the FBI in

analyzing the powdery material contained in the letter sent to Senator Daschle. I present the following timeline to document the chronology of our response.

On the afternoon of October 15, USAMRIID received samples

from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Capitol Police,

which included letters addressed to Senator Daschle. The initial observation of the material in one of the letters performed under biosafety level three containment conditions, revealed a fine, light tan

powder that was easily dispersed into the air. Preliminary laboratory results including polymerase chain reaction and fluorescent

antibody stain indicated Bacillus anthracis spores. USAMRIID reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation on the afternoon of

October 15 the preliminary results indicating that the material was

anthrax spores. Further, one of our technicians and scientists made

a statement that this material grossly had some attributes consistent with ‘‘weaponized’’ anthrax. On the evening of October 15,

USAMRIID completed the initial battery of confirmatory tests,

verifying positive results for anthrax. This additional information

75

was relayed to the FBI that evening and was subsequently reiterated to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and others in an interagency conference call on the morning of October 16. At that time

USAMRIID revisited the term ‘‘weaponized’’ and decided terms ‘‘professionally done’’ and ‘‘energetic’’ as more appropriate descriptions in lieu of any real familiarity with weaponized materials.

On October 16 USAMRIID began to examine the sample further

via transmission electron microscopy. Initial transmission electron

microscopal analysis was performed on hydrated powder. This

study revealed that the material was comprised solely of a high

concentration of spores without debris or vegetative forms, suggesting that this material was refined or processed.

USAMRIID participated in an interagency conference call on the

morning of October 17, updating participants on the results of the

antibiotic susceptibility profile. Statistical analyses for the spore dimensions from the transmission electron micrographs were begun

on October 17. On the same day, USAMRIID provided the Federal

Bureau of Investigation samples of the powder from the Daschle

letter to send to another laboratory for further analysis of that material beyond our capabilities. The results from the transmission

electron microscopy of the hydrated powder were reported to the

interagency phone conference by October 18.

On October 17, I briefed the full Senate Caucus, Senator

Daschle’s staff and the assembled Senate staff, in addition to participating in a news conference with Senators Daschle and Lott, on

the preliminary characterization of the sample.

USAMRIID next began investigating the dry powder on October

18 by scanning electron microscopy. This method revealed particle

aggregates of varying sizes, comprised solely of spores without a

visible binding matrix. The material seen under the scanning electron microscope ranged in size from single spores to aggregates of

spores up to 100 microns or more in diameter. These spores within

the aggregate were uniform in appearance. The aggregates had a

propensity to pulverize. We first relayed these observations to our

customer, the FBI, on the evening of October 19. A written

progress report was hand carried to the FBI on October 22 for a

discussion of the USAMRIID data in comparison with that of other

laboratories contributing to the ongoing analysis and investigation.

USAMRIID’s data were briefed to the Secretary of Health and

Human Services on October 23 at his request, in my presence.

USAMRIID continues to support the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the ongoing investigation and any related analysis we

can perform with our biocontainment capability and scientific expertise. We are proud to be an integral component in our Nation’s

defense and response to this tragic situation. I am especially grateful for the opportunity to address this august body today. I am now

ready for your questions.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, General Parker. That was a very

important statement, very significant in a few regards. I myself

learned some things that I did not know before, and I look forward

to asking you some questions about them.

Mr. Decker, thanks again for being with us. We appreciate the

GAO’s assistance in this as in almost everything else this Committee does.

76

1The prepared statement of Mr. Decker appears in the Appendix on page 178.

TESTIMONY OF RAYMOND J. DECKER,1 DIRECTOR, DEFENSE

CAPABILITIES AND MANAGEMENT, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE

Mr. DECKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, Senator Thompson and Members of the Committee, I am pleased to be here today to participate in this hearing

on the security of the U.S. mail and Postal workers. As requested,

my testimony will focus on the work we have done at GAO over

the past 5 years on combatting terrorism and our recommendations

advocating a risk management approach for these efforts. Our body

of work includes over 60 products based on information gleaned

from a range of sources to include Federal departments and agencies, State and local governments, foreign governments, and private

entities.

Although today’s discussion will center on these current anthrax

crises, my statement will offer a longer more strategic view to help

guide our Nation’s leaders, senior officials, and others who must

make key decisions which link resources with prioritized efforts to

achieve meaningful results.

The events of the last 8 weeks and the long-term aspects of our

national engagement to combat terrorism highlight the need for effective near- and long-term actions at all levels of government, as

well as in the private sector. The designation of a focal point within

the Executive Office of the President to lead the Office of Homeland Security is a positive step. As Governor Ridge and his team

begin to craft a national strategy to effectively prepare the Nation

against future attacks, we believe a sound risk management approach is essential to underpin decisions which identify requirements, set priorities, direct actions and allocate resources.

Risk management is a balanced, systematic and analytical process to evaluate the likelihood that a threat will endanger an asset

and identify actions which reduce the risk and mitigate the consequences of an attack or event. Mr. Chairman, an asset may be

a physical structure, an individual or a group of individuals, or an

important mission or function.

A good risk management approach should have three key elements: Threat assessments, vulnerability assessments, and criticality assessments. Allow me to briefly discuss each assessment.

A threat assessment is an important process that identifies and

evaluates threats using various factors such as capability intention,

past activity, and the potential impact of an attack or event. At the

national level, the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies

of the intelligence community are responsible for those assessments

that involve international terrorist threats. The FBI, on the other

hand, gathers information and assesses the threat posed by domestic sources of terrorism.

In 1999 and again in our most recent report of September 20, on

combatting terrorism, we recommended that the FBI prepare a formal intelligence assessment of the chemical and biological agents

that could be used by domestic terrorists without the assistance or

support of a foreign entity. The FBI concurred, and expected to

issue the assessment in December this year.

77

Additionally, we recommended that the FBI produce a national

level threat assessment, utilizing intelligence estimates and input

from the intelligence community and others to form the basis for

and to prioritize programs developed to combat terrorism, to include weapons of mass destruction. The FBI concurred, and expected to complete this classified study later this month.

Mr. Chairman, the original dates the FBI provided us were before the September 11 incident. In recent contact the Bureau has

stated that these assessments are being reviewed, and their work

will be delayed.

The vulnerability assessment, which is the second key component, identifies weaknesses in physical structures, security systems, plans, procedures and other areas that could be exploited,

and suggest options to eliminate or mitigate those weaknesses. For

example, a common physical vulnerability is the close proximity of

parking areas near a building or structure, with the obvious concern about a vehicle that may be laden with explosives. Jersey barriers and other mechanisms to increase the standoff distance—and

that is the distance between the vehicle, a potential explosive device—and a building is increased between the building and the vehicle. It might be one possible solution to this particular problems.

Normally a multidisciplinary team of experts in engineering, security, information systems and other areas perform vulnerability

assessments. Teams within an organization can perform these assessments, which is the case by several of the major agencies in the

government, Department of Defense in particular. In a 1998 GAO

combatting terrorism report, we noted that a major multinational

oil company uses this exact approach to better assess its overseas

facilities’ vulnerabilities. And when they look at these vulnerabilities, sir, they look at some that could be affected by a natural

event like a hurricane, tornado, or a typhoon, and others that are

manmade that may be terrorism, civil unrest, and general criminal

activity.

The third component, criticality assessments, are designed to

identify which assessments are most important to an organization’s

mission or represent a significant target which merit enhanced protection. For example, nuclear power plants, key bridges, major computer networks, might be identified as critical assets based on national security or economic importance. A good example would be

a sports stadium or a shopping center, when filled with people,

might represent another critical asset. In this case some facilities

might be critical at certain times and not at others. Typically, the

affected organization or activity would perform its own criticality

assessment. We note that the report of the Interagency Commission on Crime and Security in U.S. Seaports, issued late last year,

stressed the need for these assessments in conjunction with threat

and vulnerability assessments.

Simply stated, sir, one must know as much as possible about the

threat, identify one’s weaknesses to potential attacks or debilitating events, and determine which assets are most important and

require special attention in order to make sound decisions on preparedness when leveraging limited resources.

One caveat about threat assessments. Our goal must be to understand threats and create assessments to guide our action. To

78

1The prepared statement of Dr. Walks appears in the Appendix on page 192.

this end, there are continuous efforts within the government, the

intelligence and law enforcement communities, to assess foreign

and domestic threats to the Nation. However, even with these efforts, we may never have sufficient information on all threats. So

there may be a tendency to use the worst-case scenario. Since

worst-case scenarios focus on vulnerabilities, and there are unlimited vulnerabilities, as there are unlimited scenarios and possible

contingencies, this would exhaust our resources.

Therefore, we believe that is essential that a careful balance involving all three assessments be used in preparing and protecting

against threats, even if the threat assessment is considered less

than satisfactory.

In summary, Mr. Chairman, threat, vulnerability and criticality

assessments, when completed, evaluated and used together in a

risk-based process, allow leaders and managers to make key decisions affecting planning and actions which will better prepare

against potential terrorist attacks that may involve a wide range

of weapons. If this risk management approach were universally

adopted and applied by the Federal, State and local governments,

and by other segments of our society, we could more effectively and

more efficiently prepare an in-depth defense which might make future acts of terrorists more difficult to achieve their goal, but

should we fail in preventing an attack or an event from happening,

our preparedness might mitigate the impact of that attack.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I would be pleased

to answer any questions that the Committee might have.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Mr. Decker. A very helpful statement.

Dr. Walks, it is a pleasure to have you with us. Thanks for all

your public service in recent weeks. We have watched you with admiration, and we look forward to your testimony now.

TESTIMONY OF IVAN C.A. WALKS, M.D.,1 CHIEF HEALTH OFFICER OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND DIRECTOR, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH (DOH), ACCOMPANIED BY DR. LARRY SIEGEL AND TED GORDON, SENIOR DEPUTIES, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA DEPARTMENT OF

HEALTH (DOH)

Dr. WALKS. Thank you, sir. Good morning, Chairman Lieberman.

Good morning, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Voinovich, Mr. Thompson, Mr.

Akaka, and Mr. Cleland.

My name is Ivan Walks. I am the Chief Health Officer of the District of Columbia, and I direct the Department of Health, and it is

an honor to be asked to come this morning and provide testimony.

I am joined by my two senior deputies, Dr. Larry Siegel and Ted

Gordon.

I would like to first start on behalf of Mayor Anthony Williams,

by first saying that all of us here in the District of Columbia share

the grief of the U.S. Postal Service over the loss of two of their

own, two of our neighbors and fellow public servants. These deaths

are tragic especially because they were deaths due to deliberate

79

acts of terror. Our hearts and prayers go out to those families.

They are the victims of evil.

I would like to start by setting a little context. The use of an infectious disease weapon places the providers of health care in the

role of first responders. Our doctors, nurses and other providers

have become our first line of defense. Dr. Hanfling, who was here

this morning, exemplifies that, and is one of those new heroes that

we have in a different kind of war. With anthrax we are facing a

significant challenge that we, as a Nation, and as a society have

never faced before. We are facing the results of a deliberate terrorist act by one or more individuals who are determined to deliberately harm and disrupt our lives and our society. The enemy can

choose its time, its place and method. As such, we must predict and

prepare. As we try to predict when, where and how, we must ensure that we are appropriately resourced.

The good news is the United States of America has the world’s

greatest laboratories and the world’s greatest scientists. The bad

news is that our public health infrastructure has been neglected.

It is critically important to emphasize that we can only fight the

terrorists by devoting the necessary resources now to training and

equipping medical and public health personnel, and developing and

delivering educational material to the public. As a Nation, we will

need to develop a heightened sense of awareness of potential

threats to the public health, and institute plans to mitigate them.

At the request of Senator Frist, who has worked closely with the Department of Health here in Washington, DC, a budget of $30

million to support our infrastructure here in the District was presented. Our needs reflect those of State and local health departments across the country.

For the last 5 years, the District of Columbia Department of

Health has been planning for a bioterrorism event. On September

11, we activated our enhanced biosurveillance protocol. This means

that we monitor daily emergency room presenting symptom logs.

We sort of knew what came in and what it looked like. Our epidemiologists analyze that data in order to look for unusual clusters

of suspicious illnesses. Further, on September 26, I sent an alert

to all regional health care providers to move them in what I call

a public health upgrade. We went from diagnosis reporting, which

was federally mandated, things like Legionnaire’s, tuberculosis,

etc., to a symptom reporting paradigm. That alert included what

those symptoms would look like. It notified hospitals and health

care providers of warning signs and symptoms that might indicate

an anthrax infection. We also submitted a biochem disaster, ‘‘Day

1,’’ contingency plan to the Executive Office of the Mayor.

On Monday, October 15, we learned from watching television

news that an envelope potentially containing anthrax had been

opened in Senator Daschle’s office in the Hart Senate Office Building. The FBI later confirmed that the letter’s contents had tested

positive for anthrax.

Sherry Adams, who directs our Office of Emergency Health, confirmed that report with the office of Dr. Eisold, the attending physician at the Capitol. At that time the incident was believed confined to the U.S. Capitol. I called, spoke with Dr. Eisold. He

thanked me for my call, and assured me that their resources were

80

in place. However, because of our Department’s bioterrorism plan,

we assessed the potential threat to the larger community and we

recognized our need for assistance. We called the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Bioterrorism Office in Atlanta, Georgia. We asked them to send a technical support team to assist in

epidemiological monitoring, surveillance and community outreach.

We also asked for a national pharmaceutical stockpile advance

team to give technical assistance. Finally, we requested a public

health service officer from the Office of Emergency Preparedness to

act as a liaison. The Federal Government approved all three requests. Those requests were made on October 15.

At 4:30 a.m. on October 16, Mrs. Adams was notified by Dr.

Tracy Treadwell of the CDC that a virulent form of anthrax had

been confirmed. The CDC technical assistance team arrived in our

Department of Health offices by 8 a.m. that day. We briefed them

about our Department’s concerns and needs. Shortly thereafter the

CDC deployed part of their team to work with Dr. Eisold on Capitol Hill.

I am going through this because I think it is important to understand that even from a local health department, when a call is

made to the Federal jurisdiction, they responded immediately real

time and they were there to work with us. I know a lot of heat has

been taken by CDC, but I want to put on the record that when we

called they responded immediately.

Other members of the CDC team remained to work with us at

the Department of Health, assessing our biosurveillance protocols

and activities in order to ensure the safety of District residents and

visitors.

On Tuesday, October 16, I again made contact with the office of

Dr. Eisold to discuss some concerns of our local hospitals. Folks

were not wanting to go and line up. They were going to local hospitals. They wanted treatment there. They wanted testing there.

The Capitol Hill team did a couple of things. They not only worked

with Dr. Eisold, but they also made recommendations that the Department of Health should be included as planning went forward

on Capitol Hill.

On Wednesday, October 17, Dr. Scott Lillibridge called the Department of Health and invited us to join a joint task force that

was meeting in the Capitol Building. Dr. Larry Siegel represented

our Department of Health at that meeting. The discussions on

Wednesday included concerns about the path of the anthrax letter.

As early as Wednesday, those discussions were ongoing. But the

best science on Wednesday indicated that a sealed letter arriving

at Senator Daschle’s office would not pose a threat of inhaled anthrax to Postal workers. There was not a neglect on the part of the

CDC of the Postal workers in our community. There was clearly an

understanding that we found later not to be compatible with this

form of anthrax that has been described.

On Thursday, October 18, the Postal Service, being proactive,

called us. Dr. David Reed, the Medical Director for the U.S. Postal

Service, called our Department of Health, and we entered into further conversation about the risk that might be apparent to Postal

workers. Again, the recommendation from CDC, consistent with all

the best science at that time, was that if there was a risk to those

81

Postal workers, it was a risk of cutaneous anthrax, it was not a

risk of inhalation anthrax.

On October 19, we learned how horribly wrong all of the best

science was. On Friday night, October 19, the experts, the heroes

on the front line, Dr. Hanfling and the group at Inova Fairfax,

called the Department of Health hotline that we had set up the

previous Wednesday, and told us about what they called a suspicious case, looked like pulmonary anthrax. We followed that case

closely with them and with the CDC, and did a couple of things.

We knew that if this was in fact a case of confirmed inhalation anthrax, it would really change all of our preconceptions about this

illness.

We worked with that joint task force. Senator Frist, a tremendous ally, wonderful leader, was with us in the room here in the

Capitol in Jeri Thompson’s office. We had Deputy Surgeon General

Ken Moritsugo and a cast of other folks from the Federal Government working with local folks to do some planning. We could not

afford to wait until we had a confirmatory test to plan. That Saturday we were here until late in the evening, and we decided if that

test was positive what our behavior would be the next day.

Seven a.m. Sunday morning I got a call from Dr. Kabazz, the

CDC lead, to tell me that test was confirmed positive. Within 5

hours Admiral Lawrence, Dr. Kanouse, the other folks on the Federal side had already deployed a team of doctors, nurses and pharmacists to the District of Columbia. In addition to that, Secretary

of Health for the State of Maryland, Georges Benjamin, and the

Commissioner of Health for the State of Virginia, Anne Peterson,

both came to the District, and we had a joint press conference in

the District to talk about our regional response to know what was

a real threat, because by the time we had that press conference

early Sunday afternoon, we knew a second person was ill and we

already thought that there may be one death related to inhalation

anthrax, and we had already begun to get calls about this difference in care that people on the Hill got versus people in town.

This became a tremendous concern of ours. We reacted quickly,

and made sure that the folks from Brentwood, those Postal workers, got exactly the same care the folks on the Capitol got. The

minute we understood, the minute the CDC understood there was

a credible threat, everyone reacted as one, based on good planning

and established relationships over those several previous days.

By October 21 and 22 we had those two deaths; they were confirmed. We now had four cases of inhalation anthrax contracted in

a way that a week previous no one thought could occur. During

those first 2 days we provided appropriate prophylactic care and

testing for over 3,000 Postal workers. Senator Frist and his wife

came and went through the facility to ensure that we were doing

the job that he had planned with us that we would do.

During the next couple of days several things happened. I am

going to try to summarize my testimony because it is detailed, and

I want it to be detailed, but I also want to complete what I am trying to convey.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Dr. Walks, please go on, but we will print

your full statement in the record, so I appreciate the time that you

took to prepare it.

82

Dr. WALKS. Thank you, sir. Please ignore the two typos I found

while I was reading it. [Laughter.]

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I will.

Dr. WALKS. From Sunday to Monday one practical thing occurred. We had planned—we had this wonderful campus at D.C.

General that was now available for what we call surge capacity. If

we needed it, it was there. When we were ready to deploy on Sunday, we discovered something. RFK Stadium, two doors down, was

having this thing with Michael Jackson and the Backstreet Boys

and 50,000 people coming. We could not use D.C. General. We had

a contingency plan. We went to One Judiciary Square, and in that

large facility we were able to set up and do all of our work, then

on Monday move over to D.C. General without missing a beat. That

is a credit to the Office of Emergency Preparedness and those folks

who worked with us and continue to work with us.

In the record there is a lot of detail about what that center looks

like. I think that we have shown it works efficiently, and I really

want to share that with folks because reinventing the wheel is not

something we advocate and think people need to be able to do.

To summarize the last week, what we have experienced here in

Washington, DC is a tremendous learning curve. We have watched

some of the brightest people leave their homes, leave their families,

come camp out with us. More than 85 CDC folks are camping out

with us at our Department of Health. We have watched people

make their best decisions they could, given all of the available

science, and we have learned something. We have learned that people can be ahead of us on the science, and people can lose their

lives. But we have learned something else. We have learned that

the people on the front lines, the first responders in a biological attack of this kind, people like Dr. Hanfling and the folks at Inova

Fairfax, when people come to them for care, they can go beyond the

science, they can recognize, I know it should not look like this, but

it looks like this. We have three people in hospitals now that 2

weeks ago we would have thought would not be alive. They are in

the hospital. They continue to be stable, and they continue to receive excellent care, and they continue to prove every day that inhalation anthrax does not have to be a death sentence.

My message is twofold. One is that cooperation can lead to results that we can embrace. The second is this: I grew up in California. We learned to live with earthquakes. You cannot predict

them. Sometimes they can kill people. People in the Midwest live

with tornadoes. People in the Southeast live with hurricanes. There

is something about emergency preparedness that needs to cut

through all of the things we are talking about today. If you are

going to be on the Metro, carry some comfortable shoes and a 10-

ounce bottle of water. It can make a huge difference if there is an

event and you have to walk any appreciable distance. In California

kids in certain school districts bring a shoe box to school the first

of the year. In that shoe box is their favorite nonperishable food,

a flashlight, and a note from mom and dad that says something

like, ‘‘Ivan, this is mom and dad. I know you can’t leave school

right now and we can’t come to get you. Your teachers will take

care of you. You will be OK. Do what they say until we can come.’’

83

There are some basic emergency preparedness messages that do

two things. One is it gives people something to do. Cannot smell

anthrax, cannot taste it, it gets you sick days after you have been

exposed. The public cannot do anything with that. Those of us

whose job it is to worry, we need to worry. And as I said earlier,

when you do not know, say you do not know, so folks will believe

you when you say what you do know. But on the other hand, by

giving the public basic emergency preparedness stuff that they can

do that is useful, people do not feel helpless, they are empowered

to take some control of this new world in which we live, and I think

we can all go forward with that spirit of preparedness, cooperation

and real-time shared information. I think that real-time shared information is our best weapon in the fight against terrorism. It can

comfort the public and allow us to work better together. Thank

you.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Doctor. That was very impressive and very helpful testimony. And you declared a few people heroes, but I would give you a medal for being as proactive and as

quickly proactive as you were in this matter, and also for exactly

the themes that you struck at the end. I appreciate that.

Dr. WALKS. Thank you, sir.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. General Parker, I have said it before, we

are going back over what happened in this unusual and unprecedented event to see if we can learn from it, and particularly from

the view of this Committee, better coordinate government responses as all of you have said. What drew my attention in your

statement, and here we were in the unusual position of not just

being Senators on an oversight committee, but we were all part of

this story insofar as we were involved with the letter of Senator

Daschle, the closing of the buildings, etc. What drew my attention

in your testimony, in trying to put this all together, was that on

Monday, October 15, when the Daschle letter was opened and FBI

was called in, they called you in, USAMRIID, and it was that day

that—I will read from your testimony—USAMRIID reported to the

FBI on the afternoon of October 15 that preliminary results indicating that the material was anthrax spores. Further, one of our

technicians/scientists made a statement that this material grossly

had some attributes consistent with ‘‘weaponized anthrax.’’ And in

the call on the morning of October 16, your agency, department, revisited the term ‘‘weaponized’’ and decided the terms ‘‘professionally done’’ and ‘‘energetic’’ were more appropriate descriptions

in lieu of any real familiarity with weaponized materials.

This was a real source of concern to us on the Hill, because at

an early point we were told this is pure stuff, in fact, that is why

we are closing the building, and at another point we were reassured that it was indistinguishable from other anthrax found in

other locations. I have to ask you the question whether the change

in designation from ‘‘weaponized’’ to ‘‘professionally done’’ or ‘‘energetic’’ was requested of you by other governmental agencies or

whether it was a determination that you made yourselves?

General PARKER. Sir, thank you for that question. We made that

determination ourselves. The term ‘‘weaponization’’ has no real scientific or medical meaning, and it was an impression by a scientist

that was shared to the FBI liaison office on October 15 when he

84

first saw the material. The anthrax spore was in fact an anthrax

spore, and what we saw was that the sample from Senator

Daschle’s letter was very light and powdery and seemed to float in

the air. And that had no connotation with anthrax that would be

put on a projectile and sent somewhere as we think of a weapon.

But in the same context, sir, anthrax spores are not something

that you put in everybody’s letter, and in this particular case the

anthrax spore was put in a letter and the letter was used as a missile, and it was—it had the grid coordinates on it for Senator

Daschle. So in a way, that letter was weaponized with a deadly anthrax spore. But we found that a better characterization for that

was that because of its purity and because of its lightness, we

wanted to say that a professional had to have a hand in this, and

that it was energetic, that perhaps someone knew something to be

able to make it very powdery and stay in the air.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK. While I think we were somewhat confused here on the Hill, for example, by the various descriptions we

were getting, I was interested to note that, Dr. Walks, you said

that by October 16, which was the Tuesday morning, presumably

from the conferences you had been involved in, you had concluded

that this was, to quote the word you used in your testimony, ‘‘a virulent form of anthrax.’’ So there was a sense within the public

health community, now growing, that this was serious stuff, it was

different. And in that sense, as you said, whether we are talking

about a weapon as we conventionally understand it or a letter sent,

this was potentially, certainly injurious and maybe deadly.

Now, to follow the trail that we started out on here in the Committee yesterday, which deals with the Postal Service, Postmaster

General Potter testified to us that as he was following this, wondering who to call, he called CDC. And so my question to you, Dr.

Cohen, and I do not know who was involved here, is whether at

those early dates you were also informed or somebody at CDC was

informed that this was virulent, different, capable of floating anthrax that was found in Senator Daschle’s mail?

Dr. COHEN. Yes, and in fact, the function I have been serving

while I have been in Washington has been a liaison to the FBI, so

I actually participated in the call that occurred on the evening of

October 15, where the observational information about this was

provided to the FBI. I hosted a conference call with CDC in the

wee hours of October 16 to share that information.

It was important to note that this was the first material that we

had actually seen, so that the assumption was that any of the other

cases that previously had occurred in Florida and New York, were

caused by the same material. So many of the assumptions were

based on those epidemiologic investigations of those previous outbreaks.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So it is possible that when, I believe it

was Governor Ridge at one point or whoever said it, said that this

was indistinguishable from the other anthrax, we took that—and

then somebody else said it was garden variety anthrax, we took

that to be reassurance. Maybe it was not meant to be that.

But let me get to the point about the Postal Service. We come

then to—I am jumping ahead a bit because my time is running out

on this round—I believe it was on Thursday, October 18, that there

85

were traces of anthrax found in the mail room here in the Dirksen.

And then it was that day that Postmaster General Potter initiated

some environmental testing at the Brentwood facility. As I look

back to yesterday’s testimony, and he indicated that he made that

judgment based on counsel from CDC. If we knew that this was anthrax capable of moving in the air because it was refined, and we

concluded it was virulent in that sense, and we saw by Thursday,

October 18, that it had appeared upstream in the mail stream at

the Dirksen mail room—and I know hindsight is always clearer— my question is: Why was not the Post Office advised to close Brentwood and other facilities right away? Now, I do not know, and you

probably know better, anthrax may have enough of a period where

it has to develop in some way. I am thinking about those two people who died. If Brentwood had been closed on Thursday, October

18, might their lives have been saved? I do not know. Presumably

they might have been infected with this quite a while before. Let

us leave that aside for a moment. I would like you to come back.

My question is why was not the Post Office advised to close Brentwood and all other facilities under their administration upstream

after we knew what we knew on October 18?

Dr. COHEN. It was based on the information that was developed

from the Florida and the New York investigations, where there was

no evidence of risk to Postal workers. So the assumption was based

on having observed this material and thinking that this was the

same material that had been sent to AMI or the same material

that had been used in New York. Plus, as Dr. Walks has pointed

out, the assumption was also made that a sealed envelope would

not be able to produce a large enough aerosol that would create the

8,000 to 50,000 spores that a person would need to become ill.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. That is all really common sense, and

again this is hindsight, so I say it with real empathy for the difficulty of the questions that you were being asked. Once the traces

were found in the Dirksen mail room, should that not have set off

an alarm that something unusual was happening, that maybe it

was possible for this stuff, the anthrax to get out of the packages

or the envelopes and not just endanger people once the package

was open?

Dr. COHEN. Well, what you have with an aerosol exposure, you

have two parts to it. You have the spores that distribute and float

around. Then you have smaller particles that fall out. And the larger particles that fall out, it has been thought that those larger particles pose much less of a risk to being re-aerosolized, so that the

potential for small numbers of spores in an area to be a risk was

thought primarily to be a risk to cutaneous disease, not to inhalational disease.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. My time is up, but just to conclude it,

General Parker, do you have an opinion on the question I just

asked about looking back whether Brentwood and the other mail

facilities should have been closed after traces were found in the

Dirksen mail room?

General PARKER. Senator Lieberman, I truly believe that even

the terrorist in this event firmly believed that when he put that

substance in that envelope that it would—and I do not want to describe the envelope because that may be part of the criminal invesVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Aug 17, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00089 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 76808.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
86

tigation, but the way the envelope was prepared by that terrorist

would give you the impression that the terrorist did not even believe that it would get out of that envelope and that it would arrive

on Senator Daschle’s desk. So the fact that the spores did in fact

pass through porous areas in that envelope and create an aerosol

that cause harm in this particular case, was maybe a fact too far

for most of us, sir.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Fair enough. I appreciate your answers

very much to very difficult questions. Senator Thompson.

Senator THOMPSON. Did anyone see what I saw, in passing, this

morning on television, where a person had a well-sealed envelope

with talcum powder in it, and was doing it like this, and you could

see it coming through the envelope. And I am told that the microns

in that talcum powder are probably larger than some of the stuff

that we are dealing with.

Now, I think the average person is going to ask, somewhere

along the line, why, with the billions of dollars that we were already spending in these areas in terms of military preparedness,

research and development, did that not occur to somebody. And the

difficulty with what you say, Dr. Cohen, is that while surely you

are correct in that the full situation did not present itself from the

Florida and New York situation, when something like this happens, you cannot just depend on what happened with regard to the

first part of the attack.

We are hopefully supposed to be able to depend on years of research and analysis to give us an understanding of the nature of

these properties. I mean anthrax is not a new substance. That is

why I find it difficult to understand why we know so remarkably

little about its properties and uses, and so forth, which gets me to

the military.

You would think that in preparing, as I understand what

USAMRIID does in normal times, Major General, you would conduct research, and develop vaccines, drugs, and diagnoses in laboratories for field use by the military, basically in an effort to protect the military service members. You would come up with countermeasures. I think one would think that our preparation for military purposes would be somewhat advanced, but I get the impression from Senator Lieberman’s line of questioning and your answers, that immediatly following the discovery of anthrax, you

were going through a series of tests and developing information.

We were told, initially, that the anthrax was of weapons grade.

And it was not just a matter of backing off that statement to say

that it was ‘‘sophisticated’’ or whatever. We were also told that the

anthrax was merely garden variety, which led us to believe that it

was the opposite. Come to find out, both were true in terms of the

nature of the substance. As I understand it, it was garden variety,

but what had been done to it in the processing, was not a garden

variety kind of situation. So, I know that you were being pounded

with questions on a minute-by-minute basis. I take it that you were

running tests during all of this time and coming up with additional

understanding about what you were dealing with, and then giving

us information as you went along. Is that what happened?

General PARKER. Senator, that is exactly right. We were trying

to do the right studies, do the right research on the product to get

87

the right answers, and the demand for information, as you can well

imagine, was pretty severe.

Senator THOMPSON. Well, my concern is that, what if our military personnel had been attacked? How many hours or days would

we have had to analyze these properties and do these tests and

conduct this debate and discussion that we have had with various

pieces of information coming from various sources, and all of this?

Clearly we are in trouble, from a military standpoint, if we are flying by the seat of our pants. I do not mean that in any derogatory

manner, but I really am perplexed that we are not more knowledgeable right from the very beginning of a potential attack like

this. And of course, now your constituency—I do not know if this

has occurred to anybody over there, but it occurs to me, that your

constituency now is not the military; it is everybody, because the

likelihood of a State-sponsored attack on our military with this sort

of stuff is probably low.

As I understand it, during the first Bush Administration, Saddam Hussein was told that if he used this sort of stuff on us, he

and his whole country would be annihilated; and he backed off. As

far as individual terrorists are concerned, I do not know if they are

extremely likely to take on the military. I think civilians are more

likely to be targeted nowadays for this kind of attack. That is just

my opinion; something I assume that is being analyzed and discussed. But what is your read on this?

I would think that the CDC would be able to come to the military

and get a quick read on a situation like this. I guess one of the

questions is, is the relationship as it should be? Obviously, this was

new; this is different, hindsight being 20/20, and all that. I do not

mean to be overly critical, but we have a responsibility to ask the

tough questions, and it looks to me like the CDC and the best that

we have in our country, which I assume is the military organization that is responsible for this, nowadays especially ought to have

total integration with regard to this issue. Do you share that opinion, and what is being done about that?

General PARKER. Senator Thompson, I more than share it. We

have an active, and we have had a long and active relationship between the CDC and on all of my medical laboratories, actually, not

just the USAMRIID. We engage in combating infectious disease

and bioterrorism, and have actually a written agreement that says

we are hand in hand on that, and we do joint experimental work

both at the CDC and USAMRIID to solve problems, potential problems for this Nation.

Senator Thompson, I would like to say that I think the military

posture is one that is very good. I think in the paradigm of bioterrorism or the use of weapons of mass destruction, the military has

financed and looked at the use of biological weapons or chemical

weapons on a battlefield scenario, and in recent years we have focused on the use of these terrible agents and biological weapons in

a bioterrorist or an asymmetric way. And because of that, I think

if you look at the programs, we have a very large program to develop detectors, we have a very large program to look at

pretreatments and therapeutics for these things, and drugs and

vaccines to prevent our service members from falling ill.

Senator THOMPSON. But now it is obvious, is it not?

88

General PARKER. And now it is the constituency of the United

States of America that we are concerned about.

Senator THOMPSON. Exactly. Now we all see you have to integrate all of that into the public health system.

General PARKER. Yes, sir, and—— Senator THOMPSON. A big job.

General PARKER. It is a big job, sir.

Senator THOMPSON. But the battlefield now is the streets of New

York and any other place in America.

General PARKER. Yes, sir. And the delivery means has become

quite asymmetric, and that has added to the challenge.

Senator THOMPSON. I would think that the Congress and the administration are going to really have to address this and work together to see what the future should hold for the organization, how

it might be redirected in some respects in light of what we know

now. You have done excellent work and I am not being critical of

you individually. You have put a good voice out there.

In finishing, I just want to commend Dr. Walks for what he has

been doing over the last few weeks. We have all been watching.

Your candor and reassurance are exactly what we need. I would

personally hope that someday the whole Nation would get the benefit of your services, Dr. Walks. So thank you for what you are

doing, too.

Dr. WALKS. Thank you, sir.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Senator Thompson. I hope

you do not have to wait for the Thompson presidential administration for that to happen. Although that may be soon. I do not know.

[Laughter.]

Senator THOMPSON. Do you really want to go there?

Chairman LIEBERMAN. No, I do not. Thank you, my dear friend

and distinguished statesman. Senator Akaka.

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the panel for

your comments. The possible use of anthrax as a biological weapon

is not a new threat. In 1998, there was a series of bioterroristic

threats of anthrax exposure through letters sent to health clinics.

Although these letters were a hoax at that time, CDC said these

threats required prompt action by health, law enforcement, and

laboratory personnel. Coordination and communication across

agencies are necessary to protect the public and first responders

from credible biological warfare and bioterrorism agents such as

anthrax.

I wish to remind all our public health officials in the Federal

Government that prompt and immediate coordination is paramount. I echo Senator Clinton’s remarks when she said we need a

single credible medical professional speaking to the American public.

Dr. Cohen, last Friday our staff were briefed by the Postal Service that tests performed by URS Company, the contractor working

in the Brentwood facility, were inconsistent with tests performed

by workers from the CDC. Can you comment on the discrepancy

between the results? And do the differences arise from different

samples, from different testing methods, or from some other factor?

Dr. COHEN. I am not aware of those discrepancies. We would be

happy to look into that and respond for the record.

89

Senator AKAKA. There were, but we certainly will want to hear

from you on that.

Dr. COHEN. Certainly.

INFORMATION PROVIDED FOR THE RECORD BY DR. COHEN’S OFFICE

The URS contractor collected 29 samples around October 18 (Thursday)

and 14 of these came back positive for Bacillus anthracis early the following

week. (Brentwood Postal facility was closed on Sunday, October 21 based

on the lab confirmation of the first patient with inhalational anthrax detected in DC). The URS samples were from the path of the Daschle letter

(note related to where patients worked or a grid of the facility) but were

mainly from DBCS 17 (where the sorting of the letter had occurred) and

outgoing bins for government mail.

Later CDC samples also detected B. anthracis, but in a lower percentage

of samples than this URS batch, which is not at all surprising since the

samples were conducted in a much wider area.

A summary of the CDC testing can be found in the December 21, 2001

MMWR, Vol. 50, No. 50 (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/

mmwrwrhtml/ mm5050a1.htm) The full details of the CDC sampling found

that 8/114 (7%) surface wipe samples were positive, including 4 positives

from on and around DBCS 17 (which is consistent with there being

positives near that sorter, as was found in the original sampling by URS).

Senator AKAKA. Dr. Walks, I thank you for your comments and

for what you have done over the weeks now. We have an advantage

in the current situation of knowing that there is a disease out

there. You properly mentioned that we need to be prepared, we

need to cooperate our efforts, and we need to communicate or share

what we know.

Many bioterrorism scenarios do not have such a clear indication

that an attack has occurred. New York City has a syndrome surveillance program in which data is collected on emergency room

visits, on pharmacy purchases, on school absences, emergency service calls, and unusual deaths to quickly alert local and State authorities of a potential epidemic. Does Washington, DC have a syndrome surveillance program? If not, are there plans to implement

one? And how would you coordinate such a program with public

health departments in Maryland and Virginia?

Dr. WALKS. Yes, sir, we do have such a plan. We are growing it

as we go. We are involving more people as we go. One of the things

that I do want to mention, there are about 1,400 employees in the

District of Columbia’s Department of Health. Many of them are

manning our hotline overnight and then going to their day jobs

during the day. We are working very hard. We have that in place.

Beyond that, we have an improving relationship with our area

hospitals. We have to depend on them. They are our first responders. There is a 10 a.m. conference call every day. I missed that this

morning. I am going to pay for that. But they depend on myself,

Dr. Siegel, and Dr. Richardson, to be on that call, share information real time. That call also includes the regional health officers

in the neighboring counties in Maryland as well as in Virginia.

I have an advantage of personally knowing Dr. Georges Benjamin, the Secretary of Health for the State of Maryland, and personally knowing Dr. Peterson who is the health commissioner for

the State of Virginia. Those relationships were really brought to

bear on Sunday when we needed to present a regional coordinated

public health response to a brand new threat. No one thought that

this kind of thing could happen.

90

So yes, we have that kind of system in place. I think Baltimore

also has something similar. A lot of public health departments

across the country need the kinds of resources that we are asking

for to put those kinds of systems in place, and also to man those

systems. One of the challenges we have is that we have been told

we can get equipment. But equipment without people does not

allow you to really do your job. I think many public health departments around the country would echo the need for that equipment.

I think our hospital partners also need to be supported. We have

private hospitals volunteering—one of our medical directors came

on Sunday with his daughter asleep on his shoulder, to see what

he could do to help. There is a tremendous medical community out

there that really needs to be resourced. It used to be just police and

fire. Now it is medical folks that are on the front lines.

Senator AKAKA. You are correct when you mention that there are

problems in an emergency, as you mentioned, earthquakes, tornados or hurricanes, and how when that happens some people are

turned away by HMOs or whatever. We need to put together a national criteria where——

Dr. WALKS. There is also another reason why you really need to

have public health infrastructure. When you have something like

we had, thousands of people who need to be protected first from

this very horrible disease, they need to have a place to go. People

are terrified, and there is a risk from everybody taking antibiotics.

So if you have got people going to hospitals all over town getting

antibiotics: Ivan Walks goes to Hospital 123. He gets his pills. He

goes to Hospital XYZ; he gets his pills. He gives some to his neighbor. People have been selling Cipro on the Internet.

By having one location—and Dr. Eisold did this for the Capitol

folks, and we did this for the other folks in the District—we can

keep a good record. What if we learned something 2 days ago? The

CDC is learning things real time. They are telling us real time.

What if we learned something 2 days ago and we have to contact

all of those people? One central database is a tremendous public

health tool.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you for that.

General Parker, thank you so much for your almost daily briefings to the Senate and members of the Senate. That has been very

helpful to us. You were quoted in yesterday’s Washington Post as

saying that you do not have a large amount of anthrax samples to

test and that this is limiting your ability to determine its characteristics. Has this been limited further by giving some of your samples to the FBI for analysis at another lab? Or what tests could be

done at this other facility that could not be done at your lab?

General PARKER. Senator, first of all, we have had four incidents

and the amount of sample has been very limited among all four.

But there is an absolute limit of sample so it has to be carefully

used.

Our capabilities at USAMRID are such that we can identify and

verify the organism, and we can do electron microscopy to do the

sizing of the organism. But chemical characterization, typing of the

organism is not within our current capabilities at USAMRID.

Our customer, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was very interested in questions like, are these spores all of the same family

91

or strain? The expert in the country is Dr. Kiam at the University

of Northern Arizona, and we sent our specimens—we know how to

behave under the select agent rule and know how to package specimens so that we can move them from one institution to another.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation asked us to move samples to

northern Arizona for typing.

When we were very interested in perhaps what was mixed with

the spores we—actually, before we moved spores for that type of

identification, killed the spores, a small sample of them, by radiation at our laboratory, and then moved them to the Armed Forces

Institute of Pathology where special x-ray diagnostics could be done

on the sample to give us more information about the characterization of the substance.

So, sir, yes, we have our capabilities at USAMRID, but the greater picture is, we try not to duplicate or spend money on things that

we know that there are experts in the country who we can reach

out to and have the work done very, very well for us. They do that

time and time again, so we are very happy with their answer, and

we believe they have credibility with their answer. That is very important because the virtual laboratory is the type of laboratory we

want for the 21st Century. We depend on the research and engineering expertise that this great Nation has, no matter where it is

geographically.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you.

General PARKER. One sample was so small, the Brokaw sample,

we had so little of it, and because it was part of a criminal investigation our customer, the Federal Bureau of Investigation asked

us not to further analyze that because there is so little available

for us.

But on the other two, the Daschle sample and the New York Post

sample, we had sufficient material to send around and get better

characterization. As of this time, we do not have any original sample from the Florida case, sir.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Thank you for your responses.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Akaka. Senator

Voinovich.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yesterday we

had the Postal officials in to talk about what we could do to protect

our Postal workers, and to create an environment where they feel

safe in processing the mail, and guaranteeing the public that they

would not have to worry about their mail delivery. I mentioned

that there is a lot of anxiety in the country.

I would like to just share with the Members of this Committee

and the panelists, this is from the Cleveland Plain Dealer today:

Across Northeast Ohio, Attacks of Anxiety. ‘‘The fear of anthrax is

causing enough aghast in northeast Ohio to keep health officials

and emergency crews responding to calls about anything that

walks, talks, or acts like a potentially dangerous spore, from baby

powder to bathrooms to doughnut crumbs....

‘‘We are told to watch for unfamiliar mail, to wash our hands, to

tell our superiors about any suspicious package and substances. We

watch news reports about the rising numbers of infections and exVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Aug 17, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00095 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 76808.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
92

posures in Washington, DC, Florida, and New York, New Jersey,

and suddenly anything white and powdery, an extra stamp on a

letter, envelopes from the bank machine are suspect.’’ This small county health commissioner says, ‘‘I think it is getting

to the point of paranoia,’’ blaming the media for exaggerating the

threat. ‘‘We are wasting a lot of resources, time, and money.’’ It goes on, ‘‘When doctors, nurses, and hospital administrators

spend much of their workday meeting and planning for bioterrorism and fielding anthrax related calls, it is expensive. When police, firefighters, hazardous material crews answer bogus emergency calls, it has a price. When businesses are temporarily evacuated, when companies beef up mailroom security, buy gloves and

masks, and train workers on how to handle suspicious packages, it

saps productivity. ‘‘ ‘This will cost the country tens, even hundreds of millions of

dollars,’ lamented Michael Fuer, chairman and chief executive officer of Office Max, which evacuated the mailroom in its Shaker

Heights headquarters for 2 hours last week after receiving a suspicious UPS package that turned out to be harmless.’’ It goes on and says, ‘‘The appearance, anyway, that the government is wrestling with an opponent it really does not know much

about has not helped allay fears.’’ I would like to take this out of who did what to whom, and look

at the big picture. The big picture is, we have got to do something

out there to allay the fears of the people in this country. We need

to either remove them, or certainly lessen those fears and get

things back on track so this does not do in our economy. We need

to get good information out there.

Dr. Walks, I commend you. I am also the ranking member on the

D.C. authorization committee. I think you are doing a great job.

But we have to understand that we need to deal with this in a responsible fashion. Maybe I am looking at it from the point of view

of an old mayor and a governor of a State. We need to have a plan

that is in place.

First, I think we have to make it clear, and maybe the President

ought to say it, that is the hoaxes have got to stop. This is no joke,

and if you play that game, you are going to jail. We really need to

get that out there, to stop that.

Then second of all, we need to have in place a system where people can handle this in a rational, understandable fashion.

Dr. Cohen, I would like to congratulate you. I know that you

have been funding—I think you have got 11 States that you funded

with competitive grants for technical assistance and to determine

best practices. You were out in front on that issue of getting the

States ready for something that could happen in the area of terrorism.

But the fact of the matter is that our State and local health departments are being overrun. The State of Ohio has 800 cases that

have come in. They have got 300 that are still needing to be processed. Now those are probably minor ones that they do not feel are

that important.

I looked at that web site on Ohio biological threat response, and

I must say, it leaves something to be desired. There has got to be

some information out there that people can understand. What teleVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Aug 17, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00096 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 76808.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
93

phone number do I call? What is the process that we go through?

So that they feel that if there is something, it is just going to be

handled in a kind of a regimented way so they just feel good about

life as it is. Keep going, and if something happens, pick up the

phone. We know the number to call, somebody takes care of it and

it is all worked out.

Senator Bayh and I, and several other former governors, have introduced the Bioterrorism Preparedness Act. I think we need to get

some money out there right away to the States and the local communities to organize this in a better fashion. This bill calls for $5

million immediately to the States to get started, and then competitive grants for another $200 million.

Do we need to have local health departments with better lab facilities? Right now it usually gets down to the State, and then I do

not know where you get involved, Dr. Cohen. But right now, in

Ohio, it seems like all of the investigations are going to the State

of Ohio, I think even with the FBI.

So I would just like you to comment about how can we improve

this situation so that we get better information on the street. Can

we do something about lessening the anxiety and putting an organizational plan in place that aids and gives people comfort that if

something happens it is going to be taken care of in an efficient

way?

Dr. COHEN. We do actually provide funding to all the States in

some areas for bioterrorism, but I would completely agree about

the need for additional funding.

The infrastructure in public health, as has been pointed out, has

eroded over time, and in many of these diseases that are potential

bioterrorism threats there has been attrition because those diseases were no longer naturally-occurring threats to the public

health. Diseases like anthrax were much less of a problem, so there

was a great deal of de-emphasis in public health in dealing with

them. So there was a basic need for improving public health and

there was a need as well for improving those areas around bioterrorism.

I think there is a variety of things that can be done. Obviously,

rebuilding the public health infrastructure and building a new public health infrastructure in these areas are critical. But also information dissemination. I think part of what is critical in our response is the practitioners, the HAZMAT folks. We need to be able

to provide more information to encourage that kind of surveillance.

We need education; education for professionals and for the general public. I think all of this will be very helpful in trying to put

a true estimate on the risks that people face. So I think it is a

multi-faceted approach, but I think we start with the infrastructure

and then we move into various areas as well.

Senator VOINOVICH. How do we move rapidly, like in the next

week or so, to calm the fears of the people in this country? It has

already negatively affected our economy and our way of life. I was

on the phone with the wife of a very good friend of mine last night

at 11 and said, ‘‘Do not worry about anything. Let me worry about

it. It is going to be fine.’’ But they need some comfort right now.

How do we get that message across? Dr. Walks, you speak eloquently. I wish I could get you on TV, and have a national proVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Aug 17, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00097 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 76808.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
94

gram, and have them listen to you. We really need to do that. What

are your thoughts about that? How do we get that message out to

people?

Dr. WALKS. My good friend, Dr. Acter, the head of the American

Public Health Association says the No. 1 question he is asked is,

how can I know that my local health department is ready? I think

we should give the resources to those local health departments to

be ready. Our mayor is proactive. He wanted on his desk a Day

One plan. What do you do? What does it look like, if something

happens on Day One? We put that plan on his desk, and we had

to implement that plan. I think it is important to have that.

If people know that their local health leaders know who to call,

have a plan in place, protocols, procedures, policies, the surveillance that we talked about, those are things that give people comfort. You have got to be able to stand up in front of people and say,

if the unthinkable happens—and we know it already has—this is

what we will do. Let people know that you are prepared.

Senator VOINOVICH. Any other comments? I know my time is up.

How would you do it on a national level? Should the President go

on and talk about this, or how do we lessen peoples’ fears?

Dr. COHEN. Again, I think that education, the many potential

routes of education through leaders, through clinicians, through

various media organization assessing what the true risk is. But

again, encouraging people that they do have to be alert, because we

are not talking about something that is natural, that has predictable patterns. But something that potentially is intentional and

can change. So I think there has to be two components to the message.

Dr. WALKS. Can I just interject? I think that someone like the

American Public Health Association can help us craft a single message. I think it is important for us to have a single message that

people can respond to, that everyone can endorse, and then that

one single message needs to get out.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Voinovich. Important

questions and good answers. Senator Cleland.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CLELAND

Senator CLELAND. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I will

say that I have sat through hours of testimony on this issue, both

as a member of the Armed Services Committee and a Member of

this Committee, and I am now totally confused and somewhat bewildered. But as I look back at the studies of a terrorist attack on

this country put on by Johns Hopkins, Dr. Tara O’Toole and others,

called Dark Winter, another mock exercise called Top Officials, or

TOPOFF, this confusion, this bureaucratic sense of chaos is all part

of the norm. It was predicted in these two studies.

I do think we are in a bureaucratic snafu of the first order. That

the right hand does not quite know exactly what the many other

hands are doing. And in many ways, all hands are in the pie, but

we are not sure, and not able to reassure the American public what

the pie is.

I will say that I do not think I am the only one confused and bewildered. I think a lot of Americans are in the same position. I

think the Postmaster General, in a statement yesterday before our

95

Committee, basically said the same thing. He said the different focuses of various law enforcement and health organizations occasionally resulted in parties speaking different languages. And he

said, absent an established protocol, lines of authority could occasionally be unclear. That is an understatement if there ever was

one.

Now I see why there is a lot of lack of clarity in terms of protocol.

Under Presidential Decision Directive 39 of September 2001, the

Department of Justice, a law enforcement agency, acting through

the FBI, is designated as the overall lead Federal agency for all domestic terrorism incidents. And under Executive Order 13–228 of

October 8, 2001, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security shall be the individual primarily responsible for coordinating

domestic response efforts of all departments and agencies in the

event of an imminent terrorist threat.

It is interesting too, I asked the Postmaster General yesterday

what he thought his line of communication was. He said Tom

Ridge, homeland defense person. I said, if another anthrax attack

broke out, who would you go to? He said Secretary Thompson. All

of a sudden he was already out of his chain of command.

Now we have the Congress in the Public Health Service Act and

the Public Health Threats and Emergencies Act passed last year

authorized the CDC—not a law enforcement agency, but a public

health agency—authorized the CDC through the Secretary of HHS,

to direct the national response to bioterrorism.

Here we have got the Executive Branch designating two folks,

and we have got the Congress designating the public health operation and CDC becomes the lead dog. CDC is to take such action

as may be appropriate to respond to the public health emergency,

including conducting and supporting investigations into the cause,

treatment, or prevention of a disease.

We are split as a government. So neither through statute, regulations, executive orders, or past practice is there a clear protocol.

The procedure followed at Brentwood is perfectly consistent with

current statute and regulation, but was confusing, and the confusion had deadly consequences. For instance, my understanding, Dr.

Cohen, having visited the CDC and talked with Jeffrey Copeland

down there, the CDC got into, or the public health segment got into

the anthrax issue in Florida almost by accident in the sense that

a doctor on the scene thought, I have never seen this before, but

maybe . . .

He called the public health entity in the State of Florida in Jacksonville. He did not call the FBI, and there was no homeland security person in the White House. He called his public health entity

in Jacksonville. And in Jacksonville, the person he talked to had

just gone through a CDC course on anthrax. He touched base with

the CDC, and within hours, 3:30 in the morning, CDC in the public

health chain confirmed it was anthrax.

One of the questions I would like to ask you as I finish my statement here is, in effect, when did you become aware of the virulent

nature of the so-called Daschle letter version of anthrax since that

anthrax was not sent to the CDC. That was sent to Fort Detrick,

Maryland to an Army entity. Then the Brentwood facility tested

their own operation through a private contractor which went to a

96

Navy lab. So we have got three different entities here all testing

anthrax and not particularly in touch with one another, I am

afraid.

I think that it is important that we make sure that the proper

role of law enforcement as led by the FBI is there. What is their

role? To identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice. I think

they have their role. But in matters of weapons of mass destruction

such as a biochemical attack that threatens lives and public health,

I think the priority, the lead role ought to be taken by the CDC.

In my opinion, clear authority for the CDC and the HHS to take

the lead role with public health authorities like Dr. Walks and others to direct timely and effective response by other government

agencies and the public is crucial. With this authority, I think Congress must give the CDC the needed funding to train the epidemiologists, secure the safety of laboratories, provide adequate

and timely pharmaceuticals, and maybe most important, provide to

the public credible information: Tell the truth. That has come out— Dr. Tara O’Toole who will be another panelist here—in the Dark

Winter exercise, one of the real problems was communicating to

the public.

Senator Sam Nunn in that Dark Winter exercise, my dear friend

who played the role of the President said, he learned two things.

One, you do not know what you do not know. So we are all on this

learning curve; all of us. But he said the second thing he learned

was, he got very impatient as President, a few days into the exercise, with bureaucracy.

So I am afraid that we have got a problem here that we have

got to work out. We have got to clarify the roles and responsibilities of our agencies, and we have got to name a lead person or a

lead agency to take the lead here and speak every day to this issue

and give the public credible information. A rapid health response

can make the difference between a threat and a tragedy.

So I am working on measures to do this. I am going to be meeting with Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge to discuss these

proposals.

Now, Dr. Cohen, my understanding of the role of the CDC in

your experience was with the Florida case, basically cutaneous anthrax. You were not sent the samples from the Daschle letter. Is

that correct?

Dr. COHEN. The samples from the Daschle letter were sent to

Fort Detrick, yes.

Senator CLELAND. Right. And you were not sent the samples

from the New York experience, were you?

Dr. COHEN. Well, they were also sent to Fort Detrick, but we

were sent the organisms that were isolated from those samples for

characterization.

Senator CLELAND. All right. And the testing that you did was not

at Brentwood but at an interim facility, and you found nothing,

right?

Dr. COHEN. Well, I believe that the specimens that were mostly

environmental specimens initially in the D.C. area went to Fort

Detrick as well.

Senator CLELAND. Right. But your testing—you did not test at

Brentwood. You tested at an interim facility and found nothing

97

there. Therefore, your advice to Brentwood was, in effect, you do

not have to test. But that was based on your experience with what

you knew up to that point.

Dr. COHEN. Oh, yes.

Senator CLELAND. So the other samples, which were much more

virulent, actually went somewhere else, and you and your staff did

not quite know exactly what you were dealing with except Brentwood became the place that paid the price.

Dr. COHEN. We made the assumption since the only specimen

that was available at the time, which was the Daschle letter specimen, which was looked at and reported to us on October 15, we

made the assumption that the specimens were the same, so that

what had been received in Florida and would have been received

in New York likely had the same characteristics.

As part of that, we would then make the assumption that the

risks that were perceived in Florida and New York would be the

same risks that we would potentially experience in the District.

Senator CLELAND. But had all of these anthrax specimens gone

to you as a central clearinghouse, wouldn’t you have had a better

gauge on what exactly was happening? You could track it better,

you could give better advice to anybody, whether it was Dr. Walks

or the Senate Attending Physician or to anybody in America?

Dr. COHEN. I am afraid what happened with the specimens were

that they were discovered at different times, so that the New York

Post specimens and the Brokaw specimens were only available

later in the week of October 15. So when the decisions were made,

the only specimen that was available was that from the Daschle

letter.

Senator CLELAND. But if all of these were sent to one location,

to a central clearinghouse that has the labs and the expertise—and

CDC has 8,000 employees, and basically the Congress last year, in

effect, said you should be the lead agency in dealing with germ

warfare in America. That is not the view of the Executive Branch,

but it is the view of the Congress. And it does seem to me that we

do need at least one clearinghouse so all of this can be sorted out

and then speak to the American people and to the rest of us as to

exactly what is going on.

I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Cleland. Again, a very

important line of questioning. Senator Thompson and I were just

talking about it.

It may be that after these couple of hearings we have held, building on others, we may ask our staff to put together a chronology

which raises these questions, and perhaps it will suggest legislation. But if nothing else, I think we ought to send it over, by hand

delivery, to Governor Ridge and have him take a look at it to see

what should be done.

Senator Carper.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER

Senator CARPER. First of all, thanks to all of our witnesses for

being here. Just to follow up on the questioning that Senator

Cleland was following, earlier this week, in fact, on Monday, I

asked to meet with some people at the DuPont Company who run

98

a small operation there called Qualicon. The technology that they

work on is designed to enable them to track disease or bacteria or

microbes in food, and they work on a variety of foodborne pathogens to detect them and analyze them and so forth.

They have the ability to use this equipment to take samples of

anthrax, different strains of anthrax, and to analyze it, and within

hours, tell you what kind of agent you are dealing with. They have

the ability to depict visually and in other ways what the sample

is. You can literally stand right there and look at the screen and

see the differences between the different kinds of anthrax or other

pathogens.

Senator Cleland is talking about making sure that we try to get

all of the samples centralized, whether it is in the CDC or some

other place. I saw the technology with my own eyes this week that

enables us to not only analyze at one location, but then just to disseminate it, literally through the Internet, and to spread that information in real time to whoever needs it.

I did not know this technology until Monday, but I think I know

just about enough to be dangerous right now. But it does not appear to me, having seen what I saw earlier this week, that you

really do not have to centralize and have all the samples taken to

the same place and examined by the same people. You can analyze

it in different places and share your information through available

technology.

I do not know who in the Federal Government, who in the administration, who in the Executive Branch, needs to be aware of

the existence of this technology. I would ask our witnesses to share

with us in writing their thoughts this week as to who we should

contact to say this exists. If you could get back to us this week, I

would be most grateful.

I want to go back to what Senator Voinovich was talking about

earlier when he was referring to the hysteria that seems to have

grown around the anthrax scares of the last couple of weeks. I

think it was a day or two after Senator Daschle’s office received the

letter and they had a number of people there who tested positive

for exposure. I pulled together the folks in my own staff in my office in Hart, right next door to Tom Daschle’s office. We are nextdoor neighbors. People were anxious and concerned, as they ought

to have been, and their families were especially concerned. We had

parents calling from around the country, especially the interns’

parents, saying, Get out of the building, come home, get out of

there.

But I sat my staff down and I said, All right, let’s just think

about this for a while. This whole building, the whole Hart building, could be contaminated with anthrax. Every ventilation system

could be full of anthrax. Every one of us in this office, everyone

who works in this building, staff and Senators, could have anthrax.

None of us has to die. And I do not think we convey this message

consistently enough and often enough. This is a disease for which

there is vaccination. This is a disease for which there are any number of antibiotics which, if detected early, can treat the disease and

save virtually everybody’s life who has come in contact with it.

This is a substance that is not easily developed. In fact, I am told

only a handful of laboratories have the capability of creating it so

99

that not just any Tom, Dick, or Harry can create it and send it out

in the mail to threaten us.

Finally, unlike smallpox and other similar diseases, this is not

something that is communicable. And yet out of a handful of letters

that have been sent, our Nation is in a tizzy. I do not mean to demean the threat or the concern. We certainly abhor the loss of life

and the threat to health of people who are in hospitals or under

treatment today. But we have to put this whole thing in context.

What I said to my staff that day was this: Let’s just calm down.

And somebody needs to be saying as a Nation that, while we need

to be vigilant, we need to be mindful of the concern and the nature

of the concern, let’s just calm down a little bit as well.

Who is the appropriate person to deliver that message? It could

be Governor Ridge. I do not think it could be any of us, although

within our own States and within our own jurisdictions we certainly play that role. We set an example. I do not think by closing

down the House of Representatives a couple weeks ago and heading for home that we sent that right kind of message. I think, if

anything, we exacerbated people’s fears. But we have some opportunities and responsibilities ourselves to send that message.

That is pretty much what I wanted to say. Normally when we

have panelists before us, I always ask questions, and I have not

asked any questions of you fellows today. But I did want to respond

to the concern that Senator Cleland raised, and I certainly wanted

to respond to that which Senator Voinovich has raised. Again, we

thank you for being here and for your service.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Carper. Thanks very

much. You have been very good with your time and answers. I can

ask you while you are all here, because as we have traced the disease, we have talked about in some of the examples today how

events are going beyond our experience and quite logically thought

about the danger being only to those who are exposed to an envelope that is open or a package that is open and the experience of

the Postal workers, and now we have had this most perplexing

death of a woman in New York today who, from what we have

heard, was not in the presence, as far as we know, directly of anthrax, was not working in a mail situation, for instance.

Repeating our earlier statement that there is a lot we do not

know, I am curious, any of you who are experts at the table, how

you respond to this fact and what may be going on here. Or, as I

would be asking if I weren’t sitting here, What in God’s name is

going on here? Do you have any thought about what happened?

Dr. COHEN. Well, I think that is why it is very critical that we

conduct a thorough epidemiologic investigation to find out if there

were any potential exposures that might explain that particular

case. And I think it is clearly a high priority to try to determine

how transmission occurred.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Any other thoughts about it, General

Parker or Dr. Walks? Don’t feel obliged if you do not have any.

Dr. WALKS. I actually do have a thought on that. I think that at

times like this it is important for us to talk about what we do

know. I think we have learned enough now not to guess, and I

agree that we need to wait until the science takes us there.

100

But, again, it is important for people not to be so perplexed by

this one case that we are paralyzed and we have all of the things

that we have talked about today.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right.

Dr. WALKS. We know a lot about how to treat this.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Good point. Now, the last question is on

behalf of Senator Thompson and me, and it may actually be educational for the public. We have both had in our minds—at least

I have—that anthrax is white. And in your testimony, you said it

was tan. So is it white or tan or can it be both?

General PARKER. Senator Lieberman, to be safe, I would say

both. But in our experience with concentrated spores, it is off-white

at best, because the spore does have some color to it.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So it tends more to be white than not

white?

General PARKER. Well, it may depend on its concentration, too.

In a rather diffuse way, it may look white, and in a dense, concentrated way, its color may come forth and look a little tan or

brownish. So I do not think that we want to signal that white powders on tables or white powders on floors are automatically not suspect.

The problem that I have, there is this terrible concentration on

anthrax, and there are other agents that threaten this Nation, and

how are we going to identify and deal with those as they come up?

It is a serious, serious problem for this Nation. And I think the laboratories at Fort Detrick and the Defense Department have struggled for years with these problems.

I would say to you, if I could take one second, that knowledge

and education are critical. Usually the creation of knowledge is not

created overnight. It takes long-time work and research. And so as

we look forward, not in the next week—and I am right with you—

what do we have to do this week to help this Nation get over this?

But in the long term, we have to make sure that we have a rich

research base in academia and in our agencies to do long-term research on these potential things so that we know more and more

about them, so that when something happens we are not trying to

learn as the incident unravels.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, General Parker. That is a good

note to end it on. I thank you for your testimony. I thank you for

all that you and your organizations have been doing. We could look

back, sometimes we may sound critical. Obviously everybody has

been trying their best in a most demanding and unusual situation

to protect the public health. For that we are eternally grateful to

you, and we look forward to working with you on the answers to

some of the questions organizationally that this Committee has

raised today. Thank you and good luck in your work.

We will now call the third panel: Dr. Dan Hanfling, Chairman

of the Disaster Preparedness Committee, Inova Fairfax Hospital,

officially designated a hero today; and Dr. Tara O’Toole, Deputy Director, Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies, Johns Hopkins University, who I will give a medal to for her extraordinary work in

this area.

Can I ask the previous panel to move back from the table so that

the two witnesses for this panel can come forward?

101

1The prepared statement of Dr. Hanfling appears in the Appendix on page 209.

I want to begin with an expression of regret. I have to leave the

hearing room for a few moments. Senator Akaka will Chair while

I am gone, but I will be back, and I thank both of you for being

here.

Dr. Hanfling, why don’t you begin.

TESTIMONY OF DAN HANFLING, M.D., F.A.C.E.P.,1 CHAIRMAN,

DISASTER PREPAREDNESS COMMITTEE, INOVA FAIRFAX

HOSPITAL

Dr. HANFLING. Mr. Chairman, distinguished Members of the

Committee, it is an honor, it is a privilege to come before you for

the purpose of shedding light on the events of the last week and

a half. I am Dr. Dan Hanfling. I am a board-certified emergency

physician practicing in the Department of Emergency Medicine at

Inova Fairfax Hospital. As Senator Lieberman mentioned, I am the

co-Chairman of the Inova Health Systems Emergency Management

and Disaster Preparedness Task Force, and I have had extensive

experience in the delivery of out-of-hospital emergency medical

care, including disaster scene response, most recently at the Pentagon, with the FEMA National Urban Search and Rescue Response System.

In the post-September 11 world, it is clearer than ever that many

elements of our newest war will be fought in ways never previously

imagined. Many of the battles will be waged quite literally right

here at home. The eruption of a public health crisis from anthraxcontaminated mail has demonstrated beyond a doubt that the front

line in this war is our hospitals and their emergency departments.

With hardly a moment to collectively catch our breath in the

wake of the events of the second week of September, the medical

community has been thrust front and center in the response to

multiple cases of cutaneous and inhalation anthrax during the

month of October. What we all hoped was a case of natural outbreak of disease was quickly proven to be the deliberate work of

terrorists. And what we hoped would be limited to one work site

quickly spread to multiple targets across three metropolitan regions.

On the afternoon of October 20, 2001, I was called with the information that a U.S. Postal Service employee who works at the

Brentwood Postal Facility in the mail-handling room was admitted

to Inova Fairfax Hospital following a comprehensive emergency department diagnostic evaluation. Although confirmation of the inhaled form of anthrax was still pending and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had already dispatched a superbly capable epidemiologist to interrogate and evaluate this patient, there

was no question in anyone’s mind just what this gentleman had

come in with. In the words of Dr. Thom Mayer, who actually is sitting behind me here, the Chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine, this man’s blood was ‘‘crawling with anthrax.’’

With a sense of urgency appropriate to the gravity of the situation, hospital administrators and key clinical decisionmakers conferred by way of hourly conference calls. This was primarily meant

to keep abreast of the fluid situation and to craft a plan of action,

102

especially a medical plan of action. Those new to the field of crisis

management naively assumed that all would be made clear by

‘‘soon-to-be-released’’ guidelines coming from the CDC. But such information was not readily forthcoming.

In fact, as the crisis unfolded, the stream of information continuously appeared to be moving in an unidirectional flow. The CDC

was requesting and receiving clinical and epidemiologic data, but

the return of information to the people who needed it the most in

order to take care of this patient—and then his colleagues and the

many thousands of Postal employees at risk for contracting the disease—simply did not happen in a timely fashion.

I am aware of daily conference calls occurring between representatives in the State of Virginia Department of Health and their

counterparts in the CDC. But the results and conclusions of such

discussions did not filter down quickly enough to the hospital and

medical communities. From some very frank discussions that I had

with my counterparts in the District of Columbia and within the

State of Virginia Department of Health, it was clear from the very

beginning that the CDC was perceived to be in charge of the unfolding situation. In addition, the local health department took

some time to find its position and its voice in this developing story.

What is so ironic is that if this had been a major snowstorm barreling up the eastern coast of the United States, we would have

found a lot more information at our fingertips because the mechanism for reporting those sorts of things are in place. But here, with

an unfolding public health crisis, there was no means for conveying

information in a consistent and timely manner, issues that we have

heard presented by panelists earlier this morning.

It became apparent that the lack of coordinated communication

and inconsistent leadership from the top was hindering the ability

of the medical community to respond in a coordinated fashion to

this crisis. In fact, with every new anthrax exposure site came a

new and often different set of antibiotic prophylaxis recommendations. Again, something that we have heard some mention of made

earlier.

This has been further exacerbated by the geographic and jurisdictional boundaries that separate the national capital region into

its constituent parts: The District of Columbia, the State of Maryland, and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The conference call mechanism initiated by Inova Health Systems on October 20 soon expanded to include participants from

hospitals all across Northern Virginia. Along with a handful of my

colleagues, we created an operational entity that was designated

the Northern Virginia Emergency Response Coalition, which was

comprised of key decisionmakers from the hospitals and including

representation from the local and State public health departments.

In doing so, we attempted to create a clinical consensus with respect to the evaluation, treatment, and management of patients

presenting to hospital emergency departments with the concern of

anthrax exposure. In support of this effort, Inova Fairfax Hospital

stood up its Disaster Support Center, which served as a real-time

communication link for all of the Northern Virginia hospitals.

Simultaneous with these efforts, much the same was being done

in the District of Columbia through the excellent leadership proVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Aug 17, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00106 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 76808.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
103

vided by the District of Columbia Hospitals Association. In fact,

hospital and public health representatives from both the States of

Maryland and Virginia increasingly populated the DCHA conference calls—in fact, the call that Dr. Walks was referring to in

his testimony.

These calls were as close as we ever came to approaching a semblance of coordinated communication, but even these shared

telephone calls were no substitute for a professionally managed

emergency operations center that has the capacity for providing sophisticated communications support and timely information management.

Politics, I am afraid, got in the way of effective consequence management as evidenced by the fact that the five patients from Brentwood showed up for treatment at hospitals across the region—in

the District, in the State of Maryland, and in the Commonwealth

of Virginia—yet the Mayor and the State Governors never once, to

my knowledge, discussed this crisis together in public.

In fact, Dr. Walks and I actually did not meet face to face until

last Thursday night when we were on the set of a television interview on the unfolding crisis. This was not a means of omission by

purpose. This is, again, because the mechanisms for this sort of coordinated communication, especially in a metropolitan region such

as the District of Columbia, are not in place.

Some of these failures may also be due to a lack of understanding of the expectations and roles of public health officials in

such an emergency. Some of the shortcomings can be offset by

proper preparation. As an example, training emergency department

staff and other members of the medical community in the recognition of the use of bioterror agents I think must now be given the

highest priority.

Previous training efforts have been very limited in scope and

reach. The American College of Emergency Physicians, supported

by a grant from the Department of Health and Human Services,

for example, evaluated the barriers to effective training in the medical response to nuclear, biological, and chemical incidents. This is

something that I had presented in previous testimony to this Committee. The barriers were felt to be due to a lack of adequate funding and time constraints due in part to personnel shortage. Yet

what this last week has taught us more than anything else, as did

the outbreak of West Nile virus before this, is that clinical determination of biological terrorism will be recognized first by a cautious, astute clinician, well versed in the possibilities of bioweapons

use, and very likely in our hospitals’ emergency departments. In

fact, while we have discussed certain failings in the public health

system, it should now be quite clear that the front lines in this war

are our emergency departments, even more so than the public

health agencies, I might say. Federal efforts to address such existing deficiencies should take this matter seriously into consideration.

There is a lot of work yet to be done with respect to ‘‘all-hazards’’

disaster planning and preparedness. I cannot emphasize enough

the fact that such preparation must take a systems approach in

order to be able to address whatever the next threat may be. And

financial support for these efforts must be focused on emergency

104

departments and hospitals that will diagnose and treat the next

victims. Surveillance systems, for example, while they have their

role, will not replace the doctors and nurses in the trenches who

will be called upon to make the diagnoses and to initiate treatment.

Now, what follows are absolute needs that hospitals require in

order to effectively face these new threats. I might add these are

needs that we required ‘‘yesterday.’’

We need an enhanced communication mechanism and protocol

that allows for coordinated sharing and discussion of essential information in real time across jurisdictional and geographic boundaries.

We need improved integration of Federal experts into the local

organizational structure and delivery of their message in a consistent and timely manner.

We require the development of local stockpiles of essential medical supplies and equipment in the event that the next outbreak occurs either simultaneously on multiple fronts or with some confusion, thereby delaying the delivery of Federal assets or diluting the

amount available to be distributed.

Funding for fixed-cost items such as decontamination capabilities

and personnel protective equipment that play more of a role in a

chemical terrorism event, but are still issues that we need to consider in the context of all-hazards preparation, must be funded for

hospitals to meet the threat of unconventional terrorism.

And financial support for training and education of health care

providers in the evaluation, diagnosis, and management of the new

threats that are out there must be made.

Based on estimates which I was asked to prepare on behalf of the

Virginia Health and Hospitals Association, the fixed costs of some

of these items that I have just mentioned alone come in at about

$5 million for the State of Virginia, and in addition to that, when

you add stockpiling needs and education needs, we would estimate

an additional $30 to $40 million, again, for the State of Virginia.

The accepted means of declaring an escalating situation a disaster are straightforward. This occurs when local resources are outstripped such that the Federal assistance is required. Implementation of the Federal Response Plan, in turn, clearly designates the

appropriate lead Federal agency to handle a crisis. With that in

mind, then, it is hard to understand how it came to pass that in

this past week the CDC took the lead in responding to this crisis.

As we attempted to do in Northern Virginia, the health care community, including the local county health departments, became increasingly coordinated in developing and executing a response to

the unfolding situation.

Ideally, the CDC and the U.S. Postal Service should have served

more in a consulting role, giving back information to the public and

to the medical community. However, this communication was slow

in coming and often lacking in definite authority. In order to be

truly effective, these efforts must instill confidence and the message must be consistent and clear. Thank you.

Senator AKAKA [presiding]. Thank you. Dr. O’Toole.

105

1The prepared statement of Dr. O’Toole appears in the Appendix on page 214.

TESTIMONY OF HON. TARA O’TOOLE, M.D., M.P.H.,1 DIRECTOR,

CENTER FOR CIVILIAN BIODEFENSE STUDIES, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

Dr. O’TOOLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think the response to

these anthrax incidents has revealed much that is admirable and

that has succeeded in our public health and our medical systems,

particularly the dedication of thousands of professionals in the public health and the medical realms.

However, it has also presented us with a vulnerability assessment, to use Mr. Decker’s term, of the public health system. We

can conjure up thousands of scenarios of bioweapons attacks, and

we could do a vulnerability assessment and a criticality assessment

for each of them. But I would hope that we would use the living

lessons that we have experienced over the past few weeks to improve our capabilities in the future. And I would like to quickly run

through the five lessons or vulnerabilities that I have observed,

and perhaps these will be useful in terms of trying to provide an

algorithm for our thinking.

First of all, I think there has been an obvious and serious failure

at the top of our government to make communications strategies a

priority. The government has done simply a terrible job of communicating what is going on and what it means, and I will come back

to this in a minute. This is true both among the government agencies working on the problem and also affects the communication between the government and the public and the media and professionals in the private sector.

Second, we have very serious, longstanding structural problems

within the public health system that we are going to have to fix,

and they are going to be very expensive to repair and will take

years to heal. These includes fragmentation and lack of surge capacity in both public health and medical areas, and I will come

back to those.

Third, there is a lack of specific preparedness for bioterrorism response within the CDC, the State, the local, and the city health departments and on, as Dr. Hanfling says, the front lines of clinical

care in this country. We are, in fact, getting exactly what we have

paid for. Much has been accomplished in the last 3 to 5 years, and,

in fact, we would not even have enough national pharmaceutical

stockpile to call upon and get our Cipro and doxy from if preparations for bioterrorism had not begun several years ago.

Nonetheless, in the past 3 years, we have spent $1 per year for

every American man, woman, and child on bioterrorism response,

and we are seeing the fruits of that investment. That simply is not

enough. It does not even come close to being enough.

Fourth, I think what we are seeing is a lack of transparency and

possibly an inadequate strategy or focus on how to identify,

prioritize, and solve some of the many science problems that are

coming before us.

And, last, happily, we have not tested the capacity of the health

care delivery system to respond to a large event, but I think that

we should be very mindful of the stress and the difficulties that

106

have visited the health care system in the States and cities affected

by what are now only 18 anthrax cases.

So let me review those five points in greater detail.

First of all, the lack of an adequate communications strategy. I

do not think this is simply about a credible, highly knowledgeable,

deeply schooled, and media-friendly person getting up once a day

or ten times a day and talking to people. That is absolutely essential and it has not happened. But what we need to think about is

exactly how we would hook up all of the different pieces of the public health system and the health care system in real time with actual data. This connectivity problem of trying to link together all

of the multiple nodes that are involved—the hospital in Florida,

the health department in Florida, the lab in Florida, the lab in

CDC, USAMRIID, D.C., Trenton, New Jersey, New York City,

etc.—is very, very difficult, and part of that difficulty has to do

with the fragmentation of our health system and the lack of

connectivity within that health system.

I do not think the public is panicking. I do not think the public

is acting irrationally. I think the public is, in fact, responding very

sensibly to what it sees as a lot of confusion. They are trying to

figure out how to protect themselves and their kids.

There is a poll out from CNN that says reasoned calm and reluctance to panic characterize the general state of the American public. Only 50 percent of Florida residents have any concern about

contracting anthrax. The so-called panic buying of gas masks and

Cipro is not panic buying. It is a reasonable response to uncertainties about whether the national pharmaceutical stockpile can get to

them when they need it. They are reading the newspapers and

worry that they may not be told what they need to know in a timely fashion.

So I do not think the public is responding to panic. I think the

public is responding to inadequate information. In times of uncertainty and great anxiety, what you need to do is increase the information flow, not try to shield the public from disturbing information.

I think we should also follow some common risk communication

rules that have been articulated today such as say what you know

and what you do not know and what you are uncertain about very

clearly. This confusion and consternation that was caused by the

difference between a ‘‘garden variety anthrax’’ and ‘‘weaponized anthrax’’ I think is an accurate example of what happens when you

do not have enough deeply knowledgeable people speaking all the

time, correcting misapprehensions, and deepening people’s understanding of what these terms mean.

It is hard to communicate. I was speaking with General Parker

before the hearing, and he noted that in every exercise and every

drill of any kind he has ever been in, communication is the No. 1

problem. It is hard to do. You need to practice. You need to exercise. We need more drills and more exercises involving all of the

different players so we can figure out who is who and how to communicate more efficiently, as Dr. Hanfling has suggested.

Second, we have pervasive and very deep structural inadequacies

in our public health response. The fragmentation and the problems

of information not flowing to the front lines I think is obvious. We,

107

at Hopkins, are getting lots of calls from State and local health officials trying to figure out what the environmental sampling protocol

is. No one knows. I have not seen one. I have no idea. People are

basically making it up. The local and State health departments for

the most part are not capable of devising these kinds of protocols

without help. Yet they are not getting enough specific guidance to

put them together. Hence, we are going to have a lot of inconsistent environmental surveillance protocols. It is going to make it

difficult to analyze this information in total.

The Federal and State public health departments have inadequate resources. We are hearing stories of people literally sleeping

in the labs at CDC and not coming out for days on end. People are

being pulled from every niche of State and local health departments to do all anthrax all the time. In some places, no other public health work is getting done. One doctor in California called the

State health department to find out what to do about a suspicious

letter and was told he was number 450 in line to talk to a human

being.

The labs are overwhelmed with these thousands of samples they

are being asked to identify. You heard Dr. Walks talk about how

in D.C. health workers are manning the hotlines overnight and

then going to work.

This cannot continue. This lack of surge capacity is exhausting

people across the Nation. They are working their hearts out. And

we have only got less than two dozen cases. What would happen

in a big attack? We have no bench. We have no depth.

Third, lack of specific preparation for bioterrorism. Less than 20

percent of the local health departments have a written—not exercised, but merely written—bioterrorism response plan. We have no

play books. We have not worked out how HHS and CDC and FBI

and the local health departments and the State health departments

are going to interact. We have no capacity to rapidly push information to the city and county health departments. Two weeks ago,

CDC’s own Internet capability was down for 8 hours. That was the

one E-mail web line in and out of CDC. There is no backup. There

is no redundancy. It was gone.

Half of the local health departments cannot connect to the Internet, and those who can are mostly on very slow land lines that cannot download a lot of data quickly, making them rather useless in

this situation.

We have little capacity to get information to the clinical community. The physicians in this crisis have been as frustrated as anybody trying to get information about anthrax and what to do and

how to collect specimens.

Fourth, inadequate or at least inadequate transparency into

dealing with the science questions and technical decisions has been

a real problem. It is, I think, unreasonable to ask the people in the

middle of this operational fray to also think through all of the angles that need to be played out and considered. And I would hope

in the future that we would consider means of calling together experts from around different parts of the government and the private sector and the universities to act as backup and as a brain

trust, if you will, in such emergencies.

108

Finally, the hospitals. I will just echo Dr. Hanfling’s notes. One

hospital that I know of estimated how much it would cost just to

do the basic minimum to get ready for bioterrorism attacks—not

chemical attacks, bioterrorism—and is spending $7 million right

now—this is a big academic center nearby—exclusive of stockpile,

exclusive of training for staff. That is the kind of figure we are

looking at imposing upon hospitals, 30 percent of which are already

in the red.

I would just like to leave you with the following thought: Given

what I understand of the costs out there—and I think we have

pretty good estimates to indicate this—simply bringing the 83

State health labs up to the level where they can all rapidly diagnose environmental samples of anthrax would cost $400 million. If

there is less than $2 billion right away in a bill for public health

department infrastructure and upgrades, then I think we have to

conclude that the government does not understand the threat, has

not learned the lessons of the past few weeks, and is not yet apprehending that the anthrax problems that we have faced are the prologue and not the whole story associated with bioterrorism in the

United States.

Thank you, Senators.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much for your responses. I

would like to welcome back Dr. Hanfling and Dr. O’Toole to the

Governmental Affairs Committee. It is unfortunate that the conversation we had on bioterrorism in July has become so pertinent

and real today. The hypothetical has become reality.

Dr. Hanfling, I am sorry CDC did not stay to hear your testimony. I am very concerned to learn that the information discussed

between CDC and Virginia public health did not make it down to

the hospitals. Why do you believe this breakdown in communication occurred? And are there ways of improving it?

Dr. HANFLING. Senator Akaka, I think that to be fair to our Federal partners, it is not that the information never made it down.

It is just that it took a while for that information to filter down,

and it also took a while to put in place the mechanism, one, to collect that information and then, two, to distribute it.

So part of this problem, I think, is related to the absence of a

coordinated communication system that not only is in place in real

time now, but that is practiced and tested. And to be fair, the CDC

did post information as it made it available on its Health Alert

Network (HAN) and on its Web page, and yet it seems a little bit

strange to me that I could access that as easily from my study at

home as I could from the command center at my hospital. And I

would have hoped that there would be a more direct conveyance of

those sorts of critical pieces of information into the hands of the

people who needed it.

Senator AKAKA. Dr. O’Toole and Dr. Hanfling, I agree that we

need a nationwide, comprehensive communication network to connect everyone involved in bioterrorism response. The CDC currently has the Health Alert Network in several States and plans

to expand this system to the entire Nation.

Is this the sort of communication system that you feel is needed?

Dr. O’TOOLE. No. That may be part of it, but I think if we are

talking about a communication network, what we need are cell

109

phones, we need Blackberries, we need laptop computers, we need

phone connectivity, in addition to electronic data flows. HAN is

very slow. The tremendous virtue of HAN is it is the only thing

going to the local health departments. They have been complaining

in this crisis that they are not getting the information that goes

from CDC to the State health departments in a timely fashion. It

is kind of getting filtered and reworked in the State level, as I understand it, and then it is taking hours or days to get back down

to the local health department, by which time it is not very useful.

CDC has 80-some-odd different surveillance systems, none of

which connect to each other. We definitely need to look at these

kinds of electronic surveillance systems. We absolutely have to

build electronic capability into these various nodes in the health

system, but that is only the beginning. In a big epidemic, you are

going to want hand-held electronic devices. You are going to want

cell phones. You are going to want to be able to communicate in

the crisis.

New York City, which has a very robust medical system, had all

of its communications knocked off-line on September 11 because

the mother node was in the World Trade Towers. They scrambled

to put phones and walkie-talkies and so forth in the hands of the

people who needed them, and they succeeded because they are New

York. But we need to plan for that kind of redundancy. We need

to think through how are we going to communicate. And it probably should be a mix of phone calls to key people—probably Dr.

Hanfling would be one such person in his hospital—bulletins that

go out not just to docs directly but to professional medical societies.

That is how docs learn what is going on. They do not generally go

up on the Web looking for info during the night after they see patients.

Dr. HANFLING. I would also echo that if we go back to September

11, for example, across Northern Virginia and the District of Columbia, hospitals prepared in earnest for casualties that we believed would come, if not from the Pentagon, then from the World

Trade Towers in New York City. But the information about the status of those two situations was no better than what we were able

to watch on TV. And there was no real coordinated communication

even amongst the hospital communities.

The District of Columbia Hospitals Association has really established what I think is a best practice in terms of meeting this challenge with what is called a hospital mutual aid radio system,

where they are connected every morning by radio to assess the capabilities and the bed capacities in each of the institutions. I think

it is a great idea that ought to be shared elsewhere so as to be able

to gain a full appreciation of what are the hospitals prepared for.

And in having that mechanism in place, then, when a crisis

unfolds, as we saw over the last week and a half here in the Metro

D.C. area, use that communication tool to share information.

Senator AKAKA. We have been talking about and it has been alluded to that there should be a national spokesperson or a lead

agency that should do this. Do you have any suggestions as to what

that may be?

Dr. HANFLING. Well, I will take a stab at that. I think that it was

mentioned by Senator Cleland that we have the Homeland Security

110

agency, we have the Centers for Disease Control, we have the Department of Justice. We have essentially at the Federal level a turf

battle, if you will, over who is in charge. And we have heard those

words echoed in this town before, and I think it is clear that a consistent message that is both directed towards the public and, when

needed, enhanced for the clinicians and the medical community

must come from above.

It seems to me that this administration has chosen to focus its

efforts across the Federal agencies into Governor Ridge’s new position as the Secretary of Homeland Defense. And if we agree with

the words of the President that we are fighting a new war, both

overseas as well as at home, then it makes sense that someone in

that office ought to be a point person day in and day out for sharing this message consistently.

Senator AKAKA. What are your comments on that, Dr. O’Toole?

Dr. O’TOOLE. Well, Senator, having been in government service,

I do not think there is any way to organize out turf battles, and

I would prefer to spend less time talking about who is in charge

and more energy on understanding what needs to be done. I think

if we had a clearer understanding of our capacity to respond as it

is and what it ought to be, there would be a lot less competition

for being in charge, frankly.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time

has expired.

Chairman LIEBERMAN [presiding]. Senator Thompson.

Senator THOMPSON. Thank you very much. You have certainly

laid out an impressive array of areas where we are deficient. You

both have been dealing with health care issues and in government

service.

Ms. O’Toole, what is most surprising to you about this? I mean,

you are not naive about the way government operates or the nature

of the problem that we are dealing with here. What has surprised

you the most about our lack of ability to deal with this, as Ms.

O’Toole says, a relatively small attack, if you want to call it that.

The CDC is inundated, phone lines are hung up, people do not

know how to talk to each other, all that. Somebody may have done

us a gigantic favor by doing this. Hopefully we will learn from this

so that when the real attack occurs we will know what we are

doing.

Has anything about this surprised you, really?

Dr. O’TOOLE. No.

Senator THOMPSON. Because you have seen over the years the

lack of money that we have devoted to this. National security in

general has gone down. The military budget has gone down. You

could not stack all of the reports on terrorism and the threats that

we face, end to end in this room probably. But yet no money, no

real money, has been appropriated to do anything about it.

What about you, Dr. Hanfling? I do not know if you have been

in government or not, but—— Dr. HANFLING. No. I have lived in the District long enough to appreciate some of those frustrations, though.

I would echo Dr. O’Toole’s sentiments in terms of really saying

that we are not surprised, although, on the other hand, there has

been—I think it took a while for us in the last 5 years to really

111

begin to examine the nuts and bolts of this whole threat of what

initially we called ‘‘weapons of mass destruction,’’ what some of my

colleagues at George Washington University and I have tried to

shift to really describing it as ‘‘weapons of mass exposure,’’ because

it is not necessarily destruction, as we have seen in this last week,

and what our colleagues at Johns Hopkins, Dr. O’Toole, Dr. Henderson, and Dr. Inglesby, have done to really even further define

the specific threats of bioterrorism.

I think this is part of a process, and I would agree with you that

the silver lining in all of this is that maybe we can use these experiences as an insight into where we really need to focus attention.

But, again, am I surprised? I am not surprised at the way this unfolded.

Senator THOMPSON. Dr. O’Toole, you mentioned the need for information flow. I have mixed feelings about that because, up until

very recently, anyway, it is quite clear that a lot of the people who

had the responsibility for this were getting conflicting and incorrect

information. I am not sure how much timely information flow we

need when it is bad information and when we really do not know

what we are talking about or what we are doing.

I mean, as Members of the Senate, we have been briefed in great

secrecy about the real story, and these briefings have been totally

wrong in some respects. So I do not know if it is better to go out

there day to day and say half of what we told you yesterday is incorrect. Clearly, everyone needs periodic reassurance, but I agree

with you that the only people who I see panicking are people in

this town. I think it never occurred to any Tennessean to call me

and ask me how they ought to conduct their lives in light of what

is going on. You hopefully learn as you go along and exercise some

common sense, and people understand the heightened risk of certain circumstances and the need to be more careful than normal—

things of that nature.

Your information that is flowing cannot be any better or more reassuring than the truthfulness of it or the accuracy of it. And I

think we have to go back to the origins of the problem.

On the money side, you mentioned some numbers, and I am not sure I got them all. You said, $7 million per hospital, not including

stockpile, not including training. What did that figure represent?

Dr. O’TOOLE. It represents, for example, the cost of buying the

appropriate protective gear for health care workers, special masks

to prevent spread of contagious disease. It represents infrastructure changes, applying HEPA filters to one section of the hospital

that could be turned into a ward for patients with transmissible

disease. It represents some education costs for staff.

Senator THOMPSON. You mentioned $400 million for laboratories

for States.

Dr. O’TOOLE. Yes.

Senator THOMPSON. We have already exceeded—yesterday we exceeded your $2 billion figure. The post office alone needs $2.5 billion.

Dr. O’TOOLE. No. Two billion for State and local health departments.

Senator THOMPSON. I see. So what would be the other major components?

112

Dr. O’TOOLE. Beyond State and local health departments?

Senator THOMPSON. Beyond that, yes.

Dr. O’TOOLE. Well, certainly the stockpile costs are going to be

appreciable. Certainly education for the medical professionals has

to be considered. That is not a big-ticket item. We could probably

do that for $20 million.

We are going to have to think over the long term how we increase the surge capacity and the talent available to all levels of

health departments in the coming years. This is something that the

Hart-Rudman report called for. We need an infusion of young people and of technical talent in the sciences into the government.

I would like to see programs, for example, that encourage midcareer professionals to go work at CDC for a year and come back

out. I think it would be terrific for CDC professionals to go down

to the front lines once in a while, have a chance to do more reflective work.

Senator THOMPSON. I think people are just beginning to realize

that this human capital crisis that we talk a lot about has several

national security implications.

Dr. O’TOOLE. Yes.

Senator THOMPSON. That is what Hart-Rudman was talking

about.

We have not even mentioned the technology yet. Senator Carper

mentioned detection technology and analysis technology. The FBI

is behind, at least a decade, in terms of just hardware and technology, to give one example. We have got a tremendous built-up demand out there across the government for technology, and the need

for people, as you point out, to be able to operate it. We have a terrible track record being able to implement large information systems, for example, in government. We have wasted billions and billions of dollars.

We cannot get the IRS straightened out, much less respond to

some real national emergency today. So we are going to need the

technology, we are going to need the people who know what they

are doing with regard to it, and we must be able to retain and keep

the highly trained people in this new era.

We have some real fiscal issues here that we are going to have

to deal with. We are going to have to talk about sacrificing and

what we are going to have to do with regard to the average citizen.

Probably, ultimately, the most significant thing we are going to

have to do is reprioritize in this country, and our budgets are going

to look a lot different. We are going to have to start spending a lot

of money on new things that have built up.

Dr. O’TOOLE. Absolutely.

Senator THOMPSON. And less money on some things that we

would like to have but we just can’t afford. That is why, as we discuss these economic packages and so forth, we need to remember

that at the end of the day we are going to need some big bucks out

there for other things, even though we think that if we write the

right kind of legislation we can turn the economy around. That is

foolish in and of itself. I hope that as we consider these other

issues we take what you are talking about to heart, because if we

are really serious about this and we think that this threat is going

to remain with us, it sounds like is going to cost billions and bilVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Aug 17, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00116 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 76808.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
113

lions. As you say and as prior witnesses said, this anthrax is just

one thing. This is probably the best known of the potential biological problems out there and maybe one of the ones that is easiest

to deal with. And we have experienced it on a very limited basis.

Do you have a comment on that?

Dr. O’TOOLE. Could I mention just something about technology?

Because I think it falls directly within the purview of this Committee. We have gotten lots of calls about technologies that might

solve one or another problem. I have gotten calls from venture capitalists looking for ways to usefully invest in the Nation’s biodefense.

There is no place in the government where the strategic analysis

of R&D needs for biodefense comes together. We need to figure out

some governmental mechanism whereby we can look at the needs

across all of the different agencies, set priorities, and figure our

what our investment strategy is going to be. That cannot simply

live in DOD, it cannot simply live in NIH, for reasons we could discuss. But we do need a home for that kind of function.

Senator THOMPSON. Thank you very much.

Dr. HANFLING. I would just echo though that while technologies

are important, there is still going to be no substitute for the stethoscope and the pen.

Dr. O’TOOLE. Agreed.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Thompson. Thanks, Senator Akaka.

Just a few remaining questions if I might. Dr. Hanfling, I have

read the testimony that both of you submitted. The system that

you had in place at Fairfax Inova obviously worked brilliantly and

saved people’s lives. The two Postal workers who died went to

other hospitals and their illnesses were not detected, and that is

part of, unfortunately, why we are looking at this.

In general terms what would you say Fairfax Inova, under your

leadership, did right, and I suppose more to the point, what did the

other hospitals, in a general sense do wrong? And I am asking this

to try to establish a model for health care institutions around the

country.

Dr. HANFLING. I understand the gist of what you are trying to

get at, and although to be specific to these two cases, I mean, there

but for the grace of God go I. I mean, how easily might it have been

to let someone slide through.

I think that the first thing that we did well was we anticipated,

and we recognized, watching the crisis unfold in those early days

in Boca Raton, Florida and then in Manhattan, we anticipated that

this was something that was going to happen here as well. Did not

know that it was going to come on the Senate side, did not think

that it would necessarily come anywhere to a specific target in the

District of Columbia, but as health professionals, as an emergency

physician, that is one of the things that I am trained to do. I am

an anticipator. And I think the benefit with Inova Health Systems

was that our administration and our other medical leaders recognized that we needed to step up our vigilance and be cautious. So

anticipation is the first piece.

I think the second piece is that we—and I will tell you, I pushed

very strongly to start sharing information, certainly amongst

114

health care providers in terms of going back to what is a wide

array of available information, whether you look at the textbooks

or whether you go on the websites or whether you go to the libraries and pull our journal articles. We began to try and distill this

information into something that was readable and accessible and

relatively straightforward, so as to put that on the radar screens

of clinicians in our health system.

And I think the third thing that we did, again in a hurry-up offense sort of mode, was to develop a communication network that

started as conference calls on the hour every hour beginning on the

night of Saturday, October 20.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. You did that or did someone else do it?

Dr. HANFLING. Well, it was initiated by Pat Walters, who is our

Executive Vice President in the Inova Health System, along with

Dr. Thom Mayer, who is sitting behind me, and myself and a few

others, with input from the CDC epidemiologist who was dispatched up to Inova Fairfax to review the case. And that took on

a life of its own, and we realized that communicating and sharing

both clinical and administrative information was the only way we

were going to get through this crisis.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. But am I right that until you from Inova

initiated that, that you were not receiving official communications

from any other public health agency that was intended to alert

you? In other words, your sensitivity to this was coming from following the media and having heard about the cases in Florida particularly.

Dr. HANFLING. That is correct, and I will tell you an anecdotal

story, which is that a number of clinicians, including the gentleman

sitting behind me, was at the patient’s bedside on the second or

third day. And in the same room with the curtain closed in the bed

next to his was a television that was tuned to CNN. And my colleague, who was gracious earlier this morning from the District of

Columbia, Dr. Walks, was reporting information on the two patients at Inova Fairfax Hospital, and describing one, if not the both

of them, as gravely ill. And the gentleman looked up from his bed

and said, ‘‘You know, Doc, is there something that I need to know

about that you’re holding back here?’’ [Laughter.]

Chairman LIEBERMAN. There you go.

Dr. HANFLING. So, again, that was not purposeful, but it spoke

to the fact that we need to work to coordinate these sorts of events,

and as Dr. O’Toole said, we need to put those mechanisms in place

and practice them and train on them before these events unfold.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. This goes right to your point about communication being inadequate, does it not, Dr. O’Toole?

Dr. O’TOOLE. Yes.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Ideally, what—and again it is all hindsight—what should have happened here in terms of communication?

Dr. O’TOOLE. Well, I think we should have realized early on that

communication was absolutely at the core of everything, from managing the incidents themselves to communicating with the public,

and I do not think we have realized that lesson yet. There are

many components to this. I think we need multiple, credible, deeply knowledgeable spokes people talking on a nearly continuous

115

basis, given the hunger among the media for information on this.

But I also think we need to have a strategy for communicating

with critical nodes, health departments at the different levels, hospital emergency rooms, hospital CEOs and so on and so forth, so

the messages can move at the speed of light literally. And we do

not have any such system. There is no connectivity in the public

health or medical system, and in fact, if you use Kevin Kelly’s definition of a system, which is something that talks to itself, we ain’t

got one.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. And that is, to say the obvious, that

is critical because in these kinds of public health or bioterrorist attacks, particularly if they are not obvious like somebody dropping

stuff from a plane, the people, the first responders are going to be

the ones who know about it first, the doctors’ offices, the emergency

rooms, and unless there is that kind of communication, we may

miss it.

In this regard, I am going to ask you a question that came to

mind during the last panel. What is the incubation period for anthrax or do we know? In other words, after you are exposed, when

does it get to a point where you have got a real serious infection

if you are going to have an infection?

Dr. HANFLING. We know about this from the famous ‘‘contaminated meat’’ episode in the former Soviet Union, where there was

an inadvertent release of anthrax in what was a bioweapons facility in Sverdlovsk, and it has led to a lot of the decisionmaking that

we have now with respect to why we use certain of the medications

that we have used, why we use them for the length of time that

we do. And roughly speaking, people can get sick in the first 2 to

4 to 6 days, but we know that disease can present as late as 60

days, and that in part speaks to the lengthy time of required prophylactic medications.

And something to echo, and something again that I think was

very confusing, early on we saw a lot of efforts under way to do

testing, nasal swabbing, for example. You can have a lung full of

anthrax and have no spores in your nose, and it does not mean

anything. And I think that again, this was some of the—I wish

that some of these issues had been forethought before this all unfolded.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. What is a better test if not the nasal

swab?

Dr. HANFLING. Well, the definitive test and the way that we

made our diagnoses in the hospital was initially to do what is

called gram stain and culture, and then the more sophisticated polymerase chain reaction tests, which are looking at the DNA sequencing of these bacterium.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Which is by taking the bacteria and examining them?

Dr. HANFLING. And then examining them.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Neither of those is a blood test or is

the——

Dr. HANFLING. Blood test, both from the blood.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Both are from the blood.

Dr. HANFLING. Right.

Dr. O’TOOLE. If I could just comment on that?

116

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Please.

Dr. O’TOOLE. Imagine how differently this would have unfolded

if we had a rapid diagnostic test that could tell you within an hour

of taking a blood sample, ‘‘You are infected, you are not.’’ What

happens with current tests, especially the culture, is they wait

until the bacteria grows out of the blood. If it is there, it is there.

But that takes time, usually days, depending upon your dose.

We could build those kinds of diagnostic technologies right now

with available technology, and we should. We should have rapid diagnostic tests that are reliable and accurate and widely available

for the major bioweapons pathogens. That should be a high priority

for R&D.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Somebody called me about a week ago

after the first hearing we did on bioterrorism in the Committee,

and said that they thought that under the last administration some

funding had been provided perhaps to some of the national labs, including Sandia maybe, to actually do work associated with the genome investigations to try to come up with something quite like

that. Is that correct?

Dr. O’TOOLE. There was a Defense Science Board Report that you

may be referring to, which proposed building microchips, very rapid

diagnostic assays, that would identify the genome or the proteins

associated with these bugs very specifically and rapidly. And I believe 50 million was invested by the Defense Threat Reduction

Agency in that effort to do proof of principle type work.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Dr. Hanfling, as we go back, particularly

looking at the Postal Service story, the incubation period you have

given suggests to me that even if the Postal Service had closed

Brentwood on Thursday, October 18—which on hindsight it sure

looks to me like they should have done, probably looks to them like

they should have done it too—would probably not have saved the

lives of those two Postal workers, because they died 2 or 3 days

later, as I recall, 3 or 4 days later. Does that sound—I am not asking you for a diagnosis, obviously, but——

Dr. HANFLING. I forgot if we were sworn in to this hearing today

or not.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. No.

Dr. HANFLING. But I think that it seems, the cluster of cases that

presented, in other words, the two patients who unfortunately died,

and the two who presented to our hospital, all presented for emergency care in roughly the same period of time, and in reviewing

some of their epidemiologic linkage to where they were, what they

were doing and the environment in which they worked, I learned

a lot about the way these mail sorting facilities work with creating

dusts and dusts and dusts of material that is suspended in the air.

I would echo your thought that closing the facility on October 18

might not have had a major impact in terms of those two unfortunate folks.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I meant to ask a question, but I moved

on, I lost time, of the CDC representative, Dr. Cohen, who the

Postal Service called at CDC. And I wondered whether CDC, being

asked to make a very difficult judgment, and obviously basing it on

what we knew then, and it looked to everybody like you had to

open a package to be exposed, whether they knew that, as I would

117

not have thought myself immediately, that sorting mail and processing mail involves a lot of compression of the envelopes.

Dr. HANFLING. Right.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. But I will do that on another occasion.

You are helping to educate me. I have one more question, and then

I am going to yield back to Senator Akaka.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Let me ask one quick one and I will get

right back to you.

This is to continue my education. When we were first informed

about this, when this hit the Senate, we were told by the doctors,

‘‘You got to get 8,000 to 10,000 spores inside you to be infected. It

is very hard to do that. Do not worry, and if you are infected, antibiotics will take care of it.’’ Just reading the newspaper over the weekend, there is a quote,

I believe it is from somebody who heads infectious diseases at

Brown University—I could be wrong, and I think it was a woman— she said, ‘‘You know, those numbers are based on textbook answers

that are based on decades old research that was on workers exposed to animal hides.’’ So help to educate me and anybody listening about whether that

sense that we had to be quite significantly exposed was correct?

And pursuant to the policy of this Committee, if you do not know,

we will take that answer too.

Dr. O’TOOLE. There is also monkey data about how many spores

it takes to infect, but that data was gathered, again, under artificial circumstances that do not replicate what happens in a post office. And what you come up with is a curve of about how many

spores it takes to infect. Now, one spore can replicate itself endless

times, and I suppose there are some rare instances where you

might get sick with a handful of spores.

But the answer is we really do not have good data on that, and

it is hard to imagine the experiment that you would do to have

good data. And that is going to start to be a very important point

as we try to figure out when are we able to safely reopen these offices and what constitutes clean enough to send people back in, and

what kind of protection workers ought to have. There is a whole

nest of very complex science questions that I am sure CDC is pursuing.

I would feel a whole lot better if I knew the questions they were

looking into, and I knew who was asking them. I also think we

might be reassured if, for example, it was clear that NIOSH, who

does know what happens in post offices and does have tremendous

experience in environmental surveillance, were involved. I mean

there are very few true experts in anthrax in the country, but there

are experts in the various very specific scientific elements of these

questions. There are people who know an enormous amount about

particles in the air and inhalation. There are people who know a

lot about protective gear and so forth. We probably need a team approach to these problems, and again, I think that if we are going

to build confidence in the credibility of the scientific advice from

the government, that whole process of deliberation and inquiry

should be very transparent, and it is not right now.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you. Senator Akaka.

118

Senator AKAKA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I have just one question.

I am so glad you mentioned that good data is important, and

testing results are very important. As a matter of fact, some of the

decisions that were made were made from whatever testing results

were received.

And I want to return briefly to my questions with Dr. Cohen on

the varying test results from the Brentwood Postal facility. At

Brentwood two preliminary tests came back negative, while the

CDC’s results showed significant contamination. Senator Clinton

suggested a uniform testing method or standard, and my question

to you then, would such a uniform testing method or standard prevent this problem in the future?

Dr. O’TOOLE. Well, it would certainly cut down on the discrepancies between different tests, although you probably cannot eliminate that, because all tests are imperfect. I do not know what the

testing protocol in any of these places has been. I have very strong

impressions that they are different in different places, and we certainly know that the FBI in general uses different tests than the

CDC does, and the FBI tests tend to be less accurate. They err on

the side of being over protective. They give you false positives more

often than the CDC tests.

But this whole business of different testing protocols and uncertainty about what the surveillance protocols are is important and

serious and needs to be straightened out.

Dr. HANFLING. I would echo that and remind you that even with

more simple tests that we do, there is such a thing as a false positive and sometimes a false negative. We know that testing is not

100 percent certain, and that certainly came to be the case with

the initial testing at Brentwood.

I think what Dr. Cohen—again, he is not here to speak for himself—but I think that what Dr. Cohen would say is that if we could

standardize the flow of that scientific information so that we have

one person doing the same type of test, we might be able to put

in better context false positive or false negative because everything

is being done by the same criteria in the same location, so maybe

that is something to consider.

I did want to go back to Senator Lieberman’s question, basic

science question though, because while there has been a lot of focus

on numbers of spores, really, more importantly, it is the size of the

spores, and it is the fact that our respiratory system is pretty capable of preventing illness. That is why we are encouraged to breathe

through our noses because it is a filtration system and a lot of

those spores may get hung up in the najal turbinates and the other

things that are in that upper respiratory system to prevent the

small spores from coming all the way down into the depths of the

lung where the inhalation form of anthrax would be caused.

So I think suffice it to say we are—I would almost say we are

writing the textbook, not even rewriting the textbook, as we learn

from these cases around the country.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. And you do not have to breathe in

10,000—I know 10,000, it is a large number, but you do not have

to breathe in that number, do you, under the conventional explanation? I presume that means that you breathe in enough spores

119

that they get lodged inside you and they grow. Is that correct, or

does it really mean you have to—— Dr. HANFLING. The spores—we were talking about this a few

nights ago. Anthrax is a bacteria that it wants to survive, it wants

to live and it wants to replicate itself, and the spore is an encapsulation, it is a covering that protects it and allows it to do it, and

in its natural form you find anthrax, as you said, on animal hides,

you find it in the soil. When it gets into the body and triggers an

immune response reaction, it comes out of that encapsulated spore,

and then as all of these lethal factors, all of the biochemical chain

reactions that it initiates that then causes illness and death. And

I think basic science will need to be directed now to help us better

understand that in the context of what we have seen.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you. I have a final question for

you. You have been very gracious with your time. First I do want

to thank you for one line in your prepared statement, which we

ought to put up both here and in the Executive Branch. ‘‘The tendency to shield people from bad news underestimates the ability of

the public to rationally respond to disturbing information.’’ I think

you are absolutely right.

My question is going to the Committee’s concern about organization, you talk about it in your statement and you have in your testimony. We saw here in this Postal Service case, in the Senator

Daschle case, Senator Daschle’s office opens the package, is concerned about it, calls the authorities. The FBI comes in. The FBI

calls in Fort Detrick. As General Parker says, they are a customer,

the FBI. At a slightly later point, the Postmaster General testifies

to us yesterday that as he begins to follow this, he gets concerned

and he calls CDC. And as Senator Cleland said, very interestingly

in the testimony yesterday, the Postmaster General said how

happy he was Governor Ridge was here to coordinate everything.

When Senator Cleland asked him, if this happened again, who

would you call? He said Secretary Thompson.

You have very unique knowledge of this whole problem and

whole system, and so my question to you is, if you care to answer

it, two parts. One, if you were the head of the FBI, would you have

called Fort Detrick and General Parker to do this analysis? And if

you were the Postmaster General would you have called CDC?

Dr. O’TOOLE. Yes to both, which is part of the problem, because

I think the FBI is pursuing a different line of inquiry than the

Postmaster General was. And one of the troubles here is that we

have many lines of inquiry to pursue simultaneously, which in

some moments are separate and discrete; in others they interact in

very important ways. I will presume without any personal knowledge, that the FBI wanted to know whether this was highly dangerous powder of the sort that a sophisticated terrorist group or a

nation-state might have generated, versus a lone wolf, a biological

Unabomber. What the Postmaster General was seeking was information to help him protect his people. So they both went to the

right sources.

The problem, which generated this whole weaponized, not

weaponized, what does it mean? Fracas was that we did not get everybody together in a room or in multiple rooms to untangle the

implications of the analysis done by USAMRIID. So my impression

120

was that what CDC heard when they backed off of weaponized, at

least what the people in the field understood, was that, oh, good,

it is not aerosolizable, it is not likely to expose a lot of people. What

others heard when they heard it was not weaponized was something similar; it is not really all that dangerous. What USAMRIID

meant was something very technically specific. ‘‘Weaponized’’ says

more than we know. What we really mean is that it is highly energetic and it can float around in the air.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So you are not so sure, having heard this

morning’s testimony, that quality was totally clear to CDC, floating

around in the air?

Dr. O’TOOLE. No. And you know, there is not one CDC. There is

8,000 people working for CDC.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes, right. You have both been great, and

by the twist of fate, I think you have both now become national resources, so thank you for your testimony. We look forward to continuing to work with you.

I thank Senator Akaka again for co-chairing these hearings with

me. They have been very informative, very troubling, in other

words, both as to the progress of the diseases, witness the death

this morning of this woman in New York, and as to how much

more we have to do to be better organized in the Federal Government, with the State and local governments, and with the whole

public health, private health infrastructure in our country.

There is a lot of interest here on both sides of the Committee to

do something now. We are going to at least ask our staffs to put

together a report as to what we have learned. We are certainly

going to send that to Governor Ridge for his use as he sees fit. And

I think we have begun to talk here about whether some legislative

ideas come out of these hearings that we want to introduce, or

moving more rapidly to see if we might attach as an amendment

to the legislation that Senators Frist and Kennedy are introducing

on bioterrorism, whether that is possible or not in that timeframe.

I do not know, but it just goes to how productive I think the Members of the Committee feel the hearings have been.

And I thank you both and all the other witnesses for having

made that so. The hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 1:08 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

(121)

A P P E N D I X

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR DURBIN

OCTOBER 30, 2001

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this important hearing. It is certainly appropriate and timely that we examine the situation facing the Postal service, its dedicated workforce, and the American households and businesses it serves in light of

the recent anthrax contamination.

Cowardly acts of mail tampering have sought to disrupt our most fundamental

form of global commerce and written communication.

Just a few weeks ago, we knew very little about the threat of anthrax. Unfortunately, it’s now at the centerpiece of discussions and has become part of our daily

vernacular. With the tragic and untimely deaths of two Postal employees and illnesses affecting a dozen more, we must respond quickly and effectively to protect

their colleagues from this and other possible threats.

Every day, 800,000 Postal employees don their uniforms to process and deliver

millions of pieces of mail and parcels to American homes and businesses. Over

49,000 Postal employees serve the State of Illinois, in 2,184 Postal facilities across

my State. We must do all we can to ensure the safety, security, and sanity of these

dedicated workers.

Last Friday, I had the opportunity to meet with Postal service employees, managers, and labor representatives at Chicago’s main post office to learn first-hand

about their concerns and the precautions being taken to protect Postal employees

from the threat of anthrax-ridden mail.

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has announced that millions of gloves

and face masks will be distributed to Postal employees throughout the nation. However, there are still concerns regarding worker safety. The Postal workers with

whom I met in Chicago shared with me their apprehensions that the new supplies

may not reach the Midwest fast enough, because it is not deemed ‘‘high risk’’ by

national USPS workers.

Although Illinois has had no reports of anthrax exposure, Chicago facilities with

automated mail-screening equipment such as the one in Carol Stream, IL will be

tested for anthrax after the battery of tests at high-priority sites on the eastern seaboard, where anthrax was found.

Also, I understand that the Postal Service plans to equip Chicago facilities with

state-of-the-art machinery to screen for anthrax.

There have also been reports about confusing directives concerning the use of

gloves and masks on the job. According to Herby Weathers, president of the local

Chicago American Postal Workers Union, Postal workers at some Chicago facilities

were not permitted to wear protective gloves. Other employees were given inadequate gloves and masks.

Some workers worried about taking anthrax home because they had not been instructed in how to properly remove and store the new safety gear.

We must do all we can to ensure that our nation’s Postal workers have the appropriate equipment and accurate information they need to fight this different kind of

war we are now waging.

I also listened to management concerns about the projected high costs of acquiring

and installing the new security and screening equipment. According to an October

24th Associated Press report, the Postal service expected a potential loss of $1.65

billion this year before the September 11th attacks. Postal business has dropped

dramatically since the tragedy, exacerbating the Postal service’s financial pressure.

Without question, our Postal Service has had a tough year. To help meet the challenges it is facing, it is going to need the full support and financial assistance of

122

Congress to ensure it has the resources to promptly respond to this new threat. I

hope we will respond to this urgency with resolve and expediency.

PREPARED OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS

OCTOBER 30, 2001

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing at a time when many of our

postal workers are gravely concerned about going about their daily tasks, and many

Americans are worried that performing so mundane a task as opening their mail

could make them extremely ill or even kill them. Every day it seems we learn of

yet another building contaminated with anthrax or a new victim being infected.

Although the very first person diagnosed with anthrax was a photojournalist, it

is now becoming clear that it is our postal workers who are most at risk of infection

with anthrax. We must be able to ensure that they are performing the vital task

of delivering the nation’s mail with every possible precaution and we are ready to

diagnose and treat them immediately should those precautions prove to be insufficient.

In conducting this oversight hearing, we should be clear that the deaths and illnesses from anthrax are the fault of the terrorists. It is tragic, nonetheless, that

public health officials did not realize the need for prompt tracing of the tainted

mail’s path and thorough environmental testing. As more anthrax spores are found,

it is clear that the terrorists involved hope not only to kill more of our citizens but

also to panic the public. My experience in Maine and reports from across the country demonstrate, however, that Americans continue to lead their daily lives without

the fear and paralysis sought by these bioterrorists.

I look forward to hearing what steps the U.S. Postal System, our public health

system, and others are taking to protect postal workers and the public at large.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BUNNING

OCTOBER 31, 2001

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Our country has been shaken by acts of terrorism over the past two months. Not

only have we watched as terrorists attacked innocent Americans at work in the

World Trade Center and the Pentagon early on September 11, but we are now dealing with an attack on our mail system, media outlets and government as letters

with anthrax make their way through the Postal system.

In the past, we have all taken for granted that our mail will be delivered six days

a week, and that it will be safe. Few of us are taking that for granted these days.

Now, many Americans are afraid to go to their mail boxes. Businesses are worried

not only about protecting their employees from dangerous letters, but protecting

their very livelihood.

The Postal Service has recently announced certain steps Americans should take

when handling their mail.

While this information is helpful, Americans ultimately want to know that their

mail is safe and that it will not make them sick.

The employees of the U.S. Postal Service now find themselves on the front lines

in this war against terrorism. Two Postal employees in the Washington, DC area

have already died.

My thoughts are with the families of these workers during this difficult time.

Yesterday, we heard from the Postmaster General, representatives of several

Postal unions and Postal employees about the current situation at Postal Headquarters and at the branches. I hope that Congress, the Postal Service, Postal employees and the American public can continue to work together to make sure mail

is safe.

We have a long way to go in our war on terrorism, both nationally and internationally, and I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today as they share

their expertise with us on this topic.

Thank you.

123

124

125

126

127

128

129

130

131

132

133

134

135

136

137

138

139

140

141

142

143

144

145

146

147

148

149

150

151

152

153

154

155

156

157

158

159

160

161

162

163

164

165

166

167

168

169

170

171

172

173

174

175

176

177

178

179

180

181

182

183

184

185

186

187

188

189

190

191

192

193

194

195

196

197

198

199

200

201

202

203

204

205

206

207

208

209

210

211

212

213

214

215

216

217

218

219

220

221

222

223

224

225

226

Æ