Small amounts of anthrax were found in the Supreme Court's basement mailroom and four other federal buildings in Washington yesterday, and the Environmental Protection Agency proposed fumigating a Senate office building to kill spores of the lethal bacteria.
In the 15th confirmed case of illness caused by poisoned mail, New Jersey health authorities reported that a woman who handles mail for a private company there has cutaneous anthrax.
Officials suggested that her skin infection may have resulted from cross-contamination, with spores from three anthrax-laced letters handled at a mail-sorting facility near her workplace clinging to mail the woman later touched.
Dr. Patrick Meehan of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said such cross-contamination might pose "a very, very small risk of cutaneous-type anthrax."
The skin form of the disease is easily treated and not nearly as serious as inhalation anthrax, which has killed three people in the past month.
Sampling at an express mail center near Baltimore-Washington International Airport found no anthrax, state officials said. The BWI center drew special scrutiny because a worker at Washington's Brentwood postal facility who contracted anthrax had worked there part time. Three other Brentwood workers have contracted anthrax, two of whom died.
A top biodefense official said scientists at Fort Detrick in Frederick who are testing the mailed anthrax have found that it is mixed with silica, a common powder used in pharmaceutical and food products to prevent clumping.
Army Maj. Gen. John S. Parker said that contrary to published reports, the powder does not contain bentonite, a clay additive that some experts had said might point to Iraq as a source. Parker said at a White House briefing that the significance of the silica finding is not yet clear.
As the Supreme Court justices heard arguments outside their marble-columned building for the first time since 1935, a court spokeswoman said investigators found anthrax spores in one part of the basement mailroom.
The mailroom had been tested more than a week earlier and no spores were found, said spokeswoman Kathleen L. Arberg. But after anthrax was found Friday on an air filter at a Prince George's County warehouse being used to inspect the court's mail, officials conducted further testing over the weekend.
