[Senate Hearing 107-214]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
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
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan FRED THOMPSON, Tennessee
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TED STEVENS, Alaska
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
MAX CLELAND, Georgia PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi
JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah
MARK DAYTON, Minnesota 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 THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi
ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey TED STEVENS, Alaska
MAX CLELAND, Georgia SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico
MARK DAYTON, Minnesota 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
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
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
TERRORISM THROUGH THE MAIL: PROTECTING POSTAL WORKERS AND THE PUBLIC
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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. 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.
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 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 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.
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.
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\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Three articles from the Washington Post submitted for the
record by Senator Akaka appear in the Appendix on pages 220-223.
\2\ The prepared statement of Charles Moser, President, National
Postmasters Association appears in the Appendix on page 224.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
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.
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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Potter appears in the Appendix on
page 123.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 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
Department 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 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 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 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.
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?
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.
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 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 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 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 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?
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 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.
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 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.
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 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 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----
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.
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 Afghanistan, 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.
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.
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 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 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.
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.
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
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.
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 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 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?
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 workers 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 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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepeared statement of Mr. Burrus appears in the Appendix
on page 131.
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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 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 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.
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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Sombrotto appears in the Appendix
on page 139.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 facility 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 possible 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.
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.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Quinn appears in the Appendix on
page 146.
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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.
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 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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Baffa appears in the Appendix on
page 151.
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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
Congress 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.
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 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.
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.
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.]
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 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 protect 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. 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.
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.
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.]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Wellstone appears in the
Appendix on page 157.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 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 others 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.
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 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 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.
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.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Dr. Cohen appears in the Appendix on
page 160.
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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.
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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of General Parker appears in the
Appendix on page 174.
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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 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.
TESTIMONY OF RAYMOND J. DECKER,\1\ DIRECTOR, DEFENSE
CAPABILITIES AND MANAGEMENT, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE
Mr. Decker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Decker appears in the Appendix on
page 178.
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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.
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 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.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Dr. Walks appears in the Appendix on
page 192.
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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 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 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 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.
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.''
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 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 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 investigation, 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 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?
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.
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.
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 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 exposures 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 telephone 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
program, 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 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 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 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 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 next-door 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 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.
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?
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.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Dr. Hanfling appears in the Appendix
on page 209.
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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 anthrax-contaminated 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, 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 provided 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 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.
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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Dr. O'Toole appears in the Appendix
on page 214.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 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, 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.
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 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 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 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?
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
mid-career 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 billions. 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 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 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?
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 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.
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 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 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.]
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 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.
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