WALLINGFORD, Conn., April 23 — When the United States Postal Service and state and federal health officials found evidence of anthrax spores on a machine in a postal distribution center here in 2001, they shut the machine down and decontaminated it. What they did not do was announce that the concentration of spores was the highest in the nation.þþThat failure upset workers at the center.þþA federal report requested by Senator Joseph I. Lieberman released on Monday chronicled the discovery of the spores that led to the death of a 94-year-old woman from Oxford, Conn., in November 2001.þþThe report criticized the Postal Service and urged that steps be taken to prevent the withholding of such information, even though it acknowledged the challenges faced by the Postal Service in the days after Sept. 11.þþPostal workers in Wallingford ÿwere lied to,ÿ said John Dirzius, president of the American Postal Workers Union local, which represents two-thirds of the 1,200 people who work in the Wallingford center. ÿIt has destroyed the relationship between union and management.ÿþþThe Postal Service responded today that it was not the agency's job to disseminate the information.þþLetters containing anthrax spores killed five people in 2001, including the Oxford woman, Ottilie Lundgren; a Bronx woman, Kathy T. Nguyen; a Florida man; and two postal workers in a distribution center in the Brentwood neighborhood of Washington.þþThe Wallingford center was tested in November 2001, after the death of Ms. Lundgren. A month later, one of the samples, discovered in a mail sorting machine, contained three million anthrax spore colonies per half gram, the highest concentration among post offices in the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Brentwood, the anthrax count was 8,000 to 10,000 spores per gram. No spores have been found at the Wallingford center since 2001.þþPostal managers told employees that there was a ÿconcentrationÿ of spores in one machine, offered workers antibiotics and said they could transfer to other facilities if they so desired. Some took the antibiotics, but few of the 1,200 employees there accepted the relocation offer, Mr. Dirzius said. It took seven months for managers to respond to a request for a full report on the contamination, Mr. Dirzius said.þþToday, postal workers here said they wanted an explanation.þþÿWhy hasn't somebody come to a podium saying, `We made the wrong call'?ÿ said James Willard, a mechanic who has worked at the Wallingford center for eight years. ÿThe morale is down a lot and I don't know if that will be bridged.ÿ þþPostal Service officials said today that it was the responsibility of health agencies to release medical information.þþÿOn that score, we deliver mail,ÿ said Gerry McKiernan, a Postal Service spokesman. ÿWe're not medical experts. We took the advice the medical experts gave us at the time.ÿþþBut one of those experts, Dr. James Hadler, Connecticut's chief epidemiologist, said the State Department of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control had told postal managers that the information should be released.þþÿThey told us, `We want to be the ones to tell the media and our employees,' ÿ Dr. Hadler said.þþSenator Lieberman faulted both the health department and the Postal Service for not revealing the extent of contamination to workers.þþThe union membership now hopes for a formal apology, Mr. Dirzius said. Asked if one was forthcoming, Mr. McKiernan said he could not comment on a matter between labor and management.þþ
Source: NY Times
