Pataki's Manhattan office tests positive for `probability of anthrax'
By Alan Clendenning, Associated Press, 10/17/01
NEW YORK -- The midtown Manhattan office of Gov. George Pataki tested positive for the probability of anthrax, shortly before city officials issued a clean bill of health for the Rockefeller Center headquarters of NBC.
"We've been waiting for good news for a long time," NBC chairman Bob Wright told a news conference where it was announced that 500 employees had tested negative for anthrax. "This is certainly the happiest day I've had for a long time."
City Health Commissioner Dr. Neal Cohen said the lack of any second positive test among the workers "shows no public health concern in the building. ... We're now embarking on a clean-up initiative on the building."
Earlier, the governor announced the second positive test in a New York skyscraper in the last six days -- in his office.
The governor's complex of offices on the 38th and 39th floors of a high-rise building at 633 Third Ave., between 40th and 41st streets, has been closed for further testing and decontamination work. Other offices in the building remained open.
It was unclear how the anthrax was brought into the office, but the positive result occurred in an area occupied by the state police. Those officers were involved in the earlier investigation into anthrax reports at NBC and ABC, Pataki said, suggesting it may have arrived in his office that way.
"The state police have been obviously at NBC, at ABC, all over the environs over the course of the past month," Pataki said.
About 80 employees were evacuated after the positive test was returned Wednesday morning, Pataki said. The governor told a Manhattan news conference that the offices would likely reopen Monday.
"In response to concerns, on Monday night we ordered tests" of the office, Pataki said. "One did test positive for the probability of anthrax."
No employees in the governor's office have tested positive for anthrax but all of them, including Pataki, will begin taking the antibiotic Cipro as a precaution.
"I feel fine," Pataki said Wednesday morning. "I feel great."
Anthrax has now shown up in two Manhattan buildings -- the site of the governor's office, and the 70-story General Electric building that houses NBC in Rockefeller Center. One NBC employee and the 7-month-old son of an ABC News worker have tested positive for anthrax; both were expected to fully recover.
Three other people tested positive for anthrax exposure: two New York lab technicians and one policeman who worked on NBC case. They were treated with antibiotics.
Pataki spokesman Michael McKeon called the room where the anthrax was discovered a "secure" one used by the state police and not open to the public.
Pataki said his secretary had received a letter on Sept. 25 that she became concerned about, and turned it over to the state police. Anthrax tests on her and two mail handlers were negative, he said.
"We don't believe that envelope was the source of the anthrax, but we don't know," Pataki said.
The governor's aides will use other offices until cleared to return to their suite, Pataki said. He will operated out of the Javits Convention Center.
"I think everybody is committed to doing everything we can to make sure the state is run as well as it always has and to respond to this (World Trade Center) crisis," Pataki said Wednesday.
The building on Third Avenue houses a variety of well-known entities, including office space for state Comptroller Carl McCall; the headquarters for United American Hebrew Congregations, which is the Reform Jewish movement in the United States; New York offices for ARD, the German television network; the Swiss consulate; and state Sen. Roy Goodman.
Spokesmen for several of these other offices, including the UAHC and McCall's office, said no testing was being done on their floors but that they were awaiting further instructions.
"We're very nervous," said a woman who answered the phone in one office and wouldn't give her name.
Others were less anxious. "There is nothing to be worried about as far as I know, and there is no evacuation advised," said Gerald Baars, bureau chief for the German network.
New York Police Sgt. Brian Burke said that the police emergency teams apparently had not been asked to go to the governor's office, to test, evacuate or check other parts of the building. He said the governor may have ordered testing independent of local police.
At ABC, about 100 network employees were tested for exposure to anthrax spores as investigators tried to figure out how a 7-month-old boy visiting the newsroom contracted the disease.
Environmental tests were completed Tuesday at ABC headquarters in New York to try to pinpoint the anthrax source, but it could be days before results are known.
More than 200 ABC employees were interviewed by investigators. While they were not tested directly for anthrax, nasal swabs were taken from 100 employees identified as having had contact with the baby or having been in the affected areas.
The nasal swabs are not reliable indicators of whether any individual is infected with anthrax, but they help determine who may have been in the vicinity of any spores.
The child was hospitalized but has since been released. He is taking antibiotics and is expected to recover.
His infection was the second anthrax case involving a major news organization in New York in four days, following one at NBC in which a female employee was infected by a letter carrying anthrax. Letters containing anthrax also were mailed to Florida and Washington, D.C., officials say.
Network spokesman Todd Polkes said the infant and the baby's mother, an ABC producer, spent time in newsroom offices while they attended a birthday party last month for an employee.
Those areas were sealed off Tuesday. The two did not visit the studio where ABC's "World News Tonight" is broadcast, so the network can continue operating there, Polkes said.
The ABC building "is the focus of the investigation but it's not clear whether that's where the exposure took place," said Sandra Mullin, spokeswoman for the city's health department.
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said officials were testing a number of media mailrooms after the tests began Monday. Initial tests of some mailrooms were negative, he said. Among the news organizations tested were The Associated Press, CNN, CBS, Fox, Daily News and New York Post.
Officials at The New York Times said tests on 32 employees were negative for the presence of anthrax. Last week, Times reporter Judith Miller -- who wrote a best-selling book on bioterrorism -- received a letter containing a white substance that tested negative for anthrax.
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Associated Press Writer Joel Stashenko contributed to this report from Albany, N.Y.
