Dan Rather: 'Our biggest problem is fear'
Employee in CBS anchor's office tests positive for skin anthrax
By Shannon McCaffrey, Associated Press, 10/18/01
NEW YORK -- An employee in CBS anchor Dan Rather's office has the skin form of anthrax and is expected to fully recover, officials said Thursday.
It's the third confirmed case in New York City and is the same, less lethal type of infection contracted by an aide to NBC anchor Tom Brokaw and the infant son of an ABC producer.
"Our biggest problem today is not anthrax. Our biggest problem is fear," Rather said at an afternoon press conference. "We are resolute, we will not flinch. ... We will put out a first class evening news broadcast this evening."
He said he has not been tested for anthrax exposure and has "no plans at this moment to be tested."
ABC spokesman Todd Polkes said that because the NBC and CBS news anchors had apparently been targeted, "extra precautions are being taken" with mail addressed to ABC News anchor Peter Jennings.
Six infected people in the United States have been found among the thousands of people tested so far, including New Jersey postal worker who may have handled letters sent to Brokaw and U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle, authorities said.
The CBS employee was being treated with antibiotics and was expected to fully recover, CBS News President Andrew Heyward said. "In fact, she feels fine," he said.
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said she apparently began to experience swelling on Oct. 1. Rather said the swelling was on the woman's cheek. She has been working and exercising daily, he said.
It was not immediately known how she became infected. Because the woman handled mail, investigators believe the anthrax was delivered in an envelope, city officials said. Rather, however, said the woman did not recall handling any suspicious mail.
Giuliani said no one else at CBS had showed anthrax symptoms, and Health Commissioner Neal Cohen said there were no public health concerns at the West 57th Street building, known as the CBS Broadcast Center.
Officials said environmental tests of the mailroom at CBS News headquarters were being analyzed, and testing would now move beyond the mailroom, but the building had not been evacuated. Investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the city Health Department entered the building Thursday morning without protective suits.
Workers will be questioned to determine whether they should be tested, Giuliani said.
"You know how they say 'close to home?' It's no longer close. It's home," said Ray McNally, a stagehand for the "CBS Evening News with Dan Rather."
Maria Spinella, a broadcast associate at CBS News Productions, said, "Given the events that have been going on at NBC and ABC, I don't think people were shocked. I feel bad for the assistant who opened the letter, but everything that we've heard is that she's being treated and she's expected to recover."
On Monday, the 7-month-old son of an ABC News producer tested positive for anthrax. The cause has not been pinpointed. An anthrax test of the air filters at ABC's West 66th Street offices came back negative, the network said. In Florida, one man who worked for American Media Inc., a tabloid newspaper, has died from inhaled anthrax contamination and another is hospitalized.
On Wednesday, the CDC announced that preliminary testing indicated the strain of anthrax found in the letter addressed to Brokaw appeared to match the Florida strain. The agency said it was not clear whether the Washington anthrax comes from the same strain.
The CBS statement came a day after Gov. George Pataki's New York City office tested positive for anthrax bacteria.
Pataki said he is taking the antibiotic Cipro as a precaution, but does not plan to get tested for the disease, saying he was following the CDC's recommendations.
"This is a war of terror aimed at our minds and aimed at our way of life, and that's why we can't overreact," Pataki said on NBC's "Today" show. "Yes, we have to be vigilant; yes, we have to be concerned. But we also have to be confident that government and law enforcement is doing everything that can be done to protect us."
A positive result from an initial anthrax test of his Manhattan office came back Wednesday morning. Results from more sophisticated environmental tests are due by Friday but Pataki said he believes they will prove anthrax was present.
All 80 employees in the office were relocated to the Jacob Javits Convention Center and have testing and Cipro available to them, the governor said.
He suggested the suspected anthrax found on a desk in "secure" state police offices could have been tracked in by state police who accompanied him to NBC and ABC offices where anthrax cases were discovered.
Pataki also ordered the state Capitol in Albany tested.
Health officials gave a clean bill of health to NBC's headquarters in Rockefeller Center. Tests on 500 employees came back negative.
The diagnosis of the CBS employee was based on a biopsy, city officials said.
The woman originally was being treated with penicillin, but, perhaps prompted by the discovery of anthrax at NBC, she contacted the city Health Department and was switched to the antibiotic Cipro, the mayor said.
Besides the CBS and NBC employees and the infant, three people in New York have tested positive for exposure: two lab technicians and one policeman who worked on the NBC case. They were treated with antibiotics.
