Mail safety can't be guaranteed

WASHINGTON -- Postmaster General John F. Potter said Wednesday he can't guarantee the safety of the mail, and he and other postal officials began suggesting Americans wash their hands after handling letters.

Improved safety gloves and masks are being sent to mail workers as the Postal Service awaits next week's delivery of its first high-technology equipment to sanitize mail.

Worries have mounted about mail safety because of anthrax cases in Florida, New York, Washington and New Jersey, at least some of them stemming from mailed items.

Deborah Willhite, a senior vice president of the Postal Service, said the agency is simply urging people to use common sense.

"We believe that people should wash their hands in soap and water after they handle their mail every day, just to make sure that if anything is on the envelope, that they're clean," she said in an interview.

"We have no reason to believe that there would be anything on them, but what's the problem with clean hands?"

Later, Willhite urged organizations that send bulk mail through a contaminated Washington post office to have their employees tested for anthrax.

The tests have focused on postal workers so far, but she said that should be extended by up to 200 more people, including employees of operations like the International Monetary Fund and Humane Society of the United States, who collect large volumes of mail at the center.

Potter stressed the agency has delivered more than 20 billion pieces of mail since Sept. 11, and that only a handful of anthrax cases have been reported. However, he admitted that he could not guarantee the safety of all mail.

The post office is scrambling to tighten its health and safety systems after two workers died of anthrax and others became ill.

"We are taking concrete steps immediately to protect employees and the public through education, investigation, intervention and prevention," Potter said Wednesday.

But Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, questioned whether the Postal Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did enough to protect postal workers -- and the mail still being delivered in the Washington area. The agencies have been criticized for waiting several days before testing people for anthrax at the contaminated Washington distribution center.

"It is critical that your agencies retrace your steps to ensure that no one else dies from this scourge," Grassley wrote to Potter and CDC director Dr. Jeffrey Koplan. "It is up to public health authorities and the U.S. Postal Service to demonstrate that mail delivered in Washington, DC is not dangerous."

Tom Ridge, the newly named director of homeland security, told CBS News that public health officials didn't make the safety of postal workers a lower priority.

"I'm absolutely positively, 1000 percent convinced that they weren't looking at the collar of the shirts, whether it was a white collar or a blue collar challenge," Ridge said. "They were looking at a medical challenge."

The Postal Service is at war, Potter has said, insisting that the agency will continue to deliver the mail.

Willhite said the post office is expected to deliver universal mail service. "We are going to provide safe and secure mail service everywhere in the United States," she said.

Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Wednesday that he wouldn't recommend shutting down the mail system but would consider suggesting closings in targeted areas.

More money released

President Bush released $175 million to help the agency, and the postal governing board authorized an additional $200 million in emergency spending to help pay for equipment and other measures.

The high-tech sanitizing equipment coming next week uses an electron beam to kill bacteria and spores and is similar to technology used to sterilize medical equipment and sanitize foods.

Willhite said has not yet determined where to locate the equipment.

Mail sent to Congress already is being held for screening, she said, and there is no plan to destroy mail.

"Even as we speak we are taking tractor-trailers of mail to be sanitized as a demonstration project to see how that process would work," Willhite said.

"We need to make sure that while we are sanitizing the mail we are not destroying people's keepsakes. If it's going to ruin your grandma's homemade cookies, we want to let you know. So far, that doesn't seem to be the case." she added.

New gloves, masks

The post office also reported that it has bought a 90-day supply of gloves made of Nitrile, a high-grade plastic, for use by postal workers sorting the mail.

The agency also is in the process of obtaining advanced face masks for workers that can screen out 95 percent of bacteria including anthrax spores, officials said.

Some federal mailroom workers already have received protective masks.

Ken Vaughan, president of Neoterik, a maker of breathing masks, said his company provided masks last week to the mail room of a federal department, which he would not name. The masks can cost as much as $300 each.

Postal officials also said the agency has started using a vacuum cleaning system on its machines -- instead of blowers -- and switched to anti-bacterial cleaning solutions.

Mail delivery is not being restricted, Willhite said, but she added: "I think we're having a little bit of a shakedown cruise in moving mail from Brentwood to the other facilities."

Brentwood, Washington's main mail sorting and distribution center, was closed Sunday because of anthrax contamination, and its work is being done at facilities in suburban Maryland.

Anthrax didn't seem to worry Washington-area residents who bustled in and out of neighborhood post offices Wednesday.

"Look, we have to go on with our lives, you know?" said Julia Delisboa, who stopped in the post office of the Palisades district of Washington. "I don't know why, but I'm really not scared yet. It doesn't seem like a widespread thing."

At the Ross Veterinary Hospital one door down from the Palisades station, an office manager who identified herself only as Liz said she hadn't thought twice about using the post office next door.

"I don't think anybody's worried about their little neighborhood post office," she said.

The Postal Service is part of the government but normally is expected to pay its own way from postage and related charges.

Even before the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the agency was looking at a potential loss of $1.6 billion this year and has requested permission to raise rates to compensate. Mail volume has fallen since the attacks, which is causing further declines in income. The post office also is near its borrowing limit, a senior postal official said.