More than 30 Senate employees exposed to anthrax

Associated Press WriterWASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress awoke to a day of curtailed business Thursday in the face of an anthrax threat, the Senate defiantly staying open and the House citing prudence in its decision to close.

Some on each side of Capitol Hill appeared to look askance at what the other side was doing.

"We're doing what any other building anywhere in the country should do" in a similar situation, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., said Thursday, defending the decision to shut House operations until Tuesday.

"We've got to resume normal life but we've got to be careful and vigilant and we've got to make sure we're not putting people in harm's way."

But in the same building, on the Senate side, the decision was made to carry on.

"We should set an example," said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala.

A few more Capitol Hill employees could be confirmed as having been exposed to the germ, once tests done on some 1,200 people are analyzed, Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Thursday.

"I suspect some of those are going to be positive," Frist, a physician, said on ABC's "Good Morning America." But the highest-risk employees already have gotten their results, he said.

Tests have found that at least 31 people in the Hart Senate Office Building across the street from the Capitol were exposed to anthrax Monday when a powdery substance fell from a letter to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.

In what may be the first case of tainted mail outside the United States, officials in Kenya said Thursday a letter mailed to an unidentified recipient in their country from Atlanta has tested positive for anthrax spores.

In Washington, the Senate was staying in business for at least a short session while closing its office buildings across the street. The House opted to shut its operations.

"The House did what we thought was the prudent and careful thing to do," Gephardt said on CBS's "The Early Show."

House Speaker Dennis Hastert's employees had reported suspicious mail in their suite of offices Wednesday. Gephardt said a letter sent to Hastert or his staff was being tested for anthrax.

In New York, the midtown Manhattan office of Gov. George Pataki was shut Wednesday after an initial test detected anthrax. "The odds are very high" that testing will confirm the presence of the bacterium, Pataki said.

The American Medical Association urged physicians to quit prescribing unnecessary Cipro, an antibiotic used to treat anthrax, to Americans who might be stockpiling it as a precaution.

And the Food and Drug Administration said it was about to issue specific instructions on how to use two other widely available antibiotics -- doxycycline and penicillin -- to prevent anthrax infection.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson asked Congress for money to stockpile 300 million doses of vaccine for smallpox, another potential bioterrorism disease.

The Senate employees known to have been exposed to anthrax so far are 23 members of Daschle's personal staff, five law officers and three aides to Sen. Russell Feingold, whose office adjoins Daschle's in the Hart building.

Daschle said none of those who tested positive for exposure was ill, although they were taking medication.

In shutting down operations for the weekend to allow for extensive testing, House leaders originally thought the Senate would join them. "To ensure safety, we thought it best to do a complete sweep, an environmental sweep," said Hastert R-Ill.

But senators decided to work on from the Capitol.

In private, angry House lawmakers and aides said Senate leaders succumbed to pressure to stay from senators who did not wish to be seen as fleeing. Senate aides called it miscommunication and said House leaders acted prematurely in deciding to leave.

At the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. David Fleming said preliminary testing indicated the strain of anthrax found in a letter addressed to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw in New York "appears to match the strain in Florida," where a man died from anthrax recently and a second man is hospitalized. Fleming said it is not yet clear whether the Washington anthrax came from the same strain.

Maj. Gen. John Parker of the Army's testing laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., said the powder in the Daschle letter contained a "common variety" of anthrax. But Scott Lillibridge, a federal expert on bioterrorism, said there's "been some attempt to collect it, perhaps refine it and perhaps make it more concentrated."

Three government officials said Wednesday there was no evidence of any foreign involvement in the powder contained in the letter to Daschle, although they continued to investigate that possibility. One official said there was evidence that could point toward a domestic culprit.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said the letter to Daschle said: "You've been exposed to anthrax. You're going to die." He said the Daschle aide who opened the letter then dropped it, and others congregated around.

------On the Net: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: http://www.cdc.gov/