Fed mail tests positive for anthrax

12/07/2001

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON — A batch of mail being processed at a mail-handling facility set up in a courtyard of the Federal Reserve's headquarters has tested positive for exposure to anthrax, officials said late Thursday.

Officials said that the positive reading was obtained for a batch of mail containing about 100 to 150 letters and it had not been determined yet whether any of the letters actually contained anthrax spores or whether some of the mail had been contaminated by other letters.

Fed spokeswoman Michelle Smith stressed that none of the mail had been inside the Fed's imposing headquarters building on Constitution Avenue or had been handled before the processing by any Fed board member.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and other members of the Fed board were briefed on the development late Thursday. Officials said they a public board meeting that had been scheduled for Friday had been canceled but otherwise the central bank would be open for business.

Ever since the first anthrax letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was discovered, Fed officials said the central bank has heightened the security procedures used for handling mail.

The batch of mail that tested positive for anthrax was being processed by three Fed employees and three contract employees all wearing protective suits and breathing through respirators, Fed officials said.

The mail processing is now being done in a temporary facility set up in a courtyard of the Fed's main building on Constitution Avenue.

Smith said that the FBI had been consulted after the positive reading for anthrax was obtained with scanning devices the Fed has been using to screen all of its mail since the anthrax letters began appearing.

She said Fed employees will conduct further tests on Friday in an effort to isolate the letter or letters that test positive for anthrax and these will be sent to a military facility for further analysis.

``Since the first public reports of anthrax-contaminated mail surfaced, the board has process all mail through the secure mail-handling facility and it is not distributed inside the Federal Reserve buildings until it has been cleared,'' Smith said.

The central bank's Federal Open Market Committee, composed of Fed board members in Washington and the Fed's 12 regional bank presidents, is scheduled to meet next Tuesday for its eighth and final interest rate meeting of the year.

Smith said there were no current plans to cancel that meeting.

Private economists widely believe the central bank will decide to cut interest rates for an 11th time at that meeting in a continued effort to boost the economy out of its first recession in a decade.