Senators call for study of response to anthrax false alarms

The chairwoman and ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee asked for a detailed review Thursday of the response to several March anthrax scares at federal government mail facilities.

Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, and ranking member Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said a recent anthrax scare at a Defense mail facility raised questions about the agencies' biological terrorism preparations. They called on the Government Accountability Office to review three apparently unrelated biological terrorism scares at federal mail facilities in Northern Virginia and Washington. All three events took place mid-March and all turned out to be false alarms.

The incidents "raise serious questions about the federal government's continued lack of preparedness to respond effectively to biological attack," Collins and Lieberman wrote in their letter to GAO. "Please determine what actions were taken by each of the agencies involved, what were the applicable rules and procedures that governed the detection and response, whether those rules and procedures were followed, and whether those rules and procedures are adequate to protect the health and safety of federal workers."

The Defense Department declined to comment on the senators' concerns.

Collins' and Lieberman's request comes days after GAO released a report (GAO-05-493T) calling for more effective testing when dangerous biological substances are suspected at federal facilities. GAO auditors said existing sampling procedures do not produce confidence in negative results. The April 4 report recommended that agencies use "probability sampling"-taking samples from different areas across the entire facility-to determine if a facility is clean.

During anthrax testing in 2001, the U.S. Postal Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Environmental Protection Agency "collected samples from specific areas, such as mail processing areas, using their judgment about where anthrax would most likely be found-that is, targeted sampling," GAO officials wrote in their report. "Probability sampling would have allowed agencies to determine, with some defined level of confidence, when all results are negative, whether a building is contaminated."

GAO also recommended that the Homeland Security Department develop a synchronized strategy for working with federal agencies to ensure a consistent and valid method of testing for anthrax.

Homeland Security officials agreed that confidence in the sampling process needs to be improved, but balked at the suggestion that DHS would lead any coordinated public health effort. Steven J. Pecinovsky, DHS liaison to GAO, said several national security planning documents indicate that EPA and the Health and Human Services Department are charged with directing public health and recovery initiatives after a biological terrorism attack.

Collins and Lieberman called on GAO to establish that current biological defense plans are being followed.

"We have already seen the dangerous, potentially deadly effects of a biological attack through the mail," Collins said. "We must ensure that we have safeguards in place to reliably detect biological agents that could be sent through our vast public and private mail delivery system. We must also have systems and resources in place to ensure we are prepared to react to an attack."