IP: FBI: Anthrax Threat Likely a Hoax

["Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>]

From: believer@telepath.com
Subject: IP: FBI: Anthrax Threat Likely a Hoax
Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 09:35:33 -0600
To: believer@telepath.com

Source:  Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/digest/nat004.htm

FBI: Anthrax Threat to Abortion Clinics Likely a Hoax 

By John Kelly
Associated Press Writer
Friday, October 30, 1998; 9:20 p.m. EST 

INDIANAPOLIS - Four abortion clinics in three states received letters
Friday claiming to contain deadly anthrax bacteria, prompting the
evacuation of the Indianapolis clinic and sending at least 33 people to
hospitals, authorities said. 

Clinics in New Albany, Louisville, Ky., and Knoxville, Tenn., also
received letters, Planned Parenthood and federal officials said. All of the
letters bore Cincinnati postmarks. 

The clinic in New Albany, across the river from Louisville, was not
evacuated because the letter was not opened, authorities said. A letter
sent to a clinic in Bloomington later was determined to contain business
correspondence and was not a threat, local police said. 

An employee of the Louisville clinic and the mail carrier who delivered that
letter were taken to the University of Louisville Hospital, treated and
released. 

"The initial investigation has clearly indicated that the substance is
unlikely
to be anthrax," FBI agent Carl Christiansen said. 

The FBI is investigating a similar threat at the Knoxville Reproductive
Health Center in Knoxville, Tenn., agent Scott Nowinski said. The letter
appeared to be a hoax, he said. 

No one at the Indianapolis clinic complained of any symptoms after an
employee opened the letter Friday afternoon. Officials said is was unclear
whether the letter actually contained anthrax, a strain of bacteria that can
be used as a biological weapon. "We do not know that. But we are
handling it as if it were," police Maj. Tim Horty said. 

The 31 people, who included seven clinic workers, two firefighters, two
police officers and the postal carrier who delivered the letter, were
stripped, washed with soap and water and dressed in hospital scrubs
inside a blue tent in a strip mall parking lot before being taken to a local
hospital. They were given antibiotics as a preventive measure. 

All were expected to be released by Friday night. 

"No one is sick, no one is experiencing pain," Horty said. 

Horty said a clinic employee called police about 1 p.m. to report a
threatening letter. Inside a small, white envelope was a brown powdery
substance and a note saying "you have just been exposed to anthrax." 

Administrators isolated the envelope in the clinic, but didn't say where or
how, Horty said. Police evacuated all other stores in the strip mall and
immediately quarantined the clinic. 

The people exposed to the letter are being taken to Wishard, Methodist
and Community hospitals for observation, and are not in any danger, fire
Lt. Jack Cassaday said. 

The hospitals and 911 have been inundated by calls from people in the
area who think they might have been exposed, Cassaday said. 

"No one who was not inside the clinic could have possibly been exposed,"
he said. 

Anthrax is a disease normally associated with animals such as sheep or
goats. Its spores can infect people who breathe them in. It can kill if left
untreated, but antibiotics can usually cure the disease. 

Authorities in Indianapolis were in the process of having the powder
analyzed and hope to know by Monday whether it is anthrax, said Virginia
A. Caine, Marion County Health Department director. 

If the powder is confirmed to be anthrax, those exposed will have to take
antibiotics for four weeks, and possibly the anthrax vaccine as well, she
said. 

The letters were received a week after abortion provider Dr. Barnett
Slepian, 52, was shot and killed by a sniper in his home in suburban
Buffalo, N.Y. 

"We receive threats from time to time, but nothing very substantial. The
employees here did the appropriate thing. This did not look suspicious
until they opened it," said Delbert Culp, president of Planned Parenthood
of Central and Southern Indiana. 

"These are just political extremists who call themselves pro-life. This is not
pro-life." 

Ann Minnis of Haubstadt, Ind., president of Gibson County Right to Life,
an anti-abortion group, said she has been with the organization for 25
years and has "never met anyone who would do such a thing. 

"We're about saving lives, not about anything like that (the anthrax
threats)," she said. "Heavens, it's horrible." 

 � Copyright 1998 The Associated Press 
-----------------------
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