a more aggressive approach to novel health hazards in the workplace.

Last month the General Accounting Office released a report critical of Postal Service communications to employees during the anthrax crisis. Confusing communications stemmed, in part, from what has been generously characterized as an evolving system of environmental sampling. In truth, it only evolved from a complacent, almost symbolic program to disprove the presence of anthrax to an appropriately aggressive effort to find spores because Mrs. Ottili Lundgren died.

Obviously, several negative factors at Wallingford provided no reliable evidence the facility was free of potentially deadly anthrax. Jurisdictional jealousies, false economies and some scientific hubris artificially limited the quantity and quality of sampling and testing. Facing a wholly new situation, understandable errors were made, but too often, and for too long, those mistakes were not made on the side of excess caution but in the service of unwarranted conclusions about the safety of contaminated facilities.

When a finding of negative does not mean zero and just a few spores can be as deadly as a million, sampling must be widespread and aggressive. Testing must yield sufficiently detailed information to allow health officials and the public to make sound decisions about the prophylactic treatments and site decontamination.

Despite the hard-learned lessons of Brentwood, the Hart Building and Wallingford, standardized sampling and testing protocols are not yet complete. It seems likely a new anthrax outbreak by mail would trigger another confusing cascade of interagency committees and inconsistent testing regimens. Until uniform, scientifically validated protocols are in place, we all stand as sentinels like Ottili Lundgren, human detectors waiting for our immune systems

to sound the alarm.

Our witnesses today will describe current anthrax sampling and laboratory testing technologies and efforts to apply those technologies more consistently and forcefully in the future. We appreciate their time and expertise and we look forward to their testimony.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

Whether the mail-borne anthrax attacks of 2001 were of domestic or forcign origin remains a mystery. The investigation to date has not discovered who forever transformed once-innocent letters and packages into ubiquitous vectors of disease. So the lessons learned from those tragic events remain our best defense against further attempts to contaminate the mail stream and other public spaces with deadly spores.

There was much to learn. Once it became clear the envelopes sent to
Senators Leahy and Daschle had left a deadly trail of extraordinarily
virulent, statically volatile anthrax, established assumptions about the
ancient pathogen had to be discarded. The accepted lethal dose of eight to
ten thousand airborne germs, derived mainly from animal data, had to he
revised drastically downward - perhaps to just a single spore. Sampling and
testing protocols proved insensitive to finely engineered material easily re-
aerosolized.

It is those sampling and testing protocols we examine today. The search for anthrax at the Wallingford, Connecticut postal facility offers an instructive case study, a cautionary tale on the need to maintain a more aggressive approach to novel health hazards in the workplace.

Statement of Rep. Christopher Shays

May 19, 2003
Page 2 of 2

Last month, the General Accounting Office released a report critical of Postal Service communications to employees during the anthrax crisis. Confusing communications stemmed, in part, from what has been generously characterized as an “evolving" system of environmental sampling. In truth, it only evolved from a complacent, almost symbolic program to disprove the presence of anthrax to an appropriately aggressive effort to find spores because Mrs. Ottilie Lundgren died.

Obviously, several “negative” findings at Wallingford provided no reliable evidence the facility was free of potentially deadly anthrax. Jurisdictional jealousies, false economies and some scientific hubris artificially limited the quantity and quality of sampling and testing. Facing a wholly new situation, understandable errors were made. But too often, and for too long, those mistakes were not made on the side of excess caution but in the service of unwarranted conclusions about the safety of a contaminated facility.

When a finding of “negative” does not mean zero, and a few spores can be as deadly as a million, sampling must be widespread and aggressive. Testing must yield sufficiently detailed information to allow health officials, and the public, to make sound decisions about prophylactic treatments and site decontamination.

Despite the hard-learned lessons of Brentwood, the Hart Building, and Wallingford, standardized sampling and testing protocols are not yet complete. It seems likely a new anthrax outbreak by mail would trigger another confusing cascade of inter-agency committees and inconsistent testing regimens. Until uniform, scientifically validated protocols are in place, we all stand as sentinels, like Ottilie Lundgren, human detectors waiting for our immune systems to sound the alarm.

Our witnesses today will describe current anthrax sampling and laboratory testing technologies, and efforts to apply those technologies more consistently and forcefully in the future. We appreciate their time and expertise, and we look forward to their testimony.

Mr. SHAYS. Governor do you have any statement you'd like to make.

Mr. JANKLOW. No, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Now, to get to our panel we have Dr. Keith Rhodes, Chief Technologist, General Accounting Office, accompanied by Mr. Bernie Ungar and Dr. Jack Melling as well.

Second, testimony from Dr. Robert G. Hamilton, Director, John Hopkins, and we have accompanying him Mr. Barry Skolnick.

Third, testimony from Colonel Erik A. Henchal, Commander, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, accompanied by Dr. George Ludwig.

Gentlemen, if you would stand we'll swear you in. Anyone else who might be giving testimony, if you'd stand and raise your right hands please.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Note for the record that all the witnesses have responded in the affirmative.

I ask unanimous consent that all members of the subcommittee be permitted to place an opening statement in the record, and that the record remain open for 3 days for that purpose. Without objection, so ordered.

I ask unanimous consent that all witnesses be permitted to include their written statements, and without objection, so ordered. I also, ask unanimous consent that my colleague from Connecticut, Rosa DeLauro, be allowed to participate as a member of the subcommittee. Without objection, so ordered.

Do you have a statement you'd like to make? If you do, you can. Ms. DELAURO. If I can, I would thanks. Thank you very have much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your accommodation of my being here to listen to the testimony today.

As a fellow member of the Connecticut delegation, I know we share the same concerns with regard to safeguarding our Postal System so that the American people and our postal workers are never again really put at risk by biological attacks like the anthrax attacks that claimed the lives of five people, including Connecticut resident Ottili Lundgren.

Today's hearing is an important opportunity to learn what happened in the fall of 2001 during the anthrax attacks on our Postal System, and in particular at the Southern Connecticut Processing and Distribution System in Wallingford, CT, which is in my district, and which I have visited several times since the attacks.

Today, we will examine our response to that crisis. In particular, what went right, what went wrong, and what we can do better if there is ever a next time. In retrospect, I think we were very lucky that no Connecticut postal workers died during the attacks that contaminated mail that passed through the Wallingford facility because there were several communication breakdowns, and that concerns me greatly.

As others have noted, the Postal Service conducted two tests on the Wallingford facility following the tragic death of Ms. Lundgren to investigate whether that facility had any traces of anthrax. The results of those tests using dry and wet swabs and taken on No

ducted by the Centers for Disease Control on November 25 were also negative.

But as postal workers continued to work at the Wallingford facility, a more comprehensive test was conducted by the CDC 3 days after the initial CDC tests using wet wipes and the HEPA vacuums, and those tests came back positive. Further tests, taken by the CDC and the Postal Service, confirmed those positive results. Three million anthrax spores were found on mail sorting machines. So my concern is why did it take so long to detect the contamination, and why was not more comprehensive testing done following Ms. Lundgren's death, especially given that postal workers continued to work at the facility. One would think that using all the resources available would be an urgent priority.

My other concern relates to the Postal Service's seeming reticence to make public those later test results that showed that its workers were, in fact, at risk. While I understand that the Postal Service said it was following its guidelines that said results must first be validated before being made public, why then did the service show no such reticence in releasing the negative, and as it turned out, false results of the earlier tests?

There's an inconsistency here that I find troubling when we are dealing with matters of public health, I think the public is better served when we err on the side of caution, when we are more, not less, forthcoming with releasing such information. We simply cannot afford to take chances with people's lives, particularly given the truly heroic efforts of those postal workers at Wallingford, who soldiered on in the face of an unseen and deadly threat. Eleven hundred employees at the Wallingford Postal Facility deserved to have a full understanding of the facts, so that they could make an informed decision before going to work every day.

I commend my colleague from Connecticut, Chairman Shays, for convening this hearing today. I hope that we can correct the problems that flowed or hindered our response and continue to foster those things that went right. All of us want the same thing for the American public to be safe and to be protected.

As a member of the Labor Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee, which oversees funding for CDC, I'm also looking forward to hearing from the CDC and from Connecticut's Department of Public Health about how they worked together to stem this outbreak in Connecticut. Griffin Hospital, in nearby Derby, very quickly identified the case of anthrax and isolated the outbreak. Again, we are fortunate that we had only one death.

With that, I thank the chairman and the committee for allowing me to participate today and hope that we can make a real difference in the fight against biological terrorist attacks. Thank you again Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentlewoman. We're grateful to have you.