NYC postal workers angry over vaccine / eMedicine World Medical Library

December 31, 2001

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11228-23450200-BC-US-ANTHRAX-VACCINE-TEXT.TXT

NYC postal workers angry over vaccine

NEW YORK, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- Some New York City postal workers feel they are

guinea pigs for an unproven anthrax vaccine that is being made available to them

and a postal union official said Friday that he knows of people the vaccine has

injured.

Meanwhile mail irradiated to kill any anthrax spores is being received

yellow, brittle and stuck together.

" The U.S. government and the U.S. Postal Service are using postal workers

as guinea pigs by making available the anthrax vaccine that isn't even approved

by the federal Food and Drug Administration, " New York Metro Postal Union

president told United Press International.

" We've had at least 54 calls from (military) veterans or family members

who said they have been injured from taking the vaccine. It's outrageous, " he

said.

Several letters contaminated with anthrax went through the

Processing and Distribution Center in Manhattan and several mail sorting

machines then tested positive for anthrax. The postal union sued the federal

government to have the nation's largest mail processing center closed until the

machines were cleaned and the entire building was tested.

The union lost that case but is preparing to go to U.S. District Court in

Manhattan in February because they believe anthrax may still be a threat.

Reinforcing that fear is the fact the anthrax vaccine is being made available as

well as another 40 days treatment with the antibiotic Cipro.

None of the 7,000 postal workers with access to the Center have

contracted anthrax.

" The contaminated machines were cleaned and put into operation in

mid-December but another test of the machines was done on Dec. 23 and the

results aren't available yet, " said. " If there was no problem why do they

keep the building open and give everyone 60 days of Cipro and now that those 60

days are over make the vaccine available and give more Cipro? "

Federal officials have made the vaccine available to those exposed to

anthrax-contaminated buildings in New York, New Jersey and Washington but they

have not made any recommendation on whether to take the vaccine.

" We are giving an enormous amount of information to workers that may have

been exposed, " Brennan, U.S. Postal spokeswoman in Washington, told UPI.

" However, we are not advising the employees and we say that they make the

decision to take the vaccine on their own with consultation with their

physician. "

According to Brennan, postal workers have three options: take the

three-dose anthrax vaccine, take another 40 days of Cipro or watch for any

anthrax-related symptoms.

" The reason the federal government said it could not close the

Center was that their medical expert said in court that after 40 days the chance

of contracting anthrax was greatly reduced and now they're telling us 'Here's

the vaccine and here's another 40 days of Cipro,' " said.

The vaccine, which was given to the military during the Gulf War, has

never been given to people already exposed to anthrax, according to .

The Postal Service confirmed that fewer than a dozen of New York, New

Jersey and Washington postal workers have decided to take the vaccine since it

was made available Thursday, but the workers have until Jan. 7 to decide on

whether to take the vaccine.

" Postal workers feel used and abused by the federal government and the

president and the Congress know it, " said. " A lot of workers stopped

taking Cipro because of the side effects and there are hundreds of temporary

postal workers who don't have health insurance so they have no physician to

consult. "

Meanwhile, federal postal officials who have used electron beam

irradiation on targeted mail to cleanse it of possible anthrax or other

biohazards are looking for other ways to protect the nation's mail because many

of the irradiated letters have been burned, discolored or emit a strange odor.

" It is not as easy to use as we anticipated, " said U.S. Postal Service

spokesman Jim Mruk in Chicago. " There have been unforeseen circumstances, and

basically, that has led us to believe we need to look at something else other

than irradiation. It isn't going to be enough. "

ABC-TV news has contracted with an undisclosed private contractor to

irradiate its mail because a baby of an employee that visited the ABC News

headquarters in New York City contracted cutaneous or skin anthrax.

" I cannot reveal what company or where the mail is being irradiated but

it's being a done by a private contractor, not the U.S. Postal Service, "

Schneider, vice president for ABC News, told UPI. " We are a very large news

organization and we take this very seriously and our main concern is that the

mail be safe and it's a great relief that it is.

" After the irradiation, much of the mail appears yellow, ink can be

smudged and cellophane windows appear to become plastic, " Schneider said. " The

mail appears toasted but it serviceable. "

The Postal Service is irradiating targeted mail to government offices such

as Capitol Hill but according to Brennan it will not disclose which mail is

being treated but it is a very small amount.

After anthrax-laced letters were discovered in October, millions of pieces

of mail were sequestered and trucked to irradiation facilities to be treated.

The process itself is slow and required long truck rides to and from the plants.

The Lima, Ohio, facility, for example, can sanitize only two truckloads of mail

a day, even as new government mail continues arriving.

Postal officials have agreed to pay $40 million to Titan Industries to buy

eight irradiation machines, with an option to buy 12 more, however, the Postal

Service never envisioned using the irradiation process -- the same process used

to irradiate food -- for the nation's billions of pieces of mail, according to

Brennan.

" We're looking at tracking senders of mail and we're in the final stages

of testing biohazard alarms that would give us warnings of anthrax, smallpox or

other biohazards, " Brennan said. " The alarms wouldgive us a warning and we could

then irradiate any possibly contaminated mail.

" We're in a learning process on how to handle these type of threats but we

should remember out of 40 billion pieces of mail, only four were tainted with

anthrax, " he said.

(Reporting by Cukan in Albany, N.Y.)

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