Pentagon too slow responding to Anthrax scare

Apr 6 2005

A report by officials in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia says the Pentagon was too slow in informing local officials about the recent anthrax scare in Defence Department mail facilities and gave antibiotics to workers without coordinating with public health officials. It says the Homeland Security Department (DoD) "needs to be involved earlier in such incidents".

The report expresses the concerns of the state and local governments about the efficiency of updates from DoD on the testing taking place, and DoD's role in making the decision about the antibiotics without coordinating with public health departments.

Local and state response to the two-day, mid-March scare was examined. The scare prompted nearly 900 Washington-area workers to take precautionary antibiotics and invoked memories of the 2001 anthrax-by-mail attacks that killed five. It did not assess blame for the false alarm.

According to Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Rose-Ann Lynch, the Defence Department is cooperating fully with an ongoing federal review of the scare by the Homeland Security Department. The department is in charge of coordinating federal response to terror attacks with state and local authorities.

Homeland Security spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said that everyone agreed that coordination during this event was greatly improved over the anthrax response in 2001, but they are always looking for ways to improve, and will review the report to determine how it could enhance coordination.

The report summary described confusion and frustration among state and local officials after sensors mistakenly detected anthrax contamination in a military mailroom at the Pentagon and a separate alarm was issued at a nearby satellite facility in Fairfax County, Va. It highlighted a conference call between 80 participants, who were allowed to speak at will, often sharing outdated information, with only vague guidance from the Defence Department over whether the scare was legitimate. State and local governments were unsure if they were getting the latest information from DoD, or whether DoD itself was having problems getting clear test information, or both, at various times.

One official involved in writing the report, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said many local and state officials also questioned the Pentagon's decision to distribute antibiotics to civilian contract employees which alarmed workers who were not told whether there had been actual exposure to anthrax.

The report also found that the alarm raised in Fairfax County was not triggered by purported detection of anthrax. the official said. Instead, that facility closed down after suffering an equipment problem that they feared was linked to the Pentagon incident, the official said.