Health at Issue as Mail Gets Irradiated

WASHINGTON —  Among the staff in Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Capitol Hill office, the complaints have been numerous and disturbing: headaches, burning hands, nausea and, in one case, a metallic taste in the mouth.

The suspected cause: mail being irradiated by the U.S. Postal Service to protect federal employees from additional bioterrorist attacks.

By this week, enough Hill staffers had complained of problems that a task force had been convened and top postal officials felt compelled to call a news conference Wednesday to say they “knew of no medical link yet” between the reported symptoms and more than 300,000 pieces of government mail being sanitized daily.

Feinstein (D-Calif.), has said she felt “strongly” that any health problems related to the mail should be closely monitored. Other lawmakers have echoed her concerns.

The alarm about possible side effects from the treated mail--as well as from the cleanup of anthrax-contaminated buildings--marks growing worries in Washington that the efforts to protect people may well be creating new hazards.

Postal officials on Wednesday attempted to dampen concern about handling the mail. They raised the possibility that unseasonably warm weather here may be as much to blame for the reported symptoms as anything else.

“At this time we’ve found no medical or scientific link to the problems--other than extra paper dust [caused by the irradiation] and other environmental changes that have happened,” Deborah Willhite, a Postal Service vice president, said at a news conference at the agency’s headquarters.

Willhite said people prone to allergy or sinus troubles might be more sensitive to the dust created by the irradiation procedure. But, she said, they might also be affected by a string of 60-degree-plus January days.

In order to calm the nerves of postal customers beyond the nation’s capital, officials also stressed that plants in Ohio and New Jersey are only irradiating government mail destined for Washington ZIP Codes that start with 202 through 205.

“There is a common misperception that we are irradiating mail that is going throughout the country,” said Thomas Day, the Postal Service’s vice president for engineering. “We are not.”

The move to irradiate the government mail, with doses that Day described as “much higher” than those used for either food safety or medical equipment, was made in the weeks after attacks through the mail of anthrax killed five people and sickened at least 13 others.

Federal law enforcement officials recovered anthrax-laden letters sent to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, the New York Post, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), and Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.). They believe more likely were mailed to other media outlets where employees became ill with the rare disease.

The letters to Daschle and Leahy, investigators said, contained a fine, powder form of anthrax spores. Officials believe the high quality of the powder was responsible for the most serious inhaled cases of the disease.

Among the dead were two Washington-area postal workers, who initially had been told they were not at risk. Postal officials decided to irradiate mail coming to the federal government in Washington because they believed workers here were at the greatest risk for more attacks.

Public advocates, as well as some lawmakers and postal union officials, question whether the move was an overreaction. Public Citizen, a national consumer organization, has called for a moratorium on the irradiation of the mail until officials have a better understanding of its health effects.

In any case, plans to expand the irradiation of mail now are on hold, Day said, because of cost concerns and limited irradiation facilities.

Postal officials have conceded that carbon monoxide can build up as a result of the irradiation process, but said frequent testing of the mail indicated gas levels at or below Environmental Protection Agency standards.