Anthrax Spores Apparently Produced in the U.S.

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, December 18, 2001

Anthrax Spores Apparently Produced in the U.S.

Anthrax spores that contaminated U.S. mail in October were apparently produced in the United States, the White House said Monday.

Anthrax spores that contaminated U.S. mail in October were apparently produced in the United States, the White House said Monday.

Press secretary Ari Fleischer said the evidence is not conclusive but it is increasingly ''looking like it was a domestic source.'' He said officials still did not know who delivered the anthrax.

Later, President Bush said the government is mystified by the case. ''We're still looking on that. We've all got different feelings about it. We're gathering as much information. As soon as we make definitive conclusions we'll share it with the American people,'' he said.

Army officials are doubtful that potentially deadly anthrax in letters mailed to Congress originated at a military medical research center, even though spores in both places were a genetic match.

The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease obtained its supply from the Agriculture Department and shared it with five labs in the United States, Canada and Britain, spokesman Chuck Dasey said Sunday.

He was reacting to a report in The Washington Post that the genetic makeup of the anthrax used in the letters mailed to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., matched the anthrax in the Army's stockpile.

On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, technicians worked Monday to pump chlorine dioxide gas into portions of the ventilation system of the Hart Senate Office Building to kill anthrax spores still lingering there.

The Environmental Protection Agency workers also were using the liquid form of chlorine dioxide in Daschle's office, which had been fumigated with the gas earlier.

The Hart building has remained closed since Oct. 17, two days after an anthrax-filled letter was received in Daschle's office. The EPA reported Friday that traces of anthrax remained after its initial fumigation efforts.

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