Anthrax Attacks Left a Lingering Mistrust Among Black Postal Workers

The anthrax attacks of 2001, which terrified millions of Americans, left many of those most directly affected with a shattered faith in public health officials, new research contends. In just-published focus-group interviews, U.S. Senate staff members and postal workers who were exposed to the lethal white powder contended that the government failed to make them feel secure. "There is a lot of mistrust of public health agencies in these groups. That was a consistent message," said Dr. Janice Blanchard, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University who conducted the interviews a year after the attacks. But perceptions varied, according to Blanchard's findings, published in the March issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Postal employees at risk, almost all black, felt they were neglected because of their race and income, with some harkening back to the notorious Tuskegee medical study of decades past. A handful of U.S. Senate workers, mostly white, were unimpressed by what they termed inconsistent and confusing messages from the government. The attacks, in the fall of 2001, involved the infectious agent Bacillus anthracis concealed in envelopes that were mailed to various political figures and media outlets around the country. Twenty-two people were stricken with the disease. Eleven contracted inhalation anthrax, the most lethal form; five of them died. The rest developed cutaneous anthrax, the form of the disease that mainly affects the skin. When the attacks occurred, Senate workers were initially considered at high risk since anthrax-infected letters were sent to Capitol Hill. Postal workers at the Brentwood mail processing plant, which sorted the letters, were not considered to be in danger, at least initially, and weren't treated until nearly a week after Senate workers. But four employees at Brentwood became ill with inhalation anthrax; two of them died. [more]