Tuesday, Sept. 18: Envelopes containing letters and
granular substances are sent to NBC in New York and U.S. Senate
Majority Leader Tom Daschle's Washington office. Both are mailed from
Trenton, N.J.
Thursday, Sept. 20: Envelope with letter and white powder sent to NBC from St.
Petersburg.
Tuesday,
Sept. 25: An employee of NBC News in New York
reports receiving the St. Petersburg envelope postmarked Sept. 20,
which contains a powdery substance. The letter is collected by the FBI
the next day. It later tests negative for
anthrax.
Friday Sept.
28: The 7-month-old son of an ABC producer in
Manhattan spends time at the network offices. He develops a rash, and
is hospitalized with an unknown ailment soon after the visit. He is
later diagnosed with cutaneous anthrax.
Monday, Oct. 1: The
NBC assistant to anchor Tom Brokaw goes to her doctor with a low-grade
fever and a bad rash and is prescribed the antibiotic Cipro, which is
successful in preventing anthrax disease from developing but is also
used to treat other infections.
Also, Ernesto Blanco, 73, an
American Media Inc. mailroom employees is hospitalized with
pneumonia.
Tuesday,
Oct. 2: At 2:30 a.m., American Media Inc.
photo editor Robert Stevens arrives at JFK Medical Center in Atlantis
with 102-degree fever, vomiting and confusion. He deteriorates
rapidly.
Wednesday,
Oct. 3: Doctors determine Stevens, 63, has
anthrax. He is on a respirator, being treated with intravenous
penicillin. David Pecker, the chairman and CEO of AMI, sends an e-mail
out to all employees: "We have just learned that an employee has been
presumptively diagnosed with anthrax. The health department is aware
of this situation and has informed us that the chance of this being
contagious is virtually nonexistent."
Thursday, Oct 4: AMI
calls the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to ask
whether its Boca Raton headquarters should be evacuated. The CDC says
no, and everyone continues working as usual at AMI. That afternoon,
JFK Medical Center along with the Florida Department of Health's Dr.
Steven Wiersma call a news conference to confirm that a patient has
anthrax. They stress that it is a public health investigation, not a
criminal one, and they believe it is an isolated
case.
Friday, Oct.
5: Teams from the CDC fan out to Stevens' home
and office. At AMI's Boca Raton headquarters, they collect samples
from Stevens' work area and some co-workers. Wiersma says the
likelihood that this is an isolated case has grown, because no new
anthrax cases emerged overnight. At JFK's intensive care unit, Stevens
suffers cardiac arrest and cannot be revived. He is removed from the
respirator and pronounced dead about 4 p.m., becoming the first
anthrax fatality in the United States since 1976.
Saturday, Oct. 6:
The state health department announces that Stevens is the only victim
so far, and that tests on three other worrisome cases from the same
area were negative for anthrax.
Sunday, Oct. 7: At 7 p.m. the CDC
notifies Pecker that they intend to seal the building because test
samples have shown anthrax spores on Stevens' computer keyboard and in
the nasal passages of an AMI employee who delivered mail to other
workers there, and was being treated in a Miami
hospital.
Monday,
Oct. 8: In Miami, the family of Ernesto
Blanco, 73, an AMI mailroom worker who has been hospitalized with
pneumonia since Oct. 1, is notified that Blanco has tested positive
for anthrax exposure. He has no symptoms of anthrax infection.
Employees of AMI line up at the Delray Health Center to be tested and
to receive a two-week supply of an antibiotic that is effective
against the disease. They will need to take the medication for 60
days.
Tuesday, Oct.
9: In New York, a skin biopsy is performed on
the NBC employee. In South Florida, the FBI says it found no traces of
anthrax in the known places the Sept. 11 hijackers had stayed, or in
Stevens' home or the places he frequented. Federal and state officials
said they now believe the case is an isolated incident of "foul play."
President Bush tries to assure anxious Americans that the Florida
cases do not warrant national alarm.
Wednesday, Oct. 10: Federal investigators announce that a third AMI employee has
tested positive for anthrax exposure and that the AMI case has become
a criminal investigation. They say they have found no evidence of
anthrax contamination outside AMI offices, and no link between the
contamination and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Thursday, Oct. 11: Federal officials say they have found more anthrax spores in
the AMI mailroom. Postal workers demand to be tested for anthrax
exposure, fearful of both the mail they are handling and the knowledge
that Blanco routinely picked up AMI mail at a Boca Raton post office.
The third AMI employee to test positive for anthrax exposure,
Stephanie Dailey, 36, announces from her Boynton Beach home that she
is on antibiotics and feels fine.
Friday, Oct. 12:
In New York, the skin biopsy tests on the NBC employee reveals that
she had been exposed to anthrax, making her the fourth confirmed
exposure to the potential germ warfare agent at a media company. NBC
offices are sealed off while investigators conduct tests. The letter
to NBC's Brokaw from Trenton, N.J. containing the granular substance
is tested.
At The New York Times, journalist Judith Miller,
co-author of a book on bioterrorism, reports that she received an
envelope containing a powdery substance. The newspaper's Times Square
newsroom is evacuated. Investigators say they do not yet have evidence
of any connection between the New York and Boca Raton cases, or any
link to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Saturday, Oct. 13: Five more employees of the Boca Raton tabloid publisher
American Media Inc. test positive for the presence of anthrax
bacteria. The employees are put on antibiotics and are not expected to
develop the disease.
The threatening letter sent to Brokaw from
Trenton, N.J. tests positive for the skin anthrax that infected
Brokaw's assistant. A second NBC News employee who handled the letter
reports having possible symptoms. Brokaw says he handled the letter,
too. "I saw this letter, read it, and one of the reasons I noticed it
was that there was a misspelled word in it,'' the anchorman
says.
In Reno, Nev., a third anthrax test on a letter sent from
Malaysia to a Microsoft office comes back
positive.
Sunday,
Oct. 14: The number of individuals exposed to
anthrax grows to 12. Three new cases -- a police officer and two lab
technicians involved in an investigation at NBC's New York
headquarters -- test positive for the bacteria, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani
announces. Nevada officials say four people who may have come into
contact with a contaminated letter at a Microsoft office test
negative, while results weren't known for two
others.
Monday, Oct.
15: The nation's anthrax inquiry widens. It is
learned that U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's Washington
office received a powdery letter testing positive for anthrax. It is
postmarked Sept. 18 in Trenton, N.J.
Inspectors in Boca Raton
confirm the presence of spores in the city's main post
office.
In New York, ABC announces that the 7-month-old son of
one of its producers was found to be infected with cutaneous anthrax.
The boy had been at the network's offices in Manhattan on Sept.
28.
The Florida Department of Health announces that tests show
Ernesto Blanco, an AMI mailroom employee, has contracted anthrax.
Earlier tests indicated he had only been exposed to anthrax
spores
Tuesday, Oct.
16: AMI says it probably destroyed the letter
to its Boca office that contained anthrax.
Meanwhile, U.S.
Senate offices close as hundreds line up for tests. It is announced
that the anthrax mailed to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle is a
pure and highly potent "weapons grade" version. Based on similarities
in the handwriting on the envelope and the postmarks, the FBI links
this letter to the one sent to NBC News.
Wednesday, Oct. 17: Congressional leaders arrange for an unprecedented shutdown
of the House and possibly the Senate after more than two dozen people
in Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office test positive for
exposure to anthrax.
New York Gov. George Pataki announces that
anthrax has been found in his Manhattan office.
