Anthrax Investigation Delay

The New York Times reported in today's editions that the F.B.I. has asked for a delay in the National Academy of Sciences' report on the 2001 anthrax scare. It appears the Bureau has found another 500 pages of documentation, even though the Academy had asked for all relevant material when it started its review over a year ago.

The anthrax scare was a weird series of incidents that characterized the creepy fall of 2001. I still possess a Postal Service plastic envelope stating that my mail, sent during the height of the scare, had been irradiated for my safety. The most troubling episode occurred at the Postal Service's Morgan Annex in New York. Postal employees died from anthrax exposure. The federal government's response was to place yellow crime scene tape at an arbitrary point inside the annex, and declare one side anthrax-free. It also meant postal employees returned to an obviously unsafe work environment.

The government's bizarre, unfeeling response to the anthrax scare made one wonder about the sanity of those elected or appointed to represent the interest of American citizens. That question was definitively answered some years later, in the indifferent federal response to Hurricane Katrina's survivors in New Orleans. The government's lethal legacy remains, even though the F.B.I. and other agencies who work the dark shadows would prefer the whole business be forgotten.

The photograph shows a cordoned off mailbox in Washington, D.C. during the 2001 anthrax scare.