Medill News Service - Published: Oct. 23, 2001

USPS considers sterilizing mail

By Patrick Cooper
Medill News Service

Fighting mail contaminated with deadly anthrax, the U.S. Postal Service has been talking to companies throughout the sterilization industry in search of solutions.

"They've very concerned," said Mark McLoughlin, president of Chicago-based IBA North American Operations, one of the companies recently tapped for ideas. "I think they'd like to move quickly. Wouldn't you?"

Confirming earlier reports, Washington Mayor Anthony Williams said Tuesday that the inhaled form of anthrax had killed two workers in the city's major mail processing facility.

A New Jersey postal employee, who works in a facility where more anthrax-laden mail was processed, is also suspected of having inhaled the disease, state health officials said.

Facing a public more afraid to open mail and a work force less eager to handle it, postal service leaders have been rapidly exploring technologies that could sterilize mail.

Any move toward these technologies, such as irradiation, the process of killing bacteria by radiation, would have major implications for the postal service as well as the companies that provide the equipment.

"They have a number of options in front of them, and they're considering, I'm sure, everything," McLoughlin said. IBA, which stands for Ion Beam Applications, is a Belgian-based corporation with U.S. headquarters in Chicago.

The sterilization industry currently handles mostly medical products, as well as some food products, and does not have the capacity to immediately deal with mail on a large-scale basis, he said. Because of consumer concerns, he said his company would not process mail in its existing plants.

McLoughlin estimated that building new sterilization plants would take 12-18 months.

Already in debt, the postal service would face dramatic costs in installing a nationwide system to decontaminate the mail. If a method using radiation was installed, postal officials would have to fend off attacks from wary consumer groups.

In recent years, groups like Public Citizen, Ralph Nader's consumer advocacy organization, have fought irradiation used to eliminate bacteria from food, citing potential dangers for people who eat the foods and those who operate the irradiation machines.

"We know that the companies have been promoting this idea because food irradiation hasn't taken off, and they're looking for some way to use the technology," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's energy and environment program. "We're skeptical."

She said the companies promoting irradiation need to show evidence proving that their equipment decontaminates mail.

In the meantime, before decontaminating equipment is put into place, postal services officials are implementing additional precautions.

A spokeswoman for the Chicago postal service said Tuesday that local postal officials were holding daily safety sessions for workers, as well as making gloves and masks available.

Also, while mail-sorting machines had previously been cleaned by a blowing mechanism, shooting dust and other particles into the air, a vacuuming method will be used nationwide in the future.