Hart Senate Office Building

The Daschle letter was opened in the sixth floor office at 9 45 a.m. by an aide in the Senator s Hart Senate Office Building suite on October 15, 2001. It was believed to contain about 2g of powder comprising 200 billion to 2 trillion spores. Based on nasal swabs, all 18 persons who were in the area of Daschle s sixth floor office tested positive for anthrax exposure, as did 7 of 25 (i.e, 28%) in the area of the Senator s fifth floor office (an open staircase connected the two offices). 

The effects on public order, as well as economic and social effects, should be considered in an assessment of weaponized antiirax risk. Decontamination of the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, DC, required 7 months at a cost of 23 million. Decontamination of the postal facilities that processed the "anthrax letters" in Brentwood, DC, and Hamilton Township, NJ, required more than 1 year at a cost in excess of 100 million (Fernandez, 2002). The psychological effects of an anthrax attack could exceed the medical or economic effects, especially in the short term. Panic caused by seemingly random outbreaks of symptoms in apparently unrelated persons or events "could degenerate into panic, flight, communications breakdown, general societal dysfunction" (Wein et al., 2003). 

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