An anthrax-laced letter addressed to South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle amplified a nationwide threat that left victims gravely ill and Americans fearful of opening their mail 25 years ago this week.
Dozens of employees in the senator’s Washington, D.C., office building had been tested for exposure and given preventive antibiotics after the biological attack, but according to the Oct. 22, 2001, edition of the Rapid City Journal, postal workers who handled the letter along the way had also become victims.
The letters containing the bacterial spores, which are commonly fatal when inhaled, came on the heels of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, fueling speculation they were a continued attack on America, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Newsrooms were the first targets, with letters sent to NBC, the New York Post and American Media Inc.
