Mail Carriers To Be Part of Bioterrorism Defense

Ann Bowdan reports on Kentucky's WLKY.com website that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Postal Service have announced that Louisville will be one of two cities in the country to test a plan that would make neighborhood mail carriers the deliverers of crucial medication in the event of a bioterrorism attack. The other metropolitan area chosen to test the pilot program was Minneapolis-St. Paul in Minnesota.

According to Bowdan, postal workers with police escorts would be the first line of defense against a possible anthrax attack. The pilot program calls for a stockpile of the antibiotic doxycycline. With the help of the Health Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mail carriers would have it within 12 hours and would be delivered door to door along their regular routes."

In 2001, five people died, and more than 20 people, including postal workers, were infected by anthrax-tainted letters mailed to addresses in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania soon after the 9/11 attacks.

Shown above, letters tainted with anthrax.

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