Mail Service Returns in Compliance with Rules

After being shut down on Friday, University mail operations
resumed Saturday after employees acquired respirators to wear in
addition to the rubber gloves they have worn for the past two
weeks, said Vice President of Support Services Kenneth Knuckles.

The respirators and gloves, Knuckles said, bring the mail room
into compliance with recently announced regulations from the
Centers for Disease Control to protect those who sort mail from
exposure to anthrax.

"We determined the steps with regard to respirators and gloves
were sufficient. We are prepared to resume operation," Knuckles
said.

While the CDC Health Advisory released last Wednesday applied
to mail-sorting operations which use high-speed equipment.
Though Columbia's mail is sorted manually, Knuckles said the
University deemed the precautions necessary. Emphasizing that
there "has been no finding of contamination anywhere" at
Columbia, Knuckles said he was uncertain whether the
respirators and gloves the Columbia staff will use would have
protected the Washington D.C. area mail handlers who came into
contact with the anthrax-laden letter addressed to Senate Majority
Leader Tom Daschle.

The "heavy paper" respirators Knuckles said the employees are
wearing at the University's mail facility in Lerner and the central
facility under the Engineering Terrace are "not high grade."

Dr. Jane Bedell, director of Health and Related Services,
interviewed employees individually on Friday to explain the new
precautions. According to Knuckles, none of the mail sorters have
been prescribed Cipro or any other antibiotic as a precaution.

Interoffice mail and payroll sent between buildings and offices on
campus continued as usual during the shut-down, which
happened at the end of a week in which it was announced that
traces of anthrax had been found in Manhattan's largest mail
distribution center, Morgan Station, at 29th Street and Ninth
Avenue.

Mail handlers across the country have been trained to recognize
and report suspicious-looking mail, such as envelopes that have
been taped shut, that are lumpy, or that have no return
address.