Cole talks on lasting effects of Princeton anthrax scare

At the corner of Nassau Street and Bank Street, there once were three mailboxes. Today, there are just two — one was removed after anthrax was detected in it almost a year after the anthrax attack in 2001.

Leonard Cole, author of the new book "The Anthrax Letters: A Medical Detective Story," speaking last night at the U-Store, discussed his work and emphasized the impact of the incident on the Princeton area.

Two of the survivors of inhalation anthrax, Norma Wallace and Jyotsna Patel, both former postal workers at the Hamilton facility, also attended the talk. Neither has returned to work, and the post office remains closed.

Wallace briefly spoke about her lingering health problems. She said she and other survivors still experience joint pain, chronic fatigue, shortness of breath and memory loss.

Cole said 22 people have been acknowledged as victims of anthrax as a consequence of the letters sent in September 2001. Eleven of the 22 suffered from cutaneous or skin anthrax, the less dangerous form, while the other half suffered from the more serious inhalation anthrax. Six of those victims, including Patel and Wallace, survived.

Cole, an adjunct professor of political science at Rutgers University and the author of six books, suggested investigators focused the case too narrowly. They theorized that an individual disgruntled American, similar to the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, was responsible.

Cole said he did not necessarily think al-Qaeda or the Iraqi government had sponsored the attack, but he had noticed information that did not fit with the FBI profile of an angry recluse.

"I'm trying to counterbalance the notion that has permeated the past two years . . . that this is a lone guy," Cole said. "It would be unfortunate . . . to just look at a lone individual and be possibly missing the larger picture."

Cole raised several inconsistencies he had discovered in his research. First, he questioned how the letters could have been sent within a week of the Sept. 11 attacks. He said it would take an excellent scientist several days to process the material, casting doubt on the theory that the anthrax was unrelated to Sept. 11.

In addition, Cole said the first letter had been directed at an employee of The Sun, a tabloid. He noted that the husband of the real estate agent of two of the Sept. 11 hijackers was the editor-in-chief of The Sun. Finally, he cited an instance in which a doctor claimed to have treated one of the hijackers for a crusty black lesion before Sept. 11, a lesion that could have resulted from cutaneous anthrax.

Cole said much of the difficulty in finding the perpetrator stemmed from the small amount of anthrax involved. He said the entire event involved a total quantity equal to about a handful of aspirin.

The main question that remains is how prepared the United States is for a future bioterrorist attack, Cole said.

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"If there was to be a replay . . . there would now be surely a likelihood that we would find out much more quickly that someone would have become infected," Cole said. "Surely much of the medical community would think of these things in a manner that they hadn't previously."