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--> --> `No clues' that woman got anthrax through mail WASHINGTON (AP) - Investigators reported "no clues" to suggest the mail is to blame for the anthrax death of a New York City hospital worker, and the hunt continued for an explanation for how someone outside the mail or the media was infected. More than 170 postal workers in Missouri began preventive antibiotics after traces were found in Kansas City. Just outside Washington, anthrax was found in yet more government buildings, with preliminary tests showing spores in four Food and Drug Administration mail rooms. Postal authorities began picking through piles of decontaminated mail, searching for a possible unopened tainted letter. In New York, investigators traced Kathy T. Nguyen's final steps in an attempt to find out how she was infected with inhalation anthrax. The search was moving "at a serious pace," said Dr. Julie Gerberding of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We are reviewing the routes that mail might have traveled to reach her," Gerberding said today. "So far we have found no clues to suggest that the mail or the mail handling was the cause of her exposure." Still, Gerberding said, the investigation suggests Nguyen was not exposed in a public place because additional patients have not turned up. "It's somewhat reassuring that this was not something that posed a broader threat," she said. Investigators found that the anthrax she was exposed to responds to antibiotics, she added, and officials suspect that Nguyen may have sought treatment too late for the drugs to work. Disease detectives were studying Nguyen's life after she fell victim to inhalation anthrax on Wednesday, the fourth person to die since the anthrax-by-mail attack was discovered nearly a month ago. Her death had officials worried that the anthrax attack, so far concentrated among postal and media employees, could be spreading to a new group of Americans. "We need to find out how she was infected," said Surgeon General David Satcher. "It's very strange." And authorities awaited test results for a Nguyen co-worker at the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital who has a suspicious skin lesion. Anthrax has killed four people and infected six others with the dangerous inhalation form of the disease. An additional seven people have been infected with the highly curable skin form. Preliminary tests Wednesday found anthrax spores in a Kansas City, Mo., postal facility, extending the anthrax threat to the Midwest. Email your... Technical questions & comments to: WebMaster Daily Tidings editorial comments & questions to: Editor Visit our other Oregon Newspapers... | Albany Democrat-Herald | Ashland Daily Tidings | Corvallis Gazette-Times | | Lebanon Express | Newport News-Times | Springfield News | Cottage Grove Sentinel | Ashland Daily Tidings 1661 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520 Telephone 541-482-3456 © Copyright 2001 Lee Northwest Publishing