There have been no discoveries of anthrax in Arlington. Our mail is processed through the regional postal facilities in Merrifield, Virginia, west of DC and outside the capitol beltway. As of this date (see the page date below) Merrifield reportedly remains free of any anthrax.

Anthrax was first found in this area in 2001 at the Brentwood Road postal facility in Washington, DC. That facility was closed for decontamination, and is now reopened. Brentwood is about six miles from us. Our mail is not processed through there, but we do receive mail occasionally from US Government agencies that might have gone through there in the past. We have opened it upon receipt, and have not experienced any medical problems here. Our pamphlet samples from DOT passed through Brentwood, but had no shipments through Brentwood during the anthrax scare and before decontamination. Anthrax was eventually found in five US Government mail facilities, none of them in Arlington where we are located. All have been decontaminated and reopened.

In Virginia, anthrax was found at a mail facility in Sterling, Virginia, that processes State Department mail on October 25, 2001. Sterling is about 15 miles from us. It was also found on October 30, 2001 at Dulles Airport, about the same distance from here.

On December 3, 2001 US officials announced that some mail that may have passed through Brentwood with the contaminated mail was delivered to postal customers. They also said that there was no undelivered mail left, and that the risk from any that had been delivered was probably past. We don't think that any of the Brentwood mail came to us, and the facility has been decontaminated.

On December 4, 2001 the Postal Service attempted to assure everyone that there is no danger from cross-contaminated mail. If there was, it could be anywhere in the country, of course, not just in our area. In late December the Postal Service began inoculating workers who had worked at Brentwood with an anthrax vaccine. The State Department, about three miles from here, is irradiating their mail, and later received another letter with anthrax.

On December 6, 2001 the Centers for Communicable Diseases (CDC) issued an advisory about how to open potentially contaminated mail. Wow. That seems like overkill now, but something you might want to have in mind if this problem ever broadens.

In January of 2002 the Hart Office Building in DC reopened, after being scrubbed of anthrax. Some government mail is still being irradiated.

During that period we continued to send out our Toolkits and our pamphlet duplicating masters, and did not cause any problems. Life went on normally here in Arlington unchanged by the anthrax scare.

There is never a guarantee that another anthrax scare might not surface, and the DC area was the target in 2001. If you are concerned about mail from us because of our proximity to an anthrax scare, please explore our Web site for the info you need. We have now made sure that everything we send out on paper in our Toolkit for Helmet Promotion Programs is available in sanitary digital format on this Web site. Start with our Toolkit Page, and you can probably find what you need.

The pamphlet duplicating masters we provide on paper and sample pamphlets from other sources are available as Word or .pdf files for downloading and printing out on your own printer. We send them on paper in 1200 x 1200 dpi high resolution, but your printer may equal that or otherwise be entirely adequate for the job. Check our pamphlet page for more info.

This page was last revised on: April 26, 2007.

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