I found the article....
Complaints With Irradiated Mail
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - At least 87 suburban postal workers who handled irradiated
mail have reported health problems including nausea, headaches and breathing
problems, union leaders say.
Postal officials are using irradiation to protect against anthrax
contamination.
At least 87 of about 750 workers at the Gaithersburg, Md., postal facility
have reported problems, said Tammy Thompson, president of the Montgomery
County local of the postal workers union.
``The employees are experiencing nosebleeds, runny noses, runny eyes, extreme
headaches, nausea,'' Thompson told The Washington Post for a story published
Saturday.
A few have missed several days of work or have filed workers' compensation
claims.
The postal union complaints come about two days after physicians on Capitol
Hill said 73 Senate staffers had similar symptoms.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Postal
Service are investigating the safety of the treated mail.
Government investigators say the symptoms are minor and that new precautions
have eliminated observable levels of harmful gases likely caused by the
irradiation.
An anthrax-tainted letter was found in Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's
office in the Hart Senate office building last October. As a precaution, mail
destined for federal offices in Washington is now sanitized with radiation at
postal facilities in Ohio and New Jersey.
The mail is then sorted at a postal station in Washington and sent to area
postal facilities, including the one in Gaithersburg.
AP-NY-02-09-02 0141EST
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news
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