Community leaders need to quit sidestepping the issue and apologize to the women involved in last year’s Linton Hall anthrax scare.
The bottom line is that emergency officials were not well prepared to handle such an incident, and their inabilities have caused the women involved emotional distress.
The women and the Lansing branch of the American Civil Liberties Union met Friday to address concerns over the handling of the situation.
On Oct. 12, 2001, the East Lansing Fire Department raced to Linton Hall to decontaminate 15 women for what emergency crews thought to be the deadly anthrax bacteria.
A Linton Hall employee had called MSU police to report a burning feeling in her throat after opening a letter, and the women say the dispatcher mistakenly reported white powder was found.
The employees underwent a decontamination process, but no anthrax was found.
During the process, the women were made to remove their clothes in front of an all-male emergency staff, who then hosed them with bleach water and scrubbed them with a brush.
The decontaminated women maintain their offices did not report finding white powder. They say they feel emergency crews violated their personal rights during the anthrax search.
Several of the women left their jobs at Linton Hall and attended group therapy to cope with the emotional distress caused by the incident.
That is unfortunate. Officials could have handled the situation more sensitively and with more tact had they been properly prepared.
The incident shows that university officials and emergency personnel were not prepared to deal with this potentially harmful incident in a sensitive manner. It is unfortunate that the very people they were trying to help felt victimized instead.
There should have been more emergency workers of both sexes to help deal with sensitive matters of decontamination.
If anything, last year’s episode should have taught community leaders a valuable lesson and forced them to re-evaluate some emergency procedures.
While it is safe to say the emergency crew’s intentions and attempts were honorable as it improvised to ensure the safety of the MSU community in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, it did make the mistake of jumping to conclusions.
It is unfortunate that what happened that October day caused 15 women unneeded and undeserved emotional trauma. But it only serves to prove that officials and emergency personnel should have been more prepared to handle the situation.
No one is above making mistakes. That goes for MSU officials too.
Community leaders should do the right thing and admit their ill-preparedness and apologize to the women who felt victimized because of it. It’s really the least MSU and East Lansing officials can do.
