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Reports of a possible anthrax scare at R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. are unfounded, according to the division director of the Warsaw facility.
ìThere is no reason to believe there is any exposure,î Grant McGuire, vice president/division director, said this morning. He also said the company has received no suspicious packages and the facility is under normal operation.
The local R.R. Donnelley plant prints American Media publications, including the Star, Enquirer and Globe. American Media is the company for which the two Florida men who contracted anthrax worked.
McGuire also put to rest a rumor received via e-mail by the Times-Union.
ìWe did not receive a package containing a white powder and the FBI was not called,î McGuire said. ìVirtually all communication (from American Media) comes to us electronically.î Much of the information needed for printing the tabloids is received digitally via computer. He said the Donnelley plant here also gets ìa couple packages a weekî from American Media and the one most recently received was contained before being opened as a precaution because of concern from employees. Donnelley sometimes receives papers, film or disks by postal mail, officials said.
However, McGuire said, the paper used to print the American Media publications comes from paper mills and all equipment used comes from unrelated sources, so there is no reason to believe any connection can be made between the Florida incident and Warsaw.
Vera Panchak, director of corporate communication for Donnelley, reiterated McGuireís sentiments regarding the concern for employees and said the materials used to print the many publications for American Media in the eight Donnelley plants across the country do not pass through the building in Florida, so there is no health risk in handling the materials here.
Panchak said there have been Donnelley employees in the Florida American Media building since Aug. 1 and those people were advised to contact their physicians and the Centers for Disease Control.
Donnelley also has been in contact with the Florida Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control, Panchak said, and an outside medical source employed by the company has assured employees that there is no skin-to-skin contact risk for contracting anthrax.
ìWe understand the concern and thatís why we communicated the information to employees as soon as we knew,î Panchak said.
