JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Some federal officials are acknowledging that they underestimated the danger posed by mail tainted with anthrax. CNN's medical correspondent Rhonda Rowland looks at complaints that America's health system was caught unprepared.</s>RHONDA ROWLAND, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With the deaths of two Washington-area postal workers from inhalation anthrax, the most severe form of the disease, came the criticism, the first to challenge openly the level of public health preparedness.</s>SEN. TOM HARKIN (D), IOWA: We count on CDC. You're our line of defense at CDC to set out the procedures, the processes, the steps we take to make sure that our people are protected. And quite frankly, as you can tell by my tone of voice, I'm a little upset about this.</s>ROWLAND: For 50 years, the CDC has tracked disease and halted epidemics around the globe. Those outbreaks, officials say, followed natural laws and were predictable.</s>DR. DAVID FLEMING, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL: We are under attack right now. The rules have changed. This is intentional. We are learning as we go, but we are dealing with folks who are evil and who are going to do everything they can to confuse our system's ability to respond.</s>ROWLAND: Creating more criticism when one postal worker who died was initially sent home from the hospital.</s>FLEMING: It took us, the system...</s>ROWLAND: Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson emphasized today in a meeting of mayors that dealing with the anthrax outbreaks is indeed an evolving science. It's a new challenge, yet more needs to be done to improve preparedness -- Judy.</s>WOODRUFF: All right. Rhonda Rowland, thanks very much.
Officials Admit Unpreparedness in Dealing with Anthrax