You Better Be Really Nice to Your Mailman

My mailman is a really nice guy. I had no idea he might one day save my life.

Fed health honchos are starting a little life saving plan in benign Minneapolis-St. Paul -- to let letter carriers stockpile a supply of emergency antibiotics so they're protected and can deliver them to the rest of the city if some meshuggeneh sends more of that pesky anthrax mail. Hey, wait, how's that gonna work?

This is Uncle Sam's solution to distributing drugs in case of a bioterror attack. For instance, if you inaled some anthrax, you might survive if you started on antibiotics within 48 hours. This allows a new urgency to the banal "Is the mail here yet?"

This program was tested in Philadelphia, and 50 carriers reached 53,000 households in eight hours. To make sure letter carriers were themselves protected, it meant supplying them with enough doxycycline for them and their families, so they could start taking the pills and then go out and bring your junk mail and save your life, so you can live to redeem those coupons for CVS!

Feds blamed microbiologist Bruce Ivins for the 2001 anthrax letters that killed five and sickened 17 others. He killed himself this past summer with an overdose -- not anthrax.

Mail's here!