BANGOR – U.S. Rep. John Baldacci began taking antibiotics over the weekend after a trace amount of anthrax was found in his Washington, D.C., office.

The congressman maintained his weekend schedule, touring a teen center in southern Maine and attending a dinner in Bangor, while his staff worked to track down visitors to his office in the Longworth House Office Building between Oct. 12 and 17.

Baldacci said at a Saturday morning news conference held at the family-owned restaurant, Momma Baldacci’s, that nine full-time staff members and two interns were expected to begin the same 60-day regimen of Cipro, or doxycycline, as a precautionary measure.

“No one has tested positive for anthrax,” he said Saturday. Taking antibiotics “is a precautionary measure and there is no immediate threat. I’m going back to Washington Tuesday to work on legislative business.”

Baldacci also said that doctors had told him that his wife, Karen, and 10-year-old son Jack would not need to take the antibiotics.

He was advised by the House Physician’s Office and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that staff members in his three Maine offices did not need to take antibiotics, according to Doug Dunbar, Baldacci’s press secretary.

Baldacci was informed Friday night by Dr. John Eisold, the Capitol physician, that the amount of anthrax found in his office was not of the same degree as that found in the office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. Anthrax also was found in the offices of Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., and Mike Pence, R-Ind.

All three congressmen have offices in the Longworth building. Baldacci’s office is on the seventh floor and the offices of Holt and Pence are on the sixth floor. The Longworth building receives mail that is processed by a machine where anthrax was found last week. The machine is located in a separate House office building several blocks away.

Pointing to a wireless device that allows him to send and receive e-mail and the cell phone on his belt, Baldacci joked Saturday that he and his staff now carried the office with them as they continued to work on issues important to Maine.

He said that Rep. Tom Allen of Portland had offered to share space with Baldacci if the office of the 1st District congressman opens first. Allen’s Washington office is on the same floor of the Longworth building as Baldacci’s.

The Longworth discoveries were the first in the offices of lawmakers since Oct. 15, when anthrax on Capitol Hill was found in a letter postmarked from New Jersey and opened that morning in Daschle’s suite in the Hart Senate Office Building.

While more than a dozen buildings on Capitol Hill are being checked for anthrax spores, lawmakers and their staff have been working in temporary office spaces, Capitol cloakrooms, cafeterias or other make-do spots. Dunbar said Sunday that several Washington staffers were working out of temporary offices in the General Accounting Office on Capitol Hill.

As the congressman spoke to reporters Saturday, his mother, Rosemary, and brothers Paul and Gerry waited on customers at the Bangor restaurant. While Rosemary Baldacci admitted that she was worried about her son John, she quickly concluded that “he’ll be all right.”

Baldacci urged Mainers to continue their normal activities but with a bit more caution than they might have exercised before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

“I knew when I looked outside my office window the morning of Sept. 11 that it was a new day in our country,” he said Saturday. “We must do the things we want to do. We must go about our normal lives and do the things we’ve always done like attend the high school football playoff games this weekend. That sends the strongest message to the terrorists.”

Baldacci encouraged all visitors to his Washington office Oct. 12-17 to consult their doctors and the House Physician’s Office as precautionary measures. That office is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and from noon to 5 p.m. weekends. The telephone number for the House Physician’s Office is (202) 225-5421. For emergency assistance after hours, the Capitol switchboard may be reached at (202) 225-3121.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.