Posted on 09/29/2008 12:25:55 PM PDT by Prunetacos
Nearly two months after the suicide of scientist Bruce Ivins — whom the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) claims was solely responsible for mailing a series of letters laced with anthrax in 2001 — questions still remain over whether he was actually able to produce those anthrax spores.....
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
Scientists initially believed that the spores had been weaponized – modified to make them disperse more easily and penetrate tissue more deeply.
But one of the scientists who first drew that conclusion has now changed his mind. Nature finds out why he thinks he got it wrong; why it matters for those trying to tie up the Ivins case; and what it means for the chances of a similar attack happening in the future.
Ping
“What was the initial evidence that the 2001 spores were weaponized?
The powder was described as being ‘weightless’ and ‘smoke-like’. One of the first scientists to work on it was Peter Jahrling, then a virologist at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Frederick, Maryland. He recalls that he couldn’t even weigh out a fraction of it: “It literally jumped off the spatula and was repelled by the weighing paper; it was like nothing I had ever seen before.” Under an electron microscope, Jahrling and a colleague observed black dots that they speculated might be particles of silicon dioxide, or silica. Materials analysis by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington DC confirmed that the sample contained both silicon and oxygen, and many assumed that the elements were combined as silica.....”
Here We Go Again PING.
Ed lake is an expert on this. The anthrax spores were not weaponized. I am not an expert, but for every one that says yes, you probably can find one who says no.
"Why would a silicon compound increase the spores' virulence?
Spores are sticky, and tend to clump together. One method of weaponizing the spores is to coat them with something that interrupts the weak van der Waals interactions between each particle. Tiny particles of silica would do the trick, allowing the spores to float individually through the air. Silicon and oxygen can also form polymers called siloxanes, and such compounds are used to make inhaled medicines more dispersible.
Why have Jahrling and others changed their minds?
In 2002, as part of the FBI investigation, scientists at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, used electron microscopy to analyse the composition of the spores. The results were finally made public last month. They found silicon and oxygen in the spore coat, but not on the most external layer, the exosporium. The location of the silicon, the FBI says, suggests that it was incorporated naturally into the structures during growth, not added as a final coating to weaponize them.
But other experts disagree with the conclusion. "I don't think the guys at Sandia understand that the exosporium is not some kind of brick wall," says Stuart Jacobsen, a research chemist based in Dallas, Texas, who is an expert on the preparation and properties of fine-grained powders and has followed the case closely. "It's more like a chain-link fence." Decades ago, a study found that the exosporium is porous to various small molecules1....."
"I don't think the guys at Sandia understand that the exosporium is not some kind of brick wall," says Stuart Jacobsen, a research chemist based in Dallas, Texas, who is an expert on the preparation and properties of fine-grained powders and has followed the case closely. "It's more like a chain-link fence." Decades ago, a study found that the exosporium is porous to various small molecules1....."
Or: The Spore In The Grassy Knoll
I don’t know whom to believe any more. The last I read was pretty damning, but I wasn’t even sure if I believed that or it was fabricated now that he can no longer defend himself.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Congressman Rush Holt files HR 7049
Following two dissatisfying Congressional hearings on the anthrax letters, and in the 110th Congress’ final week, Congressman Rush Holt filed HR 7049 as a shot across the bow: he is serious about getting to the bottom of the anthrax letter attacks. The 111th Congress will have to pick up this ball and run with it, following a change in Administration.
HR 7049: To establish the National Commission on the Anthrax Attacks Upon the United States, to examine and report on the facts and causes relating to the anthrax letter attacks of September and October 2001, and investigate and report to the President and Congress on its findings, conclusions, and recommendations for corrective measures that can be taken to prevent and respond to acts of bioterrorism.
But more importantly, if anything can be resolved, it is critical that we try to prevent something like this from happening again if Ivins was not the culprit or if he didn't act alone.
I am glad people, some much more knowledgeable than I, are questioning what has been put out there. If we're patient, there may be a breakthrough. I don't think this case is going to completely go into oblivion.
According to reports Ivins did alot of writing. Can’t help but wonder why he went silently to the grave.
“Anthrax suspect left no suicide note
Published: Sept. 28, 2008 at 3:59 PM
FREDERICK, Md., Sept. 28 (UPI) — A U.S. Army researcher found dead before formal charges were filed against him for the 2001 anthrax attacks left no suicide note, officials said.
Microbiologist Bruce Ivins died of a lethal dose of Tylenol and Valium, The Washington Post reported Sunday.
The FBI blames Ivins for the nation’s most deadly act of biological terrorism. In 2001, he stuffed anthrax-laced letters into a Princeton, N.J., mailbox.
Before he was found unconscious, Ivins reportedly logged on to a public computer on the second floor of the library in downtown Frederick, Va., the FBI said.
Ivins, who was under FBI surveillance, went to a Web site devoted to the anthrax-mailings investigation. The page included comments from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, saying he was confident the anthrax case soon would be solved.
After Ivins returned from the library to his home outside the gates of Fort Detrick, Md., he “wasn’t seen again,” until paramedics carried him out of his home unconscious, FBI documents say.”
What "black dots?" Where was this reported? It appears to be made up.
The sample examined by Peter Jahrling was NOT the same sample tested by AFIP. The spores in Jahrling's sample were killed with chemicals. The spores in the sample tested by AFIP were killed by radiation. What Jahrling saw was chemicals used to kill the spores. AFIP confirmed NOTHING. They detected silicon and oxygen and FALSELY ASSUMED it was silica put there to weaponize the spores. Click HERE for details.
This is nonsense taken straight from the Gary Matsumoto science article, and Matusomoto got his information from the same scientist used by this Nature article. It's junk science. It's the blind leading the blind.
If it is all true, he might have gone silently on purpose for his own reasons. It's also odd the means he chose. I agree if it is true about some of the looney tunes things he supposedly did, it does indeed cast more suspicion on him, but it is still circumstantial.
Yes, you have a good point. Is his lawyer still bound by attorney-client privilege when his client is no longer among the living even though his credibility might be questioned if he were to divulge anything? Maybe he (the attorney) didn't know either.
I'm not trying to be argumentative, just playing devil's advocate here.
I suppose his wife knows but she's not talking publicly thus far and who can blame her?
“Is his lawyer still bound by attorney-client privilege when his client is no longer among the living even though his credibility might be questioned if he were to divulge anything? Maybe he (the attorney) didn’t know either.”
Morning Edition, August 8, 2008 · The government is getting ready to officially close its case against Bruce Ivins, the man officials say killed five people with deadly anthrax. But actual closure may be a long way off. In an exclusive interview with NPR, Ivins’ attorney, Paul Kemp, said the FBI got the wrong man.
Kemp said there was nothing more frustrating than watching the government unveil its case against his client at a news conference. All he wanted to do was object.
“It is nothing but speculation, the government’s case,” he said.
Kemp represented Ivins for the past year until Ivins committed suicide last week. Now Kemp will never get a chance to test the government’s evidence in court and, he believes, clear Ivins’ name.
“We don’t convict people on the idea that they may demonstrate eccentric behavior, or that they had the opportunity to commit a crime or had the knowledge to commit a crime, and that’s what the government’s saying,” Kemp said.
The case against Ivins largely rests on new scientific techniques that investigators believe link Ivins to the anthrax used in the attacks. Officials say genetic analysis of the anthrax spores shows they match a flask in Ivins’ possession. Officials called it the “murder weapon.”
But Kemp said more than a hundred people had access to the flask and, more important, actually used that exact strain of anthrax. He says the anthrax in the flask was sent to two other labs and was used in dozens of experiments by other scientists. He says mostly, it just doesn’t make sense, because he says Ivins never tried to hide that it was the same anthrax.
“If you’re the anthrax killer and you’re this evil genius that knows all about anthrax, why would you leave it in precisely the same genetic state one year later, one month later, seven years later, as it was in at the time of the killings?” he asked.
Kemp says what troubles him most is that the government has been unable to place Ivins in New Jersey at the time the deadly letters were sent from a mailbox there. Even if he drove, even if he paid for every single thing in cash, “nobody saw him in New Jersey, they don’t have any restaurant receipts or gas receipts or surveillance tapes or witnesses. Where’s a witness that can put him in New Jersey or put him on the way to New Jersey or put him on the way back from New Jersey, or having in his car a New Jersey Turnpike toll receipt?”
My heart went out to that wife when I saw that photo awhile back. That's about how I'd react, if not worse under all that pressure, don't know if I'd even answer the door. She may or may not even know herself.
Interesting about the trip to NJ. How many people would remember? He could have taken a circuitous route to avoid leaving tracks, I suppose. Most people don't pay attention unless there's really something that sticks in their minds about a certain car or driver.
"Interesting about the trip to NJ. How many people would remember? He could have taken a circuitous route to avoid leaving tracks, I suppose. Most people don't pay attention unless there's really something that sticks in their minds about a certain car or driver."
Ed Lake has done a marvelous job of documenting and Critically Analyzing the details of the case including time lines, etc.
My daughter was using my computer to check her mail, not saying it's her fault, but as soon as I got back on, it was all messed up. Not your problem, just explaining my priorities today.
That looks real. Parable and Anthrax. What an odd way to name streets. I think I might have read something like that in one of these articles.
“That looks real.”
It was. They eventually changed the Anthrax street name.
Wonder why :-}
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