Perhaps to point up that the Hatfill snafu took place under Bush’s watch, as a swipe at the GOP?
Bruce Ivins was a nice guy, who would say hello whenever I saw him. Although I don’t think I ever had a conversation with him, whenever I saw him, he would usually be talking with people, and nothing ever struck me as odd about him or the snippets of conversation I overheard.
It’s really high class to be running smear pieces on people, without any real evidence to corroborate the smears. It’s that much more classy to be attacking someone who can no longer defend himself. He still has a wife and children—do the writers of these hit pieces ever think how families must feel to see that kind of stuff written?
Very recently, a panel of scientists reviewed the scientific evidence and found that it did not constitute a smoking gun with which to blame Dr. Ivins for the anthrax attacks. This was published in Science.
Last week there was another article in the news pointing out that few of those working with him thought he was guilty, because his area of expertise didn’t include grinding up the spores and adding silicon to make them weapons grade.
So I guess this is another hit job to insist he was guilty.
He had access to a common form of anthrax, not the super resistant strain, but the common strain used to make vaccines (which is why Saddam Hussein’s scientists also had the strain).
But you can find anthrax all over, but “weaponizing” it means to get it small enough to enter the lung without killing yourself. That takes some expertise.
I myself wonder how he could have gotten hired if he was this crazy...but his crazyness doesn’t seem to make sense here...it would take a bit of time to pull this stunt, which came too soon after 911, and of course there was the anthrax to the National Enquirer and maybe skin anthrax on one of the friends of some terrorists in Florida.
lots of interesting comments that agree with you...some point out that his vaccine is now being manufactured and making someone a lot of money.
I think they want to distract from the conclusions in a recent article of Science magazine that indicated that Ivins could not have produced that type of anthrax; he had neither the knowledge nor the access to the necessary equipment and materials.
The flimsiness of the evidence against him was commented on at the time, but he’s a convenient culprit for the government: white, non-Muslim, middle-aged male. And now, a dead one, at that, so they can say whatever they want about him.
As for his personality, people who knew him and worked with him said there was nothing wrong with him, although certainly scientists are known to have a tendency to be a little on the remote side and not always the most gregarious and outgoing folks.
The only reason to resurrect this story now is to put political blame on Bush/Rumsfled when you can look to Clinton, Cohen and Caldera for this. That tag-team of leftists made this vaccine program what it is and did so out of political motivation to pay back former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Crowe, who in retirement made a fortune off this bad vaccine. There was NO need for the vaccine, it does not work for inhalation Anthrax and is dubious even for cutaneous Anthrax. Its own package insert document had to be re-written by order of a judge because the FDA and the DOD were using its text to continue the lie about it. Oh and gee they were forced to admit it was 175X more reactagenic than they wanted known.
I have refused to take this vaccine and will bever take it. It is the ONLY one I have ever said no to and I have the research to back up why. When you have Sec of the Army (former: Louis Caldera) issuing a letter of indemnification to the company making this crap listing all the very reason why people were against it as reasons for indemnifying the company (only the 2nd in our history) then you have at least the basis for a strong case against it.
I will never forgive Clinton and Co. or all the politicians who KNEW the evidence but did not lift a finger for us. I've over 23 years of service and am still going and I will never forgive what they did.
Good story. worth a read.