Free Republic

"...Washington, Oct.25 (UPI)- The Obama administration is mulling whether an anthrax vaccine meant to protect against bioterrorism attack should be tested on U.S. children, officials say..."

Ten years after a mail-borne anthrax attack killed five in the worst bio-terror attack on U.S. soil, there are new questions about the strength of the FBI’s case against the only suspect, as a leading expert on bio-terror attacks warned that budget deficits are likely to hinder the nation’s ability to respond in the future. Sen. Susan Collins, the committee's ranking Republican, said the new head of al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had the right background to wage a biological attack in the coming years.

A decade after wisps of anthrax sent through the mail killed 5 people, sickened 17 others and terrorized the nation, biologists and chemists still disagree on whether federal investigators got the right man and whether the F.B.I.’s long inquiry brushed aside important clues. Now, three scientists argue that distinctive chemicals found in the dried anthrax spores — including the unexpected presence of tin — point to a high degree of manufacturing skill, contrary to federal reassurances that the attack germs were unsophisticated. The scientists make their case in a coming issue of the Journal of Bioterrorism & Biodefense. F.B.I. documents...

http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-ed-anthrax-mystery-1005-20111005,0,982875.story

A senior Republican senator has asked the Justice Department to explain why its civil lawyers filed court papers questioning prosecutors’ conclusions that an Army researcher mailed the anthrax-laced letters that killed five people in 2001. In a letter this week to Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller [3], Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa said the department’s decision to quickly retract the contradictory filings “has produced a new set of questions regarding this unsolved crime.”Grassley, who's among several members of Congress who've been outspoken skeptics about the FBI’s conclusion, homed in on a development first reported collaboratively in...

Mostly, Ferguson used the opportunity to poke fun at his debauched past -- and his lack of prestige at CBS. "In the old days, if someone sent me white powder, I'd have said, 'Yeah!' I'd have snorted it, ended up at a party at Elton John's house, or rehab, or both. But nowadays, white powder in the mail is bad. I called CBS security, and they said, 'We're busy.' I said, 'I am a personal friend of Drew Carey's.' And they said, 'Send someone over right away.' " He added, "This is the most attention this show has gotten since...

Starting in 2012, approximately 10 Indian scientists will receive training from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta through the facility's Epidemic Intelligence Service Program. The elite two year post-doctoral training program will give the scientists special attention in field work and will train them on how to investigate and contain serious public health threats, The Times of India reports.

He roamed the University of Cincinnati campus with a loaded gun. When his rage overflowed, the brainy microbiology major would open fire inside empty buildings, visualizing a wall clock or other object as a person who had done him wrong. By the mid-1970s, Bruce Ivins had earned his doctorate and was a promising researcher at the University of North Carolina. By outward appearances, he was a charming eccentric, odd but disarming. Inside, he still smoldered with resentment, and he saw a new outlet for it. Several years earlier, a Cincinnati student had turned him down for a date. He had...

Buried in FBI laboratory reports about the anthrax mail attacks that killed five people in 2001 is data suggesting that a chemical may have been added to try to heighten the powder's potency, a move that some experts say exceeded the expertise of the presumed killer. The lab data, contained in more than 9,000 pages of files that emerged a year after the Justice Department closed its inquiry and condemned the late Army microbiologist Bruce Ivins as the perpetrator, shows unusual levels of silicon and tin in anthrax powder from two of the five letters. Those elements are found in...

Even though the next presidential election is still more than 500 days away, it's never too soon to be prepared. After all, Obama hasn't stopped campaigning since Election Day, 2008. To begin with, and let me be very clear about this: No third-party candidate, no matter how sincere or how well-funded – whether the party calls itself Libertarian, Constitution, Tea Party, Bull Moose or Whig – is ever going to win a national election. All a third-party candidate will do is ensure that a liberal will be able to win with just 40-45 percent of the vote. Also, anyone who...

Washington (CNN) -- Old mental health records for the chief suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks suggest Bruce Ivins should have been prevented from holding a job at a U.S. Army research facility in Maryland, according to a report from a panel of behavioral experts commissioned by the Department of Justice. "The psychiatric records were quite eye-opening," said Gregory Saathoff, the lead author of the report. "The criminal behaviors involved a strong component of revenge," he added, "that he claimed he had engaged in as well as planned to engage in" in documented interviews with psychiatrists dating back to the...

A scientific review released Tuesday cast doubt on the US government's conclusion that scientist Bruce Ivins, who killed himself in 2008, was to blame in the 2001 case of deadly anthrax mailings.

A panel of prominent scientists is casting new doubt on scientific evidence that was a key part of the FBI's case against Bruce E. Ivins, the deceased Army scientist accused of carrying out the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks. The National Research Council, in a report issued Tuesday, questioned the link between a flask of anthrax bacteria in Ivins's lab at Fort Detrick, Md., and the anthrax-infested letters that killed five people and sickened 17 others.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul has won the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) 2012 presidential preference straw poll of 3,742 activists, the chairman of the huge annual gathering of conservative activists announced on Saturday. The poll, sponsored this year for the first time by The Washington Times, is seen as one of the earliest tests of grassroots popularity among the party’s dominant conservative wing, and Mr. Paul, who ran unsuccessfully for the nomination in 2008, has traditionally done well in the CPAC voting. The Republican lawmaker, long a favorite of the party’s libertarian wing, took 30 percent of the votes cast,...

The FBI is investigating 13 threatening letters with a white powder and sent to Twin Cities stores. The letters went to eight Home Depots around the metro area and five Renewal By Andersen businesses, the FBI said in a statement released late Friday. The substance in 12 letters, analyzed by the Minnesota Department of Health, has been identified as sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda, and is not dangerous, according to the FBI. The last letter won't be analyzed until early next week. The first letter was received Dec. 31 and the last on Thursday, according to the FBI. The return...

<p>FBI agents armed with search warrants raided two houses in a southwestern suburb of Philadelphia yesterday, backed by members of a hazardous-materials squad wearing full protective gear.</p> <p>Located less than two blocks apart in Chester, Pa., some 15 miles southwest of Philadelphia, the houses are owned by Dr. Irshad Shaikh, a Pakistani physician and specialist in epidemic diseases who is Chester's city health commissioner, and by Asif Kazi, the Chester city accountant, who also is a Pakistani native.</p>

WASHINGTON -- The FBI may have closed its Amerithax case against Fort Detrick scientist Bruce Ivins nine months ago, but some experts are not willing to let the issue die quite so easily. A group of about 25 scientists, professors, writers, terrorism experts and more convened Monday afternoon to discuss the particulars of the investigation and to debate who the real perpetrator may have been.

William C. Patrick, III loved his life in the shadows. Though his name and face were not well known, even to many in national security circles, Bill Patrick was for over 50 years the government’s “go-to guy” on biological weapons. When Federal Bureau of Investigation agents needed help proving in the mid-1980s that followers of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh had poisoned over 750 people in Oregon by sprinkling salmonella in salad bars and coffee creamers in restaurants along the interstate highway—the first large-scale use of germs by terrorists on American soil—they called Bill Patrick. In 1990, as the United States...

NOTE The following text is a quote: U.S. Postal Inspection Service and FBI Announce a Reward for Information Leading to the Arrest and Conviction of the Person(s) Responsible for the Recent Mailings of White Powder Letters in the North Texas Area Randall C. Till, Inspector in Charge, Fort Worth Division, U.S Postal Inspection Service, and Robert E. Casey Jr., Special Agent in Charge, Dallas, FBI, announce a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of the person(s) responsible for the recent mailings of letters containing white powder in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Beginning August...

U.S. (ChattahBox) – Be prepared for more annoying copy/paste ‘Vote Ron Paul’ comments on every forum, message board, media site, and news source. Ron Paul has announced that he is official considering a 2012 run for president, CNN reports. The Texas Republican Rep. has run in the past, and he hasn’t gotten far. Though having a small group of extremely loyal supporters, most of which are Independent or Libertarian voters, he is unable to garner enough support for a GOP nomination. As for running on a third party docket, that has never gone well for any politician. It is doubtful...