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When Norm Covert, a conservative former Fort Detrick public affairs officer, and attorney Barry Kissin, liberal activist opposing Detrick's biolab expansion, agree that Bruce Ivins was not the anthrax killer, either the world's spinning off its axis, or the truth is staring us so hard in the face we'd have to be blind to miss it. Covert's piece this week in thetentacle.com establishes what many in our community, including scientists and support staff at USAMRIID, past and present, know: Bruce Ivins had nothing to do with preparing or sending the anthrax letters. --

One of the nation’s top biodefense researchers has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailing assaults of 2001 that killed five, the Los Angeles Times has learned.Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the past 18 years worked at the government’s elite biodefense research laboratories at Fort Detrick, Md., had been informed of the impending prosecution, people familiar with Ivins, his suspicious death and with the FBI investigation said.Ivins’ name had not been disclosed publicly as a suspect in the case that disrupted mail service...

WASHINGTON — The FBI has narrowed its focus to "about four" suspects in the 6 1/2-year investigation of the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001, and at least three of those suspects are linked to the Army’s bioweapons research facility at Fort Detrick in Maryland, FOX News has learned.Among the pool of suspects are three scientists — a former deputy commander, a leading anthrax scientist and a microbiologist — linked to the research facility, known as USAMRIID.

Guest opinion: U.S. vets deserve answers on biochemical tests By J.B. STONE The U.S. Army's Project 112 and its Navy component, Project SHAD, started in 1961 when Robert McNamara and President Kennedy allotted $4 billion and 10 years to create a biochemical juggernaut. Decades of unanswered questions had just begun. In Judith Miller's 1999 book, "Germs", William Capers Patrick III, the head of Bio-Chemical Weapons development programs at Fort Detrick, Md., for more than 30 years, states: "We didn't sit around talking about the moral implications of what we were doing. We were problem-solving ... you never connected it to...

Timeline of Secret Government Projects LSD, Esalen, HAARP and the Cosmic Cointelpro or When You Dance With the Devil... note: because important web-sites are frequently "here today but gone tomorrow" the following was archived from http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/timeline.htm on November 3, 2002. This is NOT an attempt to divert readers from the aforementioned web-site.  Indeed, the reader should only read this back-up copy if it cannot be found at the original author's site.This timeline, prepared by a researcher of our Quantum Future School, [JH] with many linked sources, barely scratches the surface. It is our hope that readers will do additional research,...

FORT DETRICK, Md.(Army News Service, July 20, 2005) - Plasma, goats and plants may one day hold the key to protecting warfighters and the public from nerve agents. Boosting the amounts of an enzyme called butyrylcholinesterase, normally present in small quantities in blood plasma as detoxifiers, can interdict nerve agents when they enter the bloodstream so the nerve agents can't reach their targets. Knowing this, researchers for 20 years have been finding ways of producing large amounts of the enzyme they call a "bioscavenger." "The bioscavenger is being tested against all known nerve agents," said Col. Michelle Ross, deputy commander...

I think I know who sent out the anthrax last fall. He is an American insider, a man working in the military bio-weapons field. He's a skilled microbiologist who did not aim to kill anybody or even to disrupt the postal system. Rather, he wanted to sow terror. Like many in the bio-warfare field, he felt that the government was not sufficiently attuned to the risks of anthrax, so he seized upon the opportunity presented by Sept. 11 to get more attention and funding for bio-terror programs like those that have been his career. How do I know all this? ...

FREDERICK, Md. - A new radio system at Fort Detrick will improve communication with the Pentagon. The downside: some people may have to open their garage doors the old-fashioned way. The Land Mobile Radio system will allow Fort Detrick and 10 other Army installations in the Washington region to communicate with the Pentagon and civilian emergency personnel by hand-held radios. In a suburban sacrifice to emergency preparedness, Frederick residents could experience a rash of dead door openers in coming days, as the Army's Fort Detrick begins using a new radio system linking local and federal government emergency personnel. The new...

Britain and America's most guarded germ warfare secrets have been known to the Russians for decades and spies continue to operate at the heart of the West's biotechnology industry, a former KGB spymaster says today. Alexander Kouzminov also discloses that covert Soviet sabotage agents prepared secret sites where phials of lethal bacteria would be left, ready to poison western military establishments, civilian settlements and even assassinate political leaders in the event of war with the Soviet Union. The scientist, once a senior member of the KGB unit responsible for biological espionage, says that the secrets of Porton Down and the...

Notwithstanding former President Jimmy Carter's recent statement to the contrary, Undersecretary of State John Bolton's remarks about Cuba's biological weapons capabilities underscore lingering concerns with the rogue island only 90 miles from the United States. Bolton, on May 6, told an audience at the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation that the U.S. is suspicious about Cuban biomedical laboratories and their ability to transfer biological weapons technology to Iraq, Syria and Libya, all countries that Cuban President Fidel Castro visited last year. Bolton also made remarks, which may be interpreted as a clear signal of hardening State Department policy toward Cuba, faulting...

July 20, 2004 — FBI agents returned to search the U.S. Army's biological weapons labs at Fort Detrick, Md., as part of a last-ditch effort by the bureau to make a case in the 2001 anthrax attacks, federal officials tell ABC News. The FBI has set a self-imposed Oct. 1 deadline for its agents to build a case that will stand up in court, officials said. After matching the anthrax used in the deadly attacks with anthrax at the Army facility, investigators now hope to further narrow the hunt among the hundreds of researchers who have worked at the Fort...

/table> Some Fort Detrick Labs Closed 10:25 AM Jul 20, 2004 10:25 am US/Eastern Frederick, MD (WJZ)Federal agents are combing a number of laboratory suites at Fort Detrick in Frederick for evidence of the 2001 anthrax attacks. Fort Detrick spokesman Charles Dasey says the labs have been closed since Friday at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, home to the Army's biological warfare defense program. A law enforcement source tells The Associated Press that the activity is related to the anthrax mailings that killed five people and sickened 17 in October of 2001. FBI agents have frequently...

Hazardous Substance Suspicious Powder Empties Some Offices at Senate Building Feb. 2— Some workers in a Senate office building were told to leave their offices today after preliminary testing indicated the presence of a hazardous substance. The U.S. Capitol Police said a suspicious powder substance was found at 3 p.m. in a room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, located northeast of the Capitol. A preliminary test found that the substance was hazardous, the police said. Around 7:20 p.m. a message on the Senate's internal telephone alert system instructed employees in several offices on the south side of the building's...

Two years after the anthrax letter attacks, senior administration officials say they have fresh concerns about the nation's vulnerability to terrorist attacks with the deadly germ. The officials said their fears had intensified in part because they now recognized that anthrax spores could be more widely dispersed than previously believed. In addition, they said, terror suspects with ties to Al Qaeda have told questioners that the group has been trying to obtain anthrax for use in attacks. One indication of concern was a secret cabinet-level "tabletop" exercise conducted last month that simulated the simultaneous release of anthrax in different types...

Feds Still Fear Anthrax Attack NewsMax.com Monday, Dec. 29, 2003 In the wake of a mock attack exercise last month that showed antibiotics in some cities could not be distributed and administered quickly enough and that a widespread anthrax attack could kill thousands, administration officials say they have growing consternation about terrorist attacks with the deadly germ. According to a report in the NY Times, the officials said that anthrax spores could be more widely dispersed than previously believed. Furthermore, during interrogations with terror suspects in custody, it has come to light that the al-Qaeda terror group has been actively...

Buried WMDs Found ... In Maryland FORT DETRICK, May 28, 2003 Aan exterior view of the lab building of U. S. Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick.  (AP) "You never know what's there until you start digging."Col. John Ball,Fort Detrick garrison commander,to The Post (CBS) U.S. weapons experts are struggling to deal with the remnants of a decades-old biological weapons program. They are trying to find potentially dangerous materials — once shrouded in secrecy — with only poorly kept records and fading memories to go on. Thousands of tons of hazardous substances like anthrax are at stake. Only...

May 21, 2003 U.S. Analysts Link Iraq Labs to Germ ArmsBy JUDITH MILLER and WILLIAM J. BROAD nited States intelligence agencies have concluded that two mysterious trailers found in Iraq were mobile units to produce germs for weapons, but they have found neither biological agents nor evidence that the equipment was used to make such arms, according to senior administration officials.The officials said intelligence analysts in Washington and Baghdad reached their conclusion about the trailers after analyzing, and rejecting, alternative theories of how they could have been used. Their consensus was in a paper presented to the White House late...

<p>The only drug that has stopped the new coronavirus from replicating is interferon. But scientists fear that the dose required is too toxic to be safe.</p> <p>In all, Fort Detrick will be screening more than 800 drugs on the market, including 40 anti-virals used to treat AIDS, herpes, hepatitis and influenza. Finding an effective treatment among that group would be the best-case scenario because the drug could be used immediately.</p> <p>But none seems promising so far.</p> <p>Scientists are planning to test at least another 1,500 drugs that are under development in laboratories.</p>

Toxic Tugs - Public Poisons by J.B. Stone - 04/17/02 What do Maryland, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, Johnston Atoll, and the Marshall Islands have in common? BioChemical warfare tests were conducted in all of them behind a blinding haze of Cold War secrecy. And hardly a word of warning was ever issued, before during, or afterward the test conductors, subjects, or citizens living in surrounding areas. Marine jets and Army artillery sprayed "harmless simulants" and live biological and chemical agents on unsuspecting citizens for 15 years on land and sea during Operation Deseret. The randomly selected human test rats onboard ships...

Toxic Tugs - Public Poisons by J.B. Stone - 04/17/02 What do Maryland, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, Johnston Atoll, and the Marshall Islands have in common? BioChemical warfare tests were conducted in all of them behind a blinding haze of Cold War secrecy. And hardly a word of warning was ever issued, before during, or afterward the test conductors, subjects, or citizens living in surrounding areas. Marine jets and Army artillery sprayed "harmless simulants" and live biological and chemical agents on unsuspecting citizens for 15 years on land and sea during Operation Deseret. The randomly selected human test rats onboard ships...

WASHINGTON, Aug 03, 2002 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- A biochemist whose apartment was searched for a second time this week by federal agents investigating the anthrax attacks has been suspended from his new job, his attorney said, The Washington Post reported Saturday. The 48-year-old former Army researcher at the Army's top biodefense research center, Steven Hatfill, has not been charged and is not being called a suspect. Last year's anthrax attacks killed five people. Louisiana State University's National Center for Biomedical Research and Training, which teaches emergency personnel how to deal with biological threats, suspended Hatfill for...

By DAVID DISHNEAU Associated Press Writer April 13, 2002, 4:07 AM EDT FREDERICK, Md. -- Eight sentries are on constant guard against the poisoning of Fort Detrick's water supply. Each is 3 inches long. Like canaries in a coal mine, baby bluegills swimming in clear plastic chambers are being carefully monitored for signs of contamination in the army base's drinking water. Since October, the fish have been living in a white trailer next to the Monocacy River, near the water intake for Fort Detrick and its biological warfare defense laboratory. The bluegills swim in the same water that is piped...

Anthrax Theory Emerges Scientists: FBI Questions Suggest Insider Grew Spores At Lab, Refined Them Elsewhere By DAVE ALTIMARI And JACK DOLAN Courant Staff Writers June 13 2002 The FBI is investigating whether the anthrax spores used in last fall's attacks could have been grown secretly inside an Army lab and then taken elsewhere to be weaponized, according to three sources familiar with the ongoing probe. A former government microbiologist, who was interviewed in recent days by the FBI, said agents focused their questioning on the logistics of how someone with access to the U.S. Army's biodefense labs at Fort Detrick,...

In Tomorrow's edition of the Washington Times..developing

Static Electricity Present in Anthrax Letters Made Spores Cling, May Have Saved Lives John J. Fialka and Gary Fields Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal (Mark Schoofs contributed to this article) 03 December, 2001 Washington- Investigators say the person behind the anthrax attacks got many details right but may have missed a crucial one. They suspect the perpetrator failed to remove static electricity from the powder containing the deadly spores. According to scientists who have made anthrax for use in weapons in the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, the presence of an electrostatic charge may have saved American ...

FBI Denies Report That Top Anthrax Suspect Is Former Military Researcher AP Monday, February 25, 2002 WASHINGTON — The FBI is denying a newspaper report that it is focusing on a former government scientist as the chief suspect in last fall's anthrax mailings. The Washington Times reported in its Monday edition that the unnamed scientist formerly worked at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., where weapons-grade anthrax is stored. The suspect was twice fired from government jobs, the Times reports, and made threats to use anthrax after the Sept. 11 attacks. He still ...

Anthrax Inventor: Can't Trace Spores Associated Press Last Updated: Dec. 18, 2001 at 5:59:23 p.m. WASHINGTON - The scientist who helped the United States refine anthrax and turn it into a weapon says the bacteria spores used in the recent attacks could have been processed in a variety of ways, making it impossible to trace their source. ``You can process the stuff in so many different ways, I don't think that it will be the smoking gun,'' William C. Patrick III said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press. Patrick, who holds patents for techniques used to make weapons-grade ...

Anthrax matches Army spores Organisms made at lab identical to those mailed to congressmen By Scott Shane | Baltimore Sun Staff Posted December 12, 2001 WASHINGTON -- For nearly a decade, U.S. Army scientists at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah have made small quantities of weapons-grade anthrax that is virtually identical to the powdery spores used in the mail attacks that have killed five people, government sources say. Until the anthrax attacks led to tighter security measures, anthrax grown at Dugway was regularly sent by Federal Express to the Army's biodefense center at Fort Detrick, in Frederick, where the bacteria ...

A Newsnight investigation raised the possibility that there was a secret CIA project to investigate methods of sending anthrax through the mail which went madly out of control. The shocking assertion is that a key member of the covert operation may have removed, refined and eventually posted weapons-grade anthrax which killed five people. In the wake of Sept 11th, the anthrax attacks caused panic throughout the States and around the world. But has the FBI found the whole case too hot to handle? Our science editor Susan Watts reported from Washington. SUSAN WATTS: America's anthrax attack last autumn was second...