FBI denies overestimating anthrax power

AP ^ | September 28, 2006 | MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN

[Shermy]

Sept. 25 article that started it all -

FBI Is Casting A Wider Net in Anthrax Attacks

[Shermy]

Ping.

[BookaT]

5 people dead seems pretty deadly to me.

Considering their exposure I would say it is more deadly than most anything we have seen, i.e. bird flu, mad cow etc..

[Shermy]

Congressman wants FBI anthrax briefing

[justa-hairyape]

5 people dead seems pretty deadly to me.

Died after hospitalization. Potentially this was an Anthrax for which we had no antidote/antibiotic. Only the Russians have such a beast.

[Battle Axe]

Not so.

There were nearly a thousand people in one of those postal facilities. If anthrax was really that deadly, many more would have contracted it and died.

Four of the five deaths delayed seeking help or were misdiagnosed, preventing them getting help. Bob Stevens was on a vacation, the woman at the hospital kept putting off going to the Dr. and the two postal employees were told to go home and take Tylenol.

Cutaneous anthrax has been misdiagnosed as insect or spider bites. Not many physicians have ever seen it.

The mailed anthrax was a particular kind with a mutant version mixed in with the normal kind. All the mailed anthrax was the same genotype, just different refinement.

[BookaT]

I understand what you are saying but how many people out of the 1000 that worked there actually came into any contact with the Anthrax?

I am guessing not close to 10%

[piasa]

The bureau also rejected a request for a classified briefing on the case from Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J. Citing media reports, Holt said Wednesday that the FBI should have determined in days, not years, that the anthrax was less sophisticated than initially believed.

Shortly after the attacks, media reports said the spores contained additives and had been subjected to sophisticated milling — both techniques used in anthrax-based weapons — to make them more lethal. Earlier this month, there were media reports that the FBI belatedly learned that those techniques were not used and the anthrax was not enhanced.

Someone tell this idiot Holt that "media reports" do not neccessarily have anything to do with reality. This goes double for anonymously sourced ones.

Although Holt and other members of Congress got updates and briefings in 2002 and 2003, Kalisch said the FBI and Justice Department decided to stop briefing members of Congress after sensitive investigative information was reported in the media citing congressional sources.

Someone needs to look up a gal named Rosenberg who was holding meetings with Senate staffers on the sly.

In an interview, Holt responded, "The inference that any member of the intelligence committee was the source of previous leaks is outrageous, irresponsible and without foundation."

Someone tell this idiot Holt to google "Rockefeller, Wyden and Durbin."

The case "clearly falls within the purview of the intelligence committee," Holt added. "Our job is to see that the government functions well

Someone please measure Holt's nose... I think it shot out a few inches.

Holt had written Mueller that the FBI's delay in determining what kind of anthrax was used meant that "resources were diverted and countless agents wasted their time investigating a small pool of suspects, instead of the broader search we now know was needed."

Well, they were investigating many more people than the media led us to believe. According to the press there was only one person of interest in spite of repeated assertions by the FBI that there were at minimum 20 persons of interest after many had been eliminated as suspect.

Holt asked Mueller to have Douglas Beecher, a scientist in the FBI's Hazardous Materials Response Unit, testify before the House Intelligence Committee. In April, Beecher wrote an article published in a scientific journal in August saying there was "a widely circulated misconception" that the anthrax spores were made using additives and sophisticated engineering akin to military weapons production.

I hope Beecher doesn't have ties to Cuba like most everyone else the Dems bring up.

[Battle Axe]

Apparently only the ones in very close proximity to the canceling machine where the letters passed were infected. I believe there was one man who was supposed to change a filter and he got it.

Anthrax is a strange bug (bacteria: Bacillus) It has a certain threshold that is required before an infection can occur. We have lived with anthrax since time began, so we have developed some defenses. It needs a break in the skin to become cutaneous, needs to be consumed to be gastrointestinal and needs to be inhaled deep into the lungs to set up inhalation.

Now for the down and dirty part. You have hairs and mucus in your nasal cavities. This is there for a reason: to catch little opportunistic pathogens.

So sticking your finger up your nose and then putting it in your mouth.....is HEREBY FORBIDDEN. Theoretically, you could have prevented yourself from getting inhalation anthrax only to get gastrointestinal.

Anthrax spores are normally heavy and covered with debris. They will fall to the ground and will not float in the air. The stuff that was mailed apparently had been cleaned so that it floated. There was one estimate that it only took 3 inhaled spores to cause an infection. That part is scary.

[Fool for Liberty]

I know CDC employees in DC/Baltimore who have told me hundreds of postal employees in the DC-area tested positive for anthrax antibodies. Basically every postal worker in the DC area was dosed with Cipro after the letters were found. I assume the same was true for the NYC employees who came into contact.

I also know that hundreds of employees at a prominent NYC media outlet recieved Cipro.

I believe thousands were infected with the anthrax and the Feds didn't even try to number those who tested positive for antibodies.

To the poster who claimed only Russia had anthrax like this - er, no, it's garden variety Ames strain. Any government could have cultured it, including Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan, and a number of nongovernmental bodies - such as al Queda or Hezbollah - could have done it as well.

The anthrax mailing is what it appears to be - an act of Islamist terror, possibly connected to the 9-11 attacks, possible not, but certainly inspired by the same hateful ideology.

[Battle Axe]

Do you know if these folks who tested positive for anthrax antibodies are still testing positive???

That might really help.

Testing positive for antibodies means that you were exposed but did not contract the disease as your immune system overwhelmed the invaders.

A strange thing happened during the accidental release of anthrax from the Russian facility in 1980??? The very young appeared to have some resistance. The mechanism of this resistance is yet to be explained.

[BunnySlippers]

bookmark

[Shermy]

After reading the Washington Post article I believe the position is this -

It wasn't "weaponized" in the sense of additives mixed in, but it is still sophisticated in some sense due to its purity. How to picture what this sophistication entails is still murky. Does this include the process called "milling?" Some of the comments might mean they are pursuing DNA tests to match the germs to other stocks national and international. Alibek had said he didn't think the anthrax was special but for him, a former USSR bioweapons worker, perhaps it wasn't relatively special.

[Shermy]

Holt seems to be a good guy. Read his letter. He's also a scientist.

[Enchante]

"...the FBI and Justice Department decided to stop briefing members of Congress after sensitive investigative information was reported in the media citing congressional sources."

How dare the FBI care about LEAKS from Congresscritters in love with the MSM?

[Lurker]

In an interview, Holt responded, "The inference that any member of the intelligence committee was the source of previous leaks is outrageous, irresponsible and without foundation."

Two words: Leaky Leahy.

L

[Carl LaFong]

Is Michael J. Sniffen Jennifer's Lovett?

[Perdogg]

ping

[TrebleRebel]

Interesting, this FBI assistant director blames the media and claims the FBI and its "partners" knew right from the beginning there were no addives.

Two problems here (1) AFIP was an FBI partner, (2) The media got their information on additves from named sources at AFIP.

The assistant director appears to be conveniently not referencing any of this - almost like it doesn't exist.

[penelopesire]

Not sure why you think Holt is a good guy. I read the letter and it looks like nothing more than an attempt to throw some more crap on the fan and hope that it sticks on GW Bush.

I wish they would get to the bottom of this attack on our country but a 'congressional hearing' will do nothing but give a bunch of drama queens in congress a stage!

The American people need to write the FBI and demand that they look at the real attackers...ISLAMIC TERRORISTS!