Five Years Later, Anthrax Questions Swirl Anew at FBI

Newhouse ^ | October 13, 2006 | Kevin Coughlin

[Shermy]

Nobody has been arrested for the anthrax mailings of 2001, but many people have paid for the crime.

Five died and at least 17 others got sick.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been frustrated. Careers have crumbled. Taxpayers have gotten socked for billions of dollars to shore up bioterror defenses that some experts say still fall short.

Now, an analysis from the FBI itself, buried in a microbiology journal, is raising more questions about the investigation.

In the August issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology, FBI scientist Douglas Beecher sought to set the record straight. Anthrax spores mailed to politicians and journalists in September and October 2001, Beecher wrote, were not prepared using advanced techniques and additives to make them more lethal, contrary to "a widely circulated misconception."

The notion the anthrax spores were "weaponized" had fueled conjecture that only a government insider could have carried out the operation.

Beecher's article suggested a much wider universe of potential suspects -- who showed they could kill without highly refined spores.

"A clever high school student" could make such a preparation, according to Ronald Atlas, former president of the American Society for Microbiology and co-director of the Center for Health Hazards Preparedness at the University of Louisville.

The Beecher paper has left Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., wondering if the killings, which further shook a nation already reeling from the Sept. 11 terror attacks, will ever be solved. He blames the FBI for "botching" the case.

Agents spun their wheels chasing a small circle of weapons experts, Holt said.

In the anthrax attacks, Steven Hatfill, a virologist who had worked for the government, landed in the cross-hairs. Labeled a "person of interest" by officials but never charged, the scientist claims the public probe has made him unemployable. He is suing the government and media outlets.

Kenneth Berry's career also unraveled after the FBI searched a Dover Township, N.J., summer home he was visiting in 2004. Berry was a doctor from upstate New York who started an organization for training emergency workers to deal with biochemical attacks. He never was charged, either.

Holt also chides authorities for taking nearly a year to discover anthrax traces in a mailbox near Princeton University. That mailbox, where letters laced with anthrax bacteria may have begun their journey in 2001, is on a route that feeds the Hamilton Township postal center where anthrax letters were processed.

In a letter to Holt, FBI Assistant Director Eleni Kalisch declined to give a closed-door briefing to the House Intelligence Committee. Kalisch claimed sensitive information was leaked from classified briefings more than three years ago, and described the anthrax case as a criminal matter not subject to the committee's oversight.

Some cases take time to crack, Kalisch wrote. Seventeen FBI agents and 10 postal inspectors remain on the "Amerithrax" beat. The FBI said the anthrax investigation has spanned six continents and generated more than 9,100 interviews, 67 searches and 6,000 subpoenas.

Early on, the FBI hoped that analysis of the spores would point to the lab that prepared them. But Beecher's article underscores difficulties of such microscopic sleuthing. Particle sizes, for instance, may not yield as many clues as some expected.

Over time, after being handled and exposed to different conditions, particles "may not resemble the initial product," Beecher wrote.

Yet the FBI is confident, and has forged scientific ties and advances to help prevent future biological attacks, said Joseph Persichini Jr., acting assistant director in charge of the Washington field office, on the FBI's Web site.

Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University microbiologist, still thinks the anthrax attacks were an inside job because they used a virulent form of the Ames strain of Bacillus anthracis, which only a few biodefense- or intelligence-related labs were thought to possess.

"Whoever did it is an insider," said Ayaad Assaad, a toxicologist with the Environmental Protection Agency, who formerly worked at an Army biodefense center at Fort Detrick, Md. "It started with anthrax. Now it's ricin, and God knows what's coming."

Ed Lake has tracked the case closely, self-publishing a book, "Analyzing the Anthrax Attacks, The First Three Years" and moderating a Web site. Lake is convinced the FBI knows the perpetrator but lacks evidence to prosecute. He believes the killer is a scientist from central New Jersey who wanted America to gird for an al-Qaida bioterror attack in the wake of Sept. 11.

"So he sent a warning to the media, saying this is next, there's a biological attack coming next, and be prepared: Take penicillin," said Lake, referring to hand-printed letters, bearing New Jersey postmarks, sent to NBC and the New York Post.

Leon Harris retired last year from the Hamilton Township postal center. He too suspects the bad guys are home-grown and will be caught.

"I don't care if it takes 10 years," the Air Force veteran said. "They're going to find them."

Ernesto Blanco agreed. He survived inhalational anthrax that killed his friend Bob Stevens, a colleague at a tabloid in Florida, five years ago this month. Blanco, now 79, returned to his mailroom job at American Media Inc. in 2002.

"I am positive they will catch them," Blanco said. "I have faith in what they are doing."

TIMELINE

Key dates in the 5-year-old investigation of the anthrax attacks:

2001:

Sept. 18: Postal facility in Hamilton Township, N.J., processes anthrax-laced letters to NBC News in New York and the New York Post.

Oct. 5: Bob Stevens, photo editor at Florida tabloid the Sun dies from inhalational anthrax.

Oct. 9: Hamilton Township facility processes anthrax letters to then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Sen. Patrick Leahy. Both letters have return address of fictitious "Greendale School" in Franklin Park, N.J.

Oct. 16: U.S. Senate closes; employees are tested for exposure to anthrax microbes.

Oct. 17: The House shuts down.

Oct. 18: Hamilton Township facility is closed.

Oct. 21: Washington postal worker Thomas Morris Jr. dies from anthrax.

Oct. 22: Washington postal worker Joseph Curseen dies from anthrax.

Oct. 31: Kathy Nguyen, who worked in a New York City hospital supply room, dies from anthrax.

Nov. 21: Ottilie Lundgren, 94, of Oxford, Conn., dies from anthrax. Authorities suspect her mail was contaminated by other mail.

[snip - more at link]

[oceanview]

the mysterious "JLo" letter as I recall.

[Southack]

"The false claims were mostly made by the MEDIA and by scientists who were just speculating about what the MEDIA told them."

That's incorrect. Two different military labs found the same thing independently, stated it, and put the names of their supervisors onto the public reports of the strain/purity/weaponization.

Those aren't errors, and no lab, certainly not some byline buried deep in a bungled FBI report, has the credibility to challenge the two military labs' analysis.

[Battle Axe]

You are right that it takes a "bolus" of spores to contract an infection under normal conditions. You just about have to open the bottle and pour it into a sore!!!

However, they did feel that perhaps 3 spores into the lungs would cause an infection. Our bodies are counting on our nose hairs and mucus to catch them before the lungs.

However, I think you are thinking of smallpox as being one of the first vaccines........correct me if I am wrong.

Smallpox to cowpox

[Southack]

http://www.bt.cdc.gov/coca/summaries/anthrax031604.asp

[Battle Axe]

I don't buy your tainted money theory. Bob Steven's computer keyboard was loaded. He had clearly examined something while hovering over his keyboard. It had come through the mail as the mail area was contaminated too. Ernesto Blanco opened the mail.

There were people who saw the J-Lo letter and the trails of spores did not match the travels of the letter as I remember.

AMI got a lot of mail and they routinely destroyed most of it.

The air condition system as well as the fans on the copy machines transmitted it all over the building.

There would have been other infections in North Carolina, where Bob Stevens went on vacation if his money in the wallet was contaminated.

[Battle Axe]

Whoaaaaa You got me.


Then who did the smallpox/cowpox.....turning 60 has not been kind to me.

[Southack]

"There would have been other infections in North Carolina..."

No. He may have spent the tainted money in Florida. He may have gotten infected by using the tainted money to snort cocaine at his keyboard.

Plus, it takes a lot of spores to get infected.

It all comes back to the 2 degrees of separation. Bob Stevens worked in the AMI building where the AMI exec's wife was the landlord for 2 of the 9/11 terrorists.

That's the anthrax connection between victim and Osama.

Further, what you aren't being told is that human dna was recovered in the mailed letters. We already know that the anthrax perp(s) are or aren't Arab/Persian...the public just isn't being told which.

But the FBI knows...and the FBI is keeping silent on the human dna because it runs contrary to their public anthrax investigation so far.

[Battle Axe]

I agree with your two degrees of separation.

We know that they are or aren't Arabs???????

[Southack]

Yes. We know if they are Arabs or if they are not Arabs.

Sadly, the public isn't being told the answer that was found in the anthrax letters dna.

[Shermy]

This story says a "stray spore" was found on the keyboard.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/2001-10-15-tracking-anthrax.htm

[TrebleRebel]

You nailed Ed Lake. He likes to spread false information that it was all just a big misunderstanding with the media. Of course you are correct. There are dozens of named Federal officials who stated silica was used as an additive.
The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) published a Newsletter in October 2002 (1 year after the attcks) stating that silica was a key additive of the powder sent to yourself. They used a technique of SEM/EDX to determine this. The persons responsible for this work were Florabel Mullick, Frank Johnson, Victor Kalasinsky and Marie Jenkins. They relate this finding here: http://www.afip.org/images/public/nl081002.pdf

[Battle Axe]

Where is that scientific report showing all of the floors of the AMI building??? They showed the keyboard was loaded? It was a screening of the building.

[Battle Axe]

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/EPI/bioter/anthraxamibuilding.html

I think it was more than a stray spore.

[EdLake]

"There is NO proven connection between the anthrax attacks and Muslim terrorists. "The Florida anthrax attack" was from "the New Jersey mailings". One of the letters sent from the Trenton, NJ, area was sent to Florida."

Incorrect. In fact, no anthrax letter was **ever** found in the AMI building in Florida.

It's true that no letter was found, but traces of anthrax were found in post offices which indicate that the anthrax letter was postmarked on September 18, 2001, in Trenton, NJ, just like the other four media letters, and it was transported to Florida.

The letter was addressed to an obsolete address for The National Enquirer in Lantana, Florida. It was then forwarded from Lantana to the AMI offices in Boca Raton. It was opened by Stephanie Dailey, whose job was to open letters for The National Enquirer. She's the only person besides Stevens and Blanco who tested positive for anthrax exposure.

There is no evidence of any kind that there was any other letter containing anthrax that went to anyplace in Florida.

Ed

www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[EdLake]

"The false claims were mostly made by the MEDIA and by scientists who were just speculating about what the MEDIA told them."

That's incorrect. Two different military labs found the same thing independently, stated it, and put the names of their supervisors onto the public reports of the strain/purity/weaponization.

Which two labs were those?

AFIP (The Armed Forces Institutes of Pathology) detected silicon and oxygen in the anthrax and ASSUMED it was some kind of silica additive. But no one SAW any additives under a TEM or SEM. AFIP put their FALSE ASSUMPTIONS into a self-serving newsletter. It wasn't any kind of official report.

Ed

www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[EdLake]

Where is that scientific report showing all of the floors of the AMI building??? They showed the keyboard was loaded? It was a screening of the building.

The CDC charts showing where anthrax spores were detected in the AMI building can be found on my site by clicking HERE.

Note that the third floor where Bob Stevens worked and where the J-Lo letter was opened is the least contaminated floor in the building.

The mailroom area where Stephanie Dailey opened the actual anthrax letter is the MOST contaminated area in the building.

The National Enquirer described exactly how and where the so-called "J-Lo letter" was opened. That article can be read by clicking HERE. They may have thought it was the anthrax letter, but the evidence says it wasn't. If the J-Lo letter had been loaded with anthrax, that entire area on the third floor would have been covered with anthrax, and the person who actually opened it -- Bobby Bender -- would have been contaminated, if not dead. He carried the OPEN letter around the third floor office showing it to people - including Bob Stevens.

Ed

www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[justshutupandtakeit]

Correct. That flat out lie causes me to doubt everything else in the article. Saddam and al Queda remains the joint suspects to me.

[justshutupandtakeit]

"Let me inject a tad of reason and common sense." This is going to make you very unpopular among the Shoot first and never ask questions crowd.

[justshutupandtakeit]

The significant issue with this anthrax was not "purity" but SIZE the spores were milled to the perfect size for inhilation. Like Baby Bear they had to be juuust right not too small not too big.

There were only a few labs capable of that kind of milling and of that few only Iraq had the motivation to do something like this.

[TrebleRebel]

AFIP (The Armed Forces Institutes of Pathology) detected silicon and oxygen in the anthrax and ASSUMED it was some kind of silica additive.

Another famous false statement from Ed Lake's playbook. That they ASSUMED it was silica is simply an argument invented by Ed Lake which he propogates with religious fervor all across the internet. He seems to think that if he puts this on the internet often enough, it might become true. Detrick saw an unidentified material on the anthrax spores after performing SEM. They sent it to AFIP to identify that unidentified material. AFIP identified the material as SILICA. It's all stated quite clearly in AFIP's report. They even showed a SEM/EDX of the silica reference sample they used to prove the unidentified substance was silica. That picture is shown below.



When US Army investigators at Ft Detrick, Md, examined anthrax found in a letter sent to Sen. Thomas Daschle last fall, they discovered that the highly refined spores floated in the air, making them much easier for potential victims to inhale. What made this anthrax so easily aerosolized? A series of sophisticated tests revealed some clues, but the presence of another unidentifiable substance left the investigation incomplete. That’s when Ft Detrick contacted AFIP’s Department of Environmental and Toxicologic Pathology for assistance.

"Ft Detrick sought our assistance to determine the specific components of the anthrax found in the Daschle letter," said Florabel G. Mullick, MD, ScD, SES, AFIP Principal Deputy Director and department chair. AFIP experts utilized an energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (an instrument used to detect the presence of otherwise-unseen chemicals through characteristic wavelengths of X-ray light) to confirm the previously unidentifiable substance as silica. "This was a key component," Mullick said. "Silica prevents the anthrax from aggregating, making it easier to aerosolize.