There were a lot of misconceptions about anthrax at the time of the attacks, one of them being that natural, untreated spores could not easily aerosolize or reaerosolize. That's evidently the prime reason that Dr. Beecher wrote his report. That assumption was FALSE.
And it's clear that USAMRIID and AFIP didn't realize it was a misconception when they examined the attack anthrax. It wasn't really fully realized until other scientists noticed how easily the attack spores could reaerosolize in the Senate offices where the letters had been opened.
Dr. Beecher points out that it is misleading and dangerous to promote beliefs that natural spores cannot easily aerosolize. It is simply WRONG to believe that.
Ed
Dr Beecher provided ZERO evidence to back up his assertion - apart from a reference to a paper on wet preparations creating measureable aerosols.
He failed to cite the study of secondary aerosolization of the spores in the Hart building.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/288/22/2853.pdf
He failed to cite the 1996 Army study that demonstrated spores do NOT easily form secondary aerosols.
Chinn KS. Reaerosolization Hazard Assessment for Biological Agent Contaminated Hardstand Areas. Dugway Proving Ground, Utah: US Dept of the Army; 1996.
But, hey, he works in the FBI labs, so he MUST be right, even altough he didn't provide a shred of data.
Look at what his illustrious co-workers have achieved:
http://www.amazon.com/Tainting-Evidence-Inside-Scandals-Crime/dp/0743236416
Two crusading journalists investigate the FBI's forensic crime lab and deliver a strong indictment against what goes on there. Federal agents regularly dupe the public into accepting "scientific" findings that aren't based upon science at all, they charge, and the lab is infected with a troubling culture where truth plays second fiddle to prosecutorial interests, with information potentially useful to defendants withheld. The book's hero is FBI-scientist-turned-whistle-blower Frederic Whitehurst, and most of the chapters focus on the crime lab's controversial role in high-profile cases involving O.J. Simpson, the World Trade Center bombing, the Unabomber, and others. The authors at times appear to have a pro-prosecution bias of their own, but their conclusions shouldn't be ignored. They probably won't be; as one attorney tells the authors, "No defense lawyer in the country is going to take what the FBI lab says at face value anymore."