Study: People outside Senate office infected with anthrax (in 2001)

WZZM ABC News ^ | Jan. 9, 2007 | Steve Sternberg

[FairOpinion]

A Navy-led analysis of the anthrax attack on Sen. Tom Daschle's office in October 2001 has uncovered evidence that anthrax spores released in the Hart Senate Office Building infected people outside the building.

The researchers could not pinpoint where the four exposed people worked or where they encountered the airborne spores. They apparently fought off infection without getting sick, but they turned up in a group of 20 people who were "outside the building and presumed to be unexposed," says the study in the Jan. 15 Journal of Infectious Diseases.

The surprise finding supports previous analyses indicating that the spores were engineered to float long distances in the air.

[Battle Axe]

news on Fox about the Quantico Letter. Stay tuned.

[oceanview]

it was a catherine herridge report, I only heard parts of it, and I cannot find anything on the web.

[oceanview]

looks like shep smith's show is going to repeat the report in the 7:20PM est segment coming up.

[Shermy]

Is the Quantico Letter the same as the document in the article?

Could the people with a "few spores" been cross-contaminated with their own mail, if they are DC residents?

[oceanview]

ok, here it is. summary:

FBI is re-opening the lead regarding the "quantico letter", trying to identify the writer of the letter. it was sent to the police on 1/21/2001. the letter warns of a bio terror attack by dr assad from ft detrick (he has been cleared). the letter urged the FBI to talk to him. now, the FBI is looking into whether the anthrax letters and quantico letter were written by the same person.

[Star Traveler]

The article said -- "The surprise finding supports previous analyses indicating that the spores were engineered to float long distances in the air."

Since that stuff was apparently "weaponized," I wonder if it would be some of Russia's stuff that got passed through to Iraq, and then perhaps to Al Qaeda (or even Saddam's agents themselves). I understood that the weaponized stuff was something that only state regimes (and a very capable one, at that) could do.

Regards,
Star Traveler

[Battle Axe]

Heads up here.

The Quantico letter is very, very interesting. Mainly because of the timing. It arrived at its destination long before anyone came down with anthrax, but if muiwayah is correct, it could have been mailed at about the same time.

If they find any spores on the letter, that would be huge...HUGE..

Here is my perspective.

Ayaad Assaad, the guy they were talking about was an employee of USAMRIID, or at least had been an employee there.

He GRADUATED FROM IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY. The very same place where the anthrax collections were destroyed. Since they were destroyed, (in 2001...5 days after the first guy died) we have no idea if ISU had that very special kind of strain. Remember it is genotype 62 plus a mutant of genotype 62 that makes a fluted edge on a petri dish.

All of the mailed anthrax was this special mixture.

Now USAMRIID only has regular genotype 62. They could not find and they did look for this odd mixture.

Ayaad Assaad graduated in 1987.

Supposedly he is an Arab who is not Muslim.

How would this makes the Muslims feel.....they would consider him an infidel of the worst kind because he is a traitor. So the motivation would be to nail him with the crime, or at least to throw suspicion from them onto him.

This fits into my eye witness account of the strange happenings of Fall semester 1990.

Yes, I still think it is the same kind of person who was involved in 9-11. Only these were students that were already here when they stole the spores three weeks after the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane.

If you want more just say so.

I guess I am the curator of the anthrax ping list. Let me know if you want on it.

[Battle Axe]

Cross contamination occurred in the post offices. It could have occurred anywhere the letters crossed.

[Battle Axe]

Someone with very good technique refined the spores. If they knew who refined it, or if they knew where it was stolen, then there would be a place to start.

Something very unusual happened right in front of my eyes at Iowa State University where I was a grad student on November 29, 1990.

The only way I can explain it is to say what I saw was anthrax.

[Shermy]

I'm not impressed, as of now and given the details here, that the people affected "outside" of the Congress were affected by stuff floating from out from inside like some fog. Maybe they all walked by a certain vent. But my first impression was Washington DC mail. It's nothing new, others were visibly affected by mail, like the lady in far away Connecticut.

[FairOpinion]

Yes, please put me on your anthrax ping list.

At the time I followed it very closely and am still interested if something new comes to light.

[Battle Axe]

Could also be that the letter was in the office, giving off spores, before it was opened, and people walked by there and carried some of the spores outside. Or they could have come in contact with the mail people who brought the letter into the building.

Think of PigPen, the character on Peanuts. He is followed by a cloud of dust. So was the letter.

[Mitchell]

FBI is re-opening the lead regarding the "quantico letter", trying to identify the writer of the letter. it was sent to the police on 1/21/2001.

Do you mean 9/21/2001, or has the story changed?

[Battle Axe]

According to one report, it is the timing that is most important. Supposedly the Quantico letter was postmarked September 21, 2001. The FBI called Ayaad Assaad in to a meeting two days before Bob Stevens died. Insiders knew that Stevens had anthrax, but hardly anyone else did.

I agree with Assaad that he was being set up as the fall guy.

The first thing a criminal would do is to point a finger at a likely suspect but not himself. Assaad is a Coptic Christian as far as I know. This would make other Muslims mad and treat him as a big infidel. They would want to see him suffer.

Assaad graduated in 1987 from Iowa State University and published a Vet Med thesis.

[oceanview]

yes, I was typing too fast - it was 9/21/2001

[oceanview]

but who was in a position to know assad would be a "good" fall guy?

[Mitchell]

Thanks. That's what I thought, but sometimes these stories change.

[Mitchell]

If something indicated knowledge in advance, that would certainly be telling. But I'm not sure that's the case here.

I think the first media story on one of the 2001 anthrax cases was on 10/4/2001, and the first mention of a possible transmission by letter was on 10/8/2001. Does anybody have earlier references?

Early mentions of Iraq are also of interest, because of the importance that turned out to play in the justification for the war.


I'm not sure that the Quantico letter counts as indicating knowledge in advance though (at least based on what has been said publicly about the letter). As far as I've seen, it doesn't mention anthrax, it doesn't mention targeting media personalities or prominent politicians, and it doesn't mention using letters as a transmission vehicle.

I think it just mentioned a bioterror attack in a general sort of way. This was on 9/21/2001, so it was after 9/11 -- by 9/21, the general possibility of a bioterror attack was already being widely discussed.

Now, we haven't seen the actual text of the letter. If it did mention using letters as the transmission vehicle, or if it included a threat against the media or against major political figures, then it would be of interest. (As I recall, most of the discussion at the time was about large-scale bioterror events, not small-scale individually targeted attacks. Any early reference to small-scale anthrax attacks on the media, for instance, would be interesting.)

Of course, maybe the FBI has reasons for being interested in this letter in addition to the early date.

[Battle Axe]

Large scale or small scale?? What was meant to be a large scale attack...the WTC 93...was dismissed by our guvmint.

The anthrax letters could have meant to be larger attack than the impact that they did make.

Were the perps thinking this disease would spread? Did they just need to get it into a specific place, so they just addressed it to one person.

How would the letter have been handled if it would have been address:

To all congress and other infidels??

I think it is noteworthy that none was sent to the White House. Me thinks the plane that went down in PA was destined for the White House and then there would be no need for another letter to there.

There are things about this crime that defy explanation. The first is the death of Bob Stevens. There had to be a letter there, and they supposedly get lots of mail and they destroyed most of it on a daily basis. I believe the incinerated it which is the one way you can get rid of it.

The feds must have something going on this Quantico letter.