Your babbling makes no sense. You say YOU told Alibek that there was silica in the Daschle anthrax, and he BELIEVED you. And that is supposed to be proof of what? And why should I take into account the fact that Alibek was gullible enough to believe what you said?
There was no silica in the attack anthrax. No one detected silica. They detected the elements silicon and oxygen.
You put facts together like putting them in a blender. Whatever crap comes out is something you claim to be true.
Ed, have you seen the Alibek and Patrick supervised thesis? If you are in Madison, the University of Wisconsin at Madison would have the Alibek supervised thesis on ProQuest Dissertations for free. I would send it but these pdfs are too big to forward.
As for what I told Ken, I told him the AFIP report says that silica was detected.
You did not interview the EDX operator, who was highly experienced at detecting silica. Highly experienced in interpreting the distribution of silicon and oxygen. Your understanding arose at a time when Ken was not aware of the AFIP report.
Moreover, his point is that the presence or absence of silica is not determinative of whether it was state sponsored or not. Not determinative of whether it came from a state program or not. That seems a sound assumption, particularly given that they later publicly published the patent under which hydrophobic silica was used to concentrate biological agents, with the silica then removed by repeated centrifugation.
This proliferation of dual use technology is precisely the valid concerned so well expressed by Professor Boyle in his interview.
But let me encourage you to go get the PhD thesis on weaponization that Ken and Bill P. supervised. It explains why silica would have been used. It basically picks up where your drying idea leaves off and explains the alternative purpose as it relates to aerosolization. It explains that the technique was developed in the context of delivering drugs to the intended organs. Under this understanding, the feds would be looking not just for a spraydrying expert with experience in using silica to dry blend the product, but an expert in functional polymerization. They’d be looking for someone with parents proud of their son’s contribution to improving the delivery of pharmaceuticals. Given that IG had both such experts available to them — and some left over to spare — these differences in the forensic results has practical consequences.
I like to think of you and TrebleRebel as equally right.
TrebleRebel is not a microbiologist and not a spraydrying expert. And so his brilliance needs to be viewed through your common-sense show me approach.
But the common sense approach would be just to contact and Ken and confirm that I’m right that he no longer would dispute that the EDX correctly detected silica (and not merely silicon).
I don’t recall that you’ve addressed the electrostatic charge point. Now Professor Boyle mistakenly predicated his argument on the claim that the charge “had been removed.” Now, that was not true as explained by Alibek.
But the Livermore patent clearly contradicts you on the electrostatic charge. are you willing to accept it as authoritative expertise? If not, why not?