While I was out doing some chores, I remembered reading something that I should have mentioned. It's on the first page of the report by the people from the CDC and Dugway:
Disclaimer. The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
So, the report is just the conclusions of the authors. Nothing official.
Ed,
As a matter of logic, they have actually been doing it.
So they know it is floatable when processed with silica because they used silica and watched it float.
So just as we do not need a governmental statement the earth is not flat, we do not need a government statement that Dugway folks have been using silica to make weaponized anthrax.
The Daschle anthrax did not actually look like what was pictured in the recent study. It is a siliconized solution makes anthrax float like a butterfly and sting like a bee (and results in SEMS that look like that).
So it may be that it is only your suggestion that it makes no sense to use silica that is wrong. The EDX shows the silica spike upon use of siliconized solution. Yet it appears to be individual pure spores in the SEMS.
Google “siliconized solution” and you’ll see the “signature.”