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If the anthrax used in the attacks is descended from the 1990 sample you mention, and not from Dr. Ivins's RMR 1029 strain, then its genetic makeup should have diverged more than far enough for modern DNA sequencing to tell.

Assuming the genetic analysis is correct, we are left with determining who besides Ivins might have done it. ZACKandPOOK has pointed out that there was a sand nazi who for a time was close enough to steal some of it and send it off to comrades who prepared it for the envelopes. I refer to Ali Al-Timimi, whose life + 70 sentence might be considerably shortened if the FBI could complete their investigation properly.

Zac and Pook may have something there. But the genetic drift of anthrax is dreadfully slow. You can ask Henry Niman about the numbers involved, but from my work with B. larvae, it is not out of the question at all that the mailed anthrax was stolen from ISU and replicated shortly before the mailings.

The husband of the girl across the table had the very same dripping sore that Margano had. And anthrax....prior to 9-11...was considered to be a dry lesion.

Why did ISU destroy all their samples? No one else made an open destruction charade.

Here is what I think. On the internet on the paraformaldehyde page for anthrax clean up, is a list of those institutions that had applied for a Section 18 use.

You don't get a Section 18 unless you really have to because it is a dreadful mess of paperwork and not to mention a trail. So why are there only 4 institutions that had a Section 18 ( for non labeled use). USAMRIID, Plum Island, some chicken processing place in ARK....ask WJC/HRC...and Iowa State.

So I called the EPA and I said....what was the causal organism that this was to be used on....Answer : A dreaded disease of both livestock and man. Signed by a lawyer for the USDA that also works at Johns Hopkins. I started a FOIA, but they gave me the info anyway.

The original date of the Section 18 is April 15, 1992 and it was in place on 9-11-01. This needs to be renewed every 3 years. What in the H....are they cleaning up?

Now...most labs if they spill some anthrax, will go to the chemical closet and just get some paraformaldehyde and put it in an electric skillet and tent off the area and burn it and...of course it does not work as good as one would hope, but the next step up is chlorine gas where everyone for a good distance needs to be evacuated. Paraf....can be used and then the building or room reoccupied shortly.

So why did they leave a trail and why April 15, 1992?

This is where we need Mark Furhman.

I worked in a dairy foods processing lab for 5 years. I was the low person on the totem pole. I got to do all the shitty jobs. One of the worse is the paperwork for certification of the lab.

Every lab, at least in the US, needs to be certified by some licensing authority. Either the state of the Feds every six months. The rule of what we had at the dairy foods lab was that you could fail two tests out of 5 but you could not fail two consecutive tests. Now failing is failing on any part and there are many parts.

One of the most important is contamination. If you are a diagnostic lab and you are diagnosing things and your lab is contaminated with anthrax....you will lose your certification. Our dairy foods lab was determining if the milk we received was clean or dirty, so we had to have a clean lab...so too with the diagnosis.

This package that was received by the woman who sat across the table from me was November 29, 1990. So let's assume that the lab was clean up to that date. Some time in the previous 6 months they had been tested.

So lets work backwards from April 15, 1992. Let's say that was the date that they were going to lose their certification for failing two previous tests. The previous tests would have been October 15, 1991 and April 15, 1991 that would have been failures. The previous test to that, October 15, 1990 would have been a passed test.

Long post, will break into two parts.

Part Two.

In our dairy lab, we would have the option of putting a plan into place to save the certification.

The state was not interested in putting us out of business, just keeping us scientifically correct.

So too with the lab at ISU. And they would not have filed for the use of the paraformaldehyde until the last minute. It took the folks at the EPA until June 15, 1992 to grant the Section 18 for ISU. But as long as they had that Section 18 in place, they could be in violation of the contamination of anthrax.

So I asked the EPA...just how much did they use? This stuff is measured in grams.....and they had used 110 pounds. Whoooooaaaaaa.

So what I am saying is that ISU knew they had a problem in 1992, or as early as 1991, but they may have never known who or where or how.

The package was mailed to the Pakistani, the Post Office had carried it out of the building. How ironic. Back then, you could not go in the library or walk anywhere on campus without thinking you were in the Middle East or Indonesia. The University had become to rely on the flow of tuition from out of the country.

Now ironically, the Pak with the address similar to the woman's never graduated. Highly unusual. Did he die? Did he take the package and go home?

Who lifted it? While everyone else was searching for the Beltway snipers, I had a 22,000 name phone book I was going through name by name. I knew it was in the and I thought I could find it. The one with the transposed address was from Faisalabad. Low and behold there was another Pak, also from Faisalabad, in the vet school majoring in Veterinary Microbiology. I wonder if he had a habit of transposing numbers. The woman lived at 161....the Pak lived at 116.