WASHINGTON — Despite the Justice Department's pronouncement that former Army microbiologist Bruce Ivins unleashed the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people, three central questions about the case remain unanswered:
_ Can the FBI prove that a flask of anthrax in Ivins' bioweapons laboratory at Ft. Detrick, Md., contained the same mutated strain of finely milled powder that was in the envelopes that were mailed to two U.S. senators?
_ Did Ivins, who committed suicide last week, have the technical capability to produce that form of anthrax?
_ Why, after he came under suspicion in 2005 or earlier, was Ivins allowed to retain a high-level security clearance that enabled him to continue working in the bioweapons laboratory at Ft. Detrick, apparently until this summer?
As federal prosecutors and FBI agents moved to close the seven-year investigation, former employees at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and other biological weapons experts Thursday expressed skepticism about the case that's been presented publicly.
The FBI said Wednesday that it had winnowed eight samples that contained all four of the genetic mutations in the anthrax-laced letters out of 1,000 anthrax samples from 16 laboratories and traced all eight to a batch in Ivins' lab that had the same "DNA fingerprint."
However, Jeffrey Adamovicz, who directed the bacteriology division at Ft. Detrick in 2003 and 2004, said the FBI trail is "a little disturbing" because it relies on a common contaminant in laboratories and in the environment.
While the FBI said it found a unique mutation of that contaminant, Adamovicz said, it has yet to say that this strain "was found in Dr. Ivins' lab and no one else's."
Further, he said, that strain of the anthrax organism "has to have a parent somewhere, which means their assertion that it was only in Ivins' lab doesn't make sense."
Donald Henderson, a scholar at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Biosecurity who assisted the government in dealing with the attacks, said the FBI's case against Ivins "just doesn't add up." He said the FBI must produce its DNA evidence for scrutiny by scientists.
Some of Ivins' former colleagues also dispute the FBI's assertion that he had the capability to mill tiny anthrax spores and then bind them to silicon particles, the form of anthrax that was mailed to the office of then-senator Tom Daschle, D-S.D..
Adamovicz said the anthrax sent to Daschle was "so concentrated and so consistent and so clean that I would assert that Bruce could not have done that part."
"Just because you're off your rocker doesn't mean you can make something that no one else in the world can make with the kind of equipment that's available," said Richard Spertzel, who worked in the lab for 21 years before he retired in 1987.
Spertzel called the FBI's focus on records that Ivins had checked out a device that could freeze-dry tiny anthrax spores "a red herring," and said he doubted that the lab possessed the equipment needed to mill the spores. ... ...
Ex-colleague questions government’s case against anthrax suspect
GREENCASTLE, Pa. — A former Fort Detrick employee is among those questioning the government’s case against Bruce Ivins, who authorities say was behind the post-9/11 anthrax letters.
Melanie Ulrich of Greencastle, Pa., who teaches at Hagerstown Community College, on Wednesday challenged circumstantial evidence against Ivins that has been made public.
...Authorities say advanced DNA testing matched anthrax spores in Ivins’ laboratory to those that killed five people in 2001, according to The Associated Press. ...Ulrich said she worked with Ivins at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Frederick, Md., for about six years. The person she knew doesn’t match the troubled past Ivins is alleged to have had, she said.
Ulrich said other elements of the case don’t add up, including:
# Whether psychological instability in Ivins’ past could have lingered for years. Ulrich said that in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, anyone at USAMRIID who had access to certain biological agents, such as anthrax, had to go through an intensive, all-encompassing review as part of a Personnel Reliability Program, which trumped, for example, privacy rules for health records.
# A flask in Ivins’ custody that contained anthrax said to be the “parent” to powdered anthrax sent through the mail. Ulrich said different anthrax samples were genetically identical, so that flask can’t be proven to be the “parent” sample. Also, the flask was for aerosol use, which would have been done in a different building than the one in which Ivins worked, she said.
# Ivins’ alleged use of a lyophilizer to make powdered anthrax. Ulrich said Ivins signed out a SpeedVac, but not a lyophilizer, which is too large to fit in a containment hood, or secure protective area.
She said it would take about an hour to dry one milliliter of wet anthrax spores in one vial in a SpeedVac. It would have been impossible for Ivins to have dried more than a liter, which would have been required for the amount of anthrax sent in the letters, in the time frame they were mailed, Ulrich said.
Ulrich was a principal investigator in the diagnostic systems division at USAMRIID.
She said Ivins was a “geeky scientist” who wrote poems and was sensitive and unintimidating.
He had been to her home for USAMRIID social activities, including a barbecue and a party.
She said Ivins was upset the FBI was watching him, but handled it as well as he could. “I’ve never even seen him angry,” Ulrich said.
Ulrich left USAMRIID in 2007. She now teaches at HCC and coordinates the year-old biotechnology program.
Ulrich said the FBI interviewed her within the past year as part of its investigation. She said she can’t talk about what was discussed, but the points she expressed in this story didn’t come up during the interview.
My big problem with analyzing any of this is that I still don't see a reliable particle size distribution analysis of this anthrax powder. "Smoke" is typically just over .5 micron. Cab O Sil fumed silica is 0.2 - 0.3 micron. I don't know anything about anthrax soup. An Aerobell can make 2-3 micron direct droplets readily that shrink as they dry. The satellite droplets are usually a third of that, which you could then air classify (which isn't too bad if you don't care about yield). Of course, containing it well enough to stay alive through all that is another matter.
A few details would be helpful.