Blair prepares for biological war threat

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair ordered 16 million doses of the smallpox vaccine after US Vice-President Dick Cheney warned Iraq could counter military action with a biological terror onslaught.

The two leaders met at Downing Street on March 12 and exchanged intelligence about the possible threat from Iraq.

Cheney told Blair that intelligence experts had warned that the US and Britain would be the two main targets of biological warfare in the event of a conflict, London's Sunday Telegraph said.

US reports, according to the paper, suggested that Saddam Hussein would use all the weapons at his disposal if he was attacked.

Unlike the Gulf War, where he showed some restraint, this time he would know that the military action is intended to end in his death or capture, it added.

Two days after Cheney and Blair met, six government health officials, including Health Secretary Alan Milburn, met in London and decided to order inoculations against smallpox.

The Sunday Telegraph said that in the event of a war being launched against the West, Iraqi special agents would try to smuggle smallpox into Britain and release it in confined spaces such as the Tube (underground system) or cinemas.

The worst case would be suicide terrorists infected with smallpox, the paper added.

Earlier this year US scientists projected how smallpox infections would spread after a single terrorist strike, according to the paper.

They found that an attack on a train on April 1 would result in 15,000 cases of smallpox, including 2000 deaths, by June. The disease would also spread to four foreign countries, they calculated. BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair ordered 16 million doses of the smallpox vaccine after US Vice-President Dick Cheney warned Iraq could counter military action with a biological terror onslaught.

The two leaders met at Downing Street on March 12 and exchanged intelligence about the possible threat from Iraq.

Cheney told Blair that intelligence experts had warned that the US and Britain would be the two main targets of biological warfare in the event of a conflict, London's Sunday Telegraph said.

US reports, according to the paper, suggested that Saddam Hussein would use all the weapons at his disposal if he was attacked.

Unlike the Gulf War, where he showed some restraint, this time he would know that the military action is intended to end in his death or capture, it added.

Two days after Cheney and Blair met, six government health officials, including Health Secretary Alan Milburn, met in London and decided to order inoculations against smallpox.

The worst case would be suicide terrorists infected with smallpox, the paper added.

Earlier this year US scientists projected how smallpox infections would spread after a single terrorist strike, according to the paper.

They found that an attack on a train on April 1 would result in 15,000 cases of smallpox, including 2000 deaths, by June. The disease would also spread to four foreign countries, they calculated.

Do we really have evidence that the Boca Raton anthrax was of lower quality? Was any of the actual powder found (so that it could be tested for its physical properties)? I thought that all we knew about the anthrax at AMI was its biological strain; I presume that a culture was made, either from spores found at AMI or from samples collected from patients (Stevens and/or Blanco). We'd need have a sample of the powder to test for physical properties ("weaponization").

Unless there's good evidence otherwise, Occam's Razor suggests that, as a working hypothesis, all the anthrax is from the same batch.

Based on the infections, the Boca Raton anthrax appears to have been approximately as potent and as "weaponized" as the NJ anthrax. Two people at AMI got inhalation anthrax; nobody at the sites of the NJ mailings did, although there were cases of inhalation anthrax from cross-contamination (postal workers, Nguyen, and Lundgren). [I assume that the hypothetical FL envelopes didn't go through the "squeezing machines" that the NJ envelopes went through, accounting for the cross-contamination problem in NJ only.] Also, the AMI anthrax was said to be surprisingly widely spread throughout the entire AMI building, suggesting that it had also been treated to prevent clumping.

I gather you think otherwise (that is, that there were two different batches of anthrax of different grades, or maybe three -- (1) Boca Raton, (2) New York TV networks and NY Post, (3) Sens. Daschle and Leahy).

Am I missing something in my argument that all the anthrax was of a similar grade and came from a single batch?

The FL anthrax differed from the DC anthrax. Both were Ames, but they were not genetically identical.

Here's what Ridge had to say during a conference on October 19, 2001: The tests to date, and we finally have -- we have the anthrax strains from AMI in Florida, from the Brokaw letter in New York and the Daschle letter here in Washington -- the tests to date also have shown, and it's a word that I put quotes around, a term of art in -- new language -- the tests have shown that these strains have not been weaponized. That's the latest report from FBI Director Rober Mueller.

We now know that isn't true of the DC anthrax. The anthrax was all similiar enough genetically to be of the same strain, but not identical. Specifically, the FL and DC anthrax differed in subtle but possibly significant ways. The Post, NBC, and ABC anthrax was "clumpy."

Alhaznawi saw a doctor for the cutaneous lesion in June. The max incubation period for anthrax is around 60 days. Untreated Cutaneous anthrax carries a mortality rate of about 25%, depending on location of infection. Untreated Inhalation anthrax is 100%. Which anthrax was Alhaznawi more than likely exposed to? Weaponized or non?

There's no doubt in my mind we have two different "grades" of the same strain of anthrax released. JMHO.

Thanks, Keri. I read the transcript of that press conference, as well as that of Ridge's 10/25/2001 press conference, which contains yet more information. It appears that all the anthrax samples were genetically identical, although they apparently has differences of physical preparation. Here's an excerpt from the 10/25/2001 Ridge press conference:

As I outlined last week, Department of Defense DNA tests showed the anthrax samples from Florida, New York and Washington are indistinguishable, meaning that they all come from the same strain of anthrax or the same family of anthrax. That continues to be the case. The DNA tests have also revealed that none of the anthrax samples have been genetically altered, which is very good news, obviously, because it means that the samples all respond to antibiotics. And, therefore, people who are exposed can be treated. This week, we have received new information from additional laboratory tests. I convened a meeting at the White House last night to bring together the scientists, as well as representatives of the different agencies, to analyze and evaluate this information. It shows that the anthrax in the letter received in Senator Tom Daschle's office had some different characteristics. It is highly concentrated. It is pure. And the spores are smaller. Therefore, they're more dangerous because they can be more easily absorbed in a person's respiratory system. We've also received a new preliminary analysis on the anthrax that was mailed to The New York Post. The preliminary analysis shows that it is more coarse and less concentrated than the anthrax in the Daschle letter. But I want to tell you, it's still highly concentrated. The New York Post anthrax is also sensitive to antibiotics. Unfortunately, we have not been able to conduct similar tests on the anthrax from Florida or the Brokaw letter because of limited amounts of substance retrievable from the scene. Just wasn't enough for us to retrieve from the scene to conduct the same tests. Now, I know there has been a lot of both public and private discussion, some of it with me and much of it among yourselves and even within this country, about the term "weaponize." It seems to have different meanings, different definition and meanings to different people. Based on these latest lab reports, it is clear that the terrorists responsible for these attacks intended to use this anthrax as a weapon. We still don't know who is responsible, but we are marshaling every federal, state and local resource to find them and bring them to justice.

So, unless there's other information to the contrary, it would seem, first of all, that all the anthrax was the same genetically. The Daschle anthrax is described as being less clumpy and purer than the NY Post anthrax. (The physical preparation of the NBC and AMI spores is unknown, due to insufficient samples. The genetic strain of these was presumably determined through anthrax grown in culture from infected individuals or from small numbers of spores found; this is consistent with Ridge's statement that the physical properties of the NBC and AMI powders are unknown.)

By the way, none of this includes the Leahy letter, which was unknown at the time, and it's unclear whether the genetic studies include the spores at CBS and ABC.

It may be noteworthy that the Daschle letter appears to have gotten wet in transit. Look at the pictures at the FBI web site. You can see that the envelope looks like it got wet at the bottom right, and the letter itself shows brown stains about one-third of the way from the bottom (which would be the part of the folded letter next to the wet side of the envelope). I don't know how this would have affected the physical characteristics of the powder.

The genetic identity says that the ultimate source of all the anthrax was the same. Do the differences in physical characteristics say that one was high-quality ("weaponized") and the other was of lower quality? Some people have suggested that the difference could come from settling; with the powder sitting in a container, the smaller particles would make their way toward the top, and the bigger particles toward the bottom. If the Daschle spores were taken from the top of the container, it would be expected that the spores there would be in smaller clumps than in a sample taken from the middle or the bottom of the container. Do you think this is a possibility?

This is all very interesting, because it implies, as you say, that the scenario may be more complicated than one might initially think.

Thanks very much for the information -- I appreciate it.

So there were at least two different strains of anthrax (FL and DC) and possibly a third (NY). The fact that the genetic difference between FL and DC is very small suggests that they had the same original source (making it very unlikely that there were two entire separate anthrax attacks, by two different groups with two different strains). Keim's work of a few years ago demonstrates that genetic variation in anthrax occurs naturally only very slowly. So it seems to me that there are two high-probability possibilities:

Possibility 1. The preparer made a large batch (or multiple batches) of anthrax from the same original source. There would have to have been enough generations to yield, with high likelihood, the observed genetic variation.
Possibility 2. The preparer intentionally induced mutations or other variation in the strain.

It's clear that the NY and DC letters are part of the same attack, because of the similarity of the letters and the handwriting. Since the NY anthrax is known to be clumpier than the DC anthrax (and therefore different from the DC anthrax), and since the FL anthrax is also known to be different from the DC anthrax [by genetic analysis], it's most likely that the NY anthrax is the same as the FL anthrax (since 2 preparations would be more likely than 3).

Also notice the different phrasings in the letters that accompanied the anthrax in NY and in DC. The two NY (lower-quality anthrax) letters said: "This is next. Take penacilin [sic] now." In contrast, the Daschle letter (with higher-quality anthrax) said: "You can not stop us. We have this anthrax. You die now." [My emphasis on the word this.] This seems to imply that this anthrax is different and more potent.

I was rethinking this just as I got your message; there may, in fact, be a difference between FL and NY anthrax.

The FL anthrax caused two cases of inhalation anthrax, but no cases of cutaneous anthrax. The NY anthrax caused cutaneous anthrax but no cases of inhalation anthrax, at least in the target buildings. (We don't know if Kathy Nguyen, Ottilie Lundgren, and the postal workers were infected by the NY anthrax or the DC anthrax; I would guess cross-contamination with the DC strain.)

This suggests that the FL and NY anthrax had different physical characteristics from one another (and/or were delivered differently -- we don't even know if there was a letter in FL, after all).

I don't think that different strains would explain this -- as far as I know, the strain has nothing to do with cutaneous vs. inhalation anthrax; any differential would be based on physical characteristics and delivery methods, as I understand it.

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