Hmmm. That's your "best example?" I see it as a very good example of how YOU twist the facts. Let's look at the key paragraphs from that Chemical & Engineering News article:
At an Oct. 29, 2001, White House press briefing, Maj. Gen. John S. Parker, then-commanding general of the Army's Medical Research & Materiel Command at Fort Detrick, said silica had been found in the Daschle letter. Tom Ridge, then-director of the White House Office of Homeland Security, at a briefing a few days earlier said a binding agent had been used to make the anthrax powders.
As one of the former government officials tells C&EN, "Those judgments were premature and frankly wrong." At the height of the attacks, top government officials with no scientific background received briefings from people who also were not scientists, and "the nuances got lost," he explains.
Sometimes scientists misspoke as well, as was the case with the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. AFIP studied the anthrax powder from the Daschle letter using energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry, and a top AFIP scientist, Florabell G. Mullick, reported the presence of silica in an AFIP newsletter. Yet, the spectrum AFIP released shows a peak for the element silicon, not silicon dioxide (silica).
Harvard University molecular biologist Matthew S. Meselson, who has consulted for the FBI on the anthrax probe, dismisses these early statements as misunderstandings or misinterpretations of the scientific studies conducted on the Daschle powder. "I don't know of anybody with spore expertise who actually worked on the stuff who said the spores were coated," he says. The FBI has never publicly claimed the spores were coated with silica and, in fact, told members of Congress at classified briefings that the spores were not coated, he says.
And from all this, the only thing you can find to support your argument is a statement about whether AFIP's illustration shows silicon or silica? That's pretty desperate.
First of all, that comment about "a peak" was written by the author of the article. It's not a quote from Professor Meselson. You are twisting the facts.
Secondly, you are twisting the facts by changing what was said to your version: "it shows peaks for silicon dioxide (silica)."
Yes, it shows peaks for silicon and oxygen. Yes, it shows a peak for silicon. But, it's also an example. It is NOT a spectrograph of what was in the attack anthrax. What was in the attack anthrax was evidently NOT silica but polymerized glass resulting from lab contamination. So, it's important for everyone to know that peaks for silicon and oxygen do NOT have to indicate silica. Polymerized glass would also show such peaks.
Why did Meselson lie about the spectrum?
The FACTS are that AFIP published a spectrum of silicon dioxide.
The FACTS are that Meselson spoofed Lois Embers, author of the C&E News article, into believing that they published a spectrum of silicon and NOT silicon dioxide (silica).
The FACT is that Meselson lied.
The FACT is that this is now the fourth example of scientific misconduct by Meselson.