Regarding the accident at Sverdlovsk - Dr. Alibek wasn't involved in that. Sverdlovsk was and still is a military facility. Dr. Alibek worked at civilian facilities only. It says in that same article you quote that he was just beginning his career at Biopreparat. Dr. Alibek worked at the Siberian branch of the Institute of Applied Biochemistry near Berdsk from 1976 to 1979 then transferred to the Eastern European scientific branch of the Institute of Applied Biochemistry near Omutninsk. After Omutninsk, he went to Stepnogorsk and then on to Moscow. He knows about the accident because of interactions with people from Sverdlovsk, not because he worked there. As far as the "improvements" to the Sverdlovsk anthrax formulation, the information you have listed is not correct. He did reduce the amount of formulation required as compared to the Sverdlovsk formulation but the way it was done has nothing to do with what you describe as far as plastic and resin. Enhancing "flyability" was something else he did but it isn't related to decreasing the amount of formulation required. As far as coating the spores in resin, that is incorrect too. Though for obvious common sense reasons I won't elaborate further, I'll just point out that coating spores in resin would increase their particle size and mass, decreasing their ability to "float". Sorry, don't know where you received your information but sadly much of what I have seen printed is incorrect. It is really frustrating to be somewhere, hear what he actually says, and then see how incorrect what actually gets printed is from what he said. jpl - thanks so much for that. I couldn’t agree with you more about the naivety within the university system as regards to foreign governments using our educational institutions to train their people. Iraq was especially guilty of this. One of our students actually wrote her dissertation about such vulnerability but during the defense, 2 of her committee members resigned from her committee allegedly due to fear of repercussions from the university administration. Regarding Dr. Alibek, it is natural that you don’t trust him because, as you volunteered, you don’t know him. Zacandpook - thanks for jumping in. All - I am having problems with my email address and will post a new one once they are resolved. Debra
I gave the link where I got my information.
Alibek also described in detail to a number of journalists in 1998 how he created the Alibekov anthrax. Richard Preston was one of them, as well as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
http://cryptome.org/bioweap.htm
Alibek has a Doctor of Sciences degree in anthrax. It is a kind of superdegree, which he received in 1988, at the age of thirty-seven, for directing the research team that developed the Soviet Union’s most powerful weapons-grade anthrax. He did this research as head of the Stepnagorsk bioweapons facility, in what is now Kazakhstan, which was once the largest biowarfare production facility in the world. The Alibekov anthrax became fully operational in 1989. It is an amber-gray powder, finer than bath talc, with smooth, creamy particles that tend to fly apart and vanish in the air, becoming invisible and drifting for miles. The Alibekov anthrax is four times more efficient than the standard product.
One day, Ken Alibek and I were sitting in a conference room near his office talking about the anthrax he and his research team had developed. “It’s very difficult to say if I felt a sense of excitement over this. It’s very difficult to say what I felt like,” he said. “It wouldn’t be true to say that I thought I was doing something wrong. I thought I had done something very important. The anthrax was one of my scientific results — my personal result.”
I asked him if he’d tell me the formula for his anthrax.
“I can’t say this,” he answered.
“I won’t publish it. I’m just curious,” I said.
“Look, you must understand, this is unbelievably serious. You can’t publish this formula,” he said. When I assured him I wouldn’t, he told me the formula for the Alibekov anthrax. He uttered just one sentence. The Alibekov anthrax is simple, and the formula is somewhat surprising, not quite what you’d expect. Two unrelated materials are mixed with pure powdered anthrax spores. It took a lot of research and testing to get the trick right, and Alibek must have driven his research group hard and skillfully to arrive at it. “There are many countries that would like to know how to do this.” he said.
I have it on good authority that the two unrelated materials used to coat the spores are a siloxane resin and silica nanoparticles. Contrary to your statement, although this coating would slightly increase the mass of each spore, the coating provides the spore with non-sticking properties. Caoted spores will not stick to other spores or surfaces. Thus the spores are aerosolizable.
Arguing with TrebleRebel on this subject is a waste of time. I've been telling him the same thing for years and years. He considers Gary Matsumoto's article in Science Magazine to be the holy writ on how the spores were made. Doug Beecher at the FBI labs said that Matsumoto's article was wrong and misleading, but TrebleRebel will tell you Beecher's article is just part of the FBI's sinister plot to keep people from learning the truth about the "supersophistication of the attack spores". My analysis of the Science article is HERE.
In late 2004, I talked with Dr. Alibek on the subject of his formulation for improving the "flyability" of spores. Some details are on my site and in my book. I have excerpts from my discussion on my site. CLICK HERE. I have more details of the formulation in my book. It's really very simple. Unlike the article in Science, it also makes very good scientific sense.