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Us anthrax Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/02/08/anthrax/index_np.htmlhttp://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/02/08/anthrax/index_np.html
Is a U.S. bioweapons scientist behind last fall's anthrax
attacks?
A growing number of scientific experts have come to this conclusion. But the FBI seems
strangely reluctant to zero in on the most likely suspects.
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By Laura Rozen
Feb. 8, 2002 | WASHINGTON -- When Arthur O. Anderson, chief of clinical pathology at the
U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), saw the
anthrax sent to Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., last October, he was amazed.
"There was nothing there except spores," he told Salon. "Normally, if you take a crude
preparation of anthrax spores, you see parts of degenerated bacteria. But this stuff was
highly refined."
Another former Army lab scientist characterized the sample as "very, very good."
"Only a very small group of people could have made this," said David Franz, a former U.N.
weapons inspector in Iraq and biodefense scientist at USAMRIID, who now works for the
Southern Research Institute, a defense contractor. "If you look at the sample from the
standpoint of biology, it tells me this person [who made the anthrax] was very good at what
they do. And this wasn't the first batch they've made. They've done this for years. The
concentration was a trillion spores [on anthrax] per gram. That's incredibly concentrated."
Anderson and Franz aren't drawing conclusions about where the anthrax came from --
perhaps in part because the subject is deeply sensitive at the U.S. Army's own biodefense
lab, which could find itself at the center of the investigation. But conversations with dozens
of scientists and experienced biodefense hands reveal a growing belief that last fall's anthrax
letter culprit is most likely an experienced bioweapons scientist. And while Franz and others
note that there are Iraqi and Russian scientists with the skills to pull off the complex
anthrax-mail attack, many experts now believe the culprit worked at a U.S. bioweapons
facility.
Only a few dozen individuals in the U.S. possess the expertise to produce the sophisticated
anthrax specimen sent to Daschle, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy and at least three media
outlets last fall. There may be as many as 200 Russian scientists capable of such work, and
perhaps 10 Iraqis. But certain clues have convinced many -- though not all -- bioweapons
experts who've followed the FBI investigation closely that the anthrax in the letters most
likely came from a U.S. lab. That's chiefly because Ames strain anthrax, the type used in the
letters, has been distributed by USAMRIID to about 20 U.S labs since 1981. Of those,
only four facilities are believed to have the ability to produce the highly lethal, dry powder
form of the Ames strain anthrax the lethal letters contained.
But despite signs that this should narrow the list of anthrax suspects to a few dozen people,
the FBI appears to be casting a wider net in its investigation, which seems to have made
fairly limited progress since the first victim, American Media Inc. photo editor Bob Stevens,
died of anthrax inhalation four months ago.
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