http://www.boston.com/news/daily/17/anthrax_investigation.htm

Tests link Florida and N.Y. anthrax, CDC says

By Karen Gullo, Associated Press, 10/17/01

WASHINGTON -- Preliminary tests show the anthrax sent to New York and Florida were the same strain, and the FBI is pursuing "substantive leads" in the investigation into who may have sent the poisons, officials said Wednesday.

Law enforcement and other U.S. officials said there was no evidence so far of foreign terrorist involvement in the anthrax attacks, and one official said some evidence might suggest a domestic source.

There is no evidence the anthrax was associated with a weapons program, one official said.

The investigation was moving on several fronts as authorities conducted complex tests on the anthrax that has shown up in at least four cities in recent days -- including NBC News in New York and a publishing company in Florida.

After preliminary testing, said Dr. David Fleming of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "the strain in New York appears to match the strain in Florida."

It was not yet clear whether the Washington anthrax came from the same strain, he said.

Matching strains do not necessarily mean the anthrax came from the same source. More tests would be needed to confirm that, officials have said.

Investigators reported some leads based on evidence derived from the powdery substance found in letters sent to various locations.

"We have substantive leads," said a senior federal law enforcement official in bioterrorism. That official, like the others in law enforcement, spoke only on condition of anonymity. "We have leads in the sense of working with the material."

Tests have determined that the anthrax found in a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was professionally made but was not weapons-grade bacteria and is responsive to antibiotics, the official said.

One official said there was evidence that could point toward a domestic culprit. While some of the anthrax-laced powder was refined in a way to make it airborne, preliminary tests suggest the strain was common to the United States, the official said.

The official added that the letters sent to NBC-TV anchor Tom Brokaw in New York and to Daschle at the Capitol urged the use of medicine or alerted the recipients to the presence of the poison -- something deemed unlikely for a terrorist seeking mass casualties.

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2001

Answers

MSNBC just reported that samples of the Daschle anthrax are being sent to the University of Arizona where, apparently, there are samples of anthrax collected by weapons inspectors in Iraq. . .

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2001