ANTHRAX - It's not ours (we aren't that good...)

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http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/299/nation/Specialists_say_anthrax_in_mail_too_potent_to_come_from_US%2b.shtml

Specialists say anthrax in mail too potent to come from US

By Alice Dembner and David Abel, Globe Staff, 10/26/2001

The pure, concentrated, and potent form of anthrax mailed to Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle is much more likely to have come from Iraq or Russia than any civilian or military lab in the United States, two bioweapons specialists said yesterday.

Although anthrax is used in hundreds of labs in the United States and readily exchanged by researchers, it is typically kept in a much less dangerous form.

''I'm not aware of any lab in the US that would have this matter,'' said Dr. David Franz, a retired commander of the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease at Fort Detrick, Md. Franz spoke at Harvard last night.

The United States ended its military anthrax program in 1969, but Iraq and the Soviet Union continued theirs, and Franz said it's quite possible they created fine particles of anthrax and treated them to float in the air so they would become lethal.

Three people have died in the past month from inhaled anthrax and numerous others are ill as a result of letters containing a virulent form of the bacterium.

Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge yesterday declined to point a finger at any nation or individual, saying the country is ''up against a shadow enemy.''

''I'm not prepared to tell you today the range of potential actors who could have ... created as pure and as concentrated and as respirable an anthrax as we are working on,'' he said. ''I don't know if it's a large range or a narrow range.''

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has subpoenaed detailed information from domestic laboratories about stocks of anthrax, who had access to them, and whether any was transferred to other locations or lost or stolen.

''I had to supply all my personnel records,'' said Philip Hanna, a microbiologist at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor who studies anthrax.

Other scientists have suggested that the weapons-grade anthrax could have been produced from a safer form of the bacteria by a person with knowledge of both microbiology and the physical and chemical techniques to refine the substance into a weapon.

Ridge said yesterday that all the anthrax used in the mailings so far is from the Ames strain, which was originally isolated from naturally occurring anthrax in Ames, Iowa, but is now available around the world.

Some 48 germ banks abroad offer anthrax for free or at a minimal price to anyone who presents himself as a scientist. In the United States, scientists estimate there are as many as 250 labs with live anthrax, ranging from universities that are studying the bacterium to departments of public health that keep live bacteria for reference.

The United States is also home to the American Type Culture Collection, a Virginia business which provides bacteria and organisms of many types to scientists around the world. Since the government tightened rules in 1997, any transfers of anthrax are supposed to be approved by the Centers for Disease Control, but some scientists said it is still possible to get anthrax ''off the books.''

One specialist in biological warfare suggested it was even possible that the military's own resources were used. Since the early 1970s, the Pentagon has maintained an active research program to develop defenses against anthrax and other potential bioweapons.

''The ability to maintain defensive research requires a very sophisticated infrastructure,'' said William Martel, a professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College.

''Is it possible for rogue elements within the US to go offline and do something? Sure. The ability to generate a sophisticated defensive capability means you need to understand bioweapons in an offensive and defensive way.''

Chuck Dasey, a spokesman for the Army Medical Research and Materiel Command at Fort Detrick said that in recent years the military has obtained weaponized anthrax from Russia to test vaccines and antibiotics, but said none had been lost or stolen.

Richard Spertzel, a former member of the United Nations Special Commission team that investigated Iraq's biological weapons program, dismissed the idea that the material was stolen in its weaponized form from the military.

''The only way you can prepare this quality of material in the United States is if you were working inside a containment suite - and for someone to get access to these kind of areas, it's so remote, it's not even worth discussing,'' he said. ''A disgruntled employee couldn't just walk out with a culture.''

Spertzel said he believes the anthrax came from abroad.

''I very much expect that Al Qaeda has got this somehow. At the top of my list is Iraq, but it could also come from the former Soviet program or it could be from a number of other countries, such as Iran, Libya, North Korea, or even China. I don't think it's homegrown.''

-- Anonymous, October 26, 2001

Answers

Hmm, that's not what the experts were saying yesterday. I wonder what they'll say tomorrow? (By "they," I mean other experts.)

-- Anonymous, October 26, 2001

Just heard on the radio that "fingerprinting" has ruled out the U.S.

-- Anonymous, October 26, 2001

Really! Then, my guess is Iraq (as in when Atta met the Iraqi guy in Prague) or someone bought it from Russia.

-- Anonymous, October 26, 2001

I doubt the final word is in. My guess is that it isn't "official" U.S. or Russian anthrax.

-- Anonymous, October 26, 2001

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