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Anthrax: FBI Attempts to Recreate Spores Used in Attacks U.S. investigators and scientists have been working for months to recreate the anthrax spores used in last year’s attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller said Friday (see GSN, Oct. 29). “We’re replicating the way or ways it might be manufactured, but it is not an easy task,” Mueller said. “We are going into new territory in some areas.” Personnel from several U.S. agencies are conducting the experiments at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, sources said (see GSN, May 21). FBI officials refused to say whether investigators are using live anthrax bacteria in the research project and whether scientists are producing spores from scratch. The FBI might be trying to determine how difficult it would have been to produce the spores used in last year’s attacks, according to some experts. “They’d probably want to look at several methods of doing it — try to make it several different ways to reproduce the end result,” said David Franz, head of the Chemical and Biological Defense Division of the Southern Research Institute and former commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md. “It doesn’t seem like an unreasonable idea” (Eggen/Gugliotta, Washington Post, Nov. 2). Simple Spores Two scientists with knowledge of the FBI’s “Amerithrax” investigation believe it would have been relatively easy to manufacture the anthrax spores used in last fall’s attacks with only tabletop equipment costing a few thousand dollars, the Baltimore Sun reported yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 28). While experts initially believed that the spores were treated with an additive such as silica to help them disperse more easily, many now believe that no additive was used and that the spores were made through a relatively simple process, the scientists said. “There’s really nothing all that special about it,” one of the scientists said. “There are many ways to do it.” The confusion over the possible addition of silica could have occurred because X-ray studies of the spores used in the attacks detected evidence of the chemical element silicon, a component of silica, said Matthew Meselson, a Harvard University biologist. Other studies have shown, however, that silicon exists naturally in anthrax, Meselson said. The powder in the tainted letters was almost pure anthrax, with about 1 trillion spores per gram. Such a high level of purity was believed to be another indication of the anthrax’s sophistication, according to the Baltimore Sun. The purity level can be reached, however, through relatively simple production methods such as repeatedly processing the mixture in a centrifuge and removing nonspore materials, said one of the two scientists with knowledge of the FBI’s investigation. While the anthrax produced in the former U.S. biological weapons program had a much lower purity level, that was because the methods used were meant for large-scale production, the scientist said. The program could have produced a mixture with a higher purity level on a smaller scale, the scientist said (Scott Shane, Baltimore Sun, Nov. 3). FBI Director Unsatisfied With Progress Mueller also said Friday that he is not satisfied with the current status of the FBI’s inquiry into last year’s anthrax attacks, but investigators are making progress. “Am I satisfied? No, because we don’t have the person or persons responsible identified, and charges being brought against them,” Mueller said. “Are we making progress? Yes. And we continue to make progress. We continue to have a number of individuals that we are looking at” (Reuters/Los Angeles Times, Nov. 2). For further information, see: GSN Anthrax Attack Chronology (Dec. 12, 2001)
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