Anthrax:  Tests Show Potency of Daschle Letter Spores

Federal scientists discovered that they could aerosolize already-settled anthrax spores in the offices of U.S. Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) simply by moving about the office.  The finding reaffirms the suspicions that the anthrax in the letter received by Daschle was highly refined and professionally produced, according to the New York Times.  Meanwhile, investigators are continuing to track down who is responsible for the anthrax incidents, according to reports.

Anthrax spores floated back up into the air when researchers in Daschle’s office simulated normal office activity a month after their initial release, according to scientists.  The tests, conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Public Health Service, countered earlier claims by the U.S. military that once spores landed on a surface, they would rarely become airborne again.

The test results were announced yesterday during a meeting conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on research needs for combating bioterrorism.  Participants discussed new testing and cleanup measures, including what liquid disinfectants are most effective, new environmental sampling techniques and methods for determining when a decontaminated building is safe, EPA official Dorothy Canter said.  (Lawrence Altman, New York Times, Dec. 10).

More than 200 scientists and experts attended yesterday’s CDC meeting.  Participants came from the CDC, the military, universities and research facilities.  “We are very mindful this is not over,” said Julie Gerberding, deputy director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases.  “If we thought it was over, there would perhaps be less need for a meeting like this” (M.A.J. McKenna, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dec. 11).

“Amerithrax” Investigation Continues

More than 700 FBI agents plus agents from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, state and local police and others are working on the anthrax investigation, which is code-named “Amerithrax,” the Wall Street Journal reported today.

The investigation is proceeding on three theories, the Journal reported.  One theory is that the person responsible is acting alone like the Unabomber.  The second is that a domestic terrorist group is responsible, and the third is that a foreign or state-sponsored terrorist group is responsible.

One source of clues for investigators are the four tainted letters sent to Senator Daschle, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw and the New York Post.  One clue found in the Post letter was that the handwritten note was on paper of a size that is uncommon in this country, an FBI official said.  Few other clues have been found in the three early letters, law-enforcement officials said.

The handwriting on the envelopes and enclosed notes (see GSN, Nov. 1) has been run through the Secret Service’s Forensic Information System for Handwriting (FISH), according to the Journal.  The Secret Service scanned the handwriting into a system that includes digital images of thousands of threats sent to presidents and officials.  The FISH system searched for similar handwriting and syntax between the sample and the database, but there were no matches, the Journal reported.

The U.S. Capitol Police is also comparing the anthrax letters, by hand, with its file of threatening letters sent to members of Congress, said Capt. David Callaway, head of the Capitol Police’s investigation division.

Leahy Letter Could Provide New Leads

Testing on anthrax spores taken from the recently decontaminated Leahy letter will focus on three areas, according to a member of the FBI group that will conduct the tests (see GSN, Dec. 6).  One area consists of the biological traits of the spores, such as their genetic makeup.  The second consists of the chemical components of the powder, such as what drying agents were used, and the third consists of the physical properties of the powder.

The CDC has a process that could detect other biological agents in the anthrax powder, said Mitchell Cohen, director of the CDC’s bacterial and mycotic diseases division.  The process could help determine the origin of the anthrax, especially if a microbe was found in the powder that only came from a specific part of the world, Cohen said.

Military Connection

FBI officials said any U.S. military connection to the anthrax incidents was just one path of inquiry they are investigating (see GSN, Dec. 10).  The FBI issued a subpoena for a list of everyone who worked at the U.S. Army Medical Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMIID) at Fort Detrick, Md., according to a USAMIID senior employee.

“There are people who left here under less-than-the-best circumstances who are being investigated—where did they go and what are they doing?” the employee said.

Other military research facilities also had access to anthrax, according to the USAMIID employee.  He noted the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah and described it as a bleak and isolated place.  “They work with anthrax there, and they have just one hell of a turnover.  It’s 17 miles of just open desert from the main gate to the main lab,” the USAMIID employee said.  Working in such an environment could cause anger among employees, according to the Journal.  “It’s like going to a penitentiary,” he said (Wall Street Journal, Dec. 11).

Backlog of Mail Returning to Congress

At an irradiation plant in Lima, Ohio, workers are sanitizing congressional mail in 147 trucks before the mail heads back to Washington over the next few weeks, according to the Los Angeles Times.  Another 507 bags of mail taken by the FBI as possible evidence have tested negative for anthrax and are ready to be sanitized.

About 65 bags of mail taken by the FBI at the onset of the anthrax incidents tested positive for anthrax, the Times reported.  Members of Congress debated what to do with this mail.  House Administration Chairman Bob Ney (R-Ohio) wants it destroyed. “Why truck it across state lines?” asked Ney’s communications director Jim Forbes.

“I want to see each letter,” said Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).  “It’s very time consuming, but it’s an important part of the job” (Johanna Neuman, Los Angeles Times/Chicago Tribune, Dec. 10).

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BWC: Review Conference Collapses

The Fifth Review Conference of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention ended Friday (see GSN, Dec. 7) with no agreements after the United States moved to end future talks on a verification protocol to the treaty.

With only an hour left to go before the three-week conference came to an end, the United States introduced a proposal to the conference's final declaration that called for an end to the Ad Hoc Group, a committee of nations that had been working on a 210-page protocol outlining enforcement measures for the convention (see GSN, Nov. 27).  “The conference takes note of the work of the Ad Hoc Group and decides that the Ad Hoc Group and its mandate are hereby terminated,” the U.S. proposal read (Associated Press/New York Times, Dec. 9).

Following the U.S. motion, the chairman decided to suspend the conference and adjourn until November rather than bring the declaration up for a vote in its current state.

The United States had appeared Thursday to be accepting of vague wording in the final declaration that would have allowed the Ad Hoc Group's mandate to continue, according to the Financial Times (Frances Williams, Financial Times, Dec. 9).  Other states had reportedly presumed that, absent a measure terminating the Ad Hoc Group, it would continue to meet and discuss a mandatory inspections regime, which the United States opposes (UN Wire, Dec. 7).

Delegates React

The final U.S proposal shocked and angered many conference delegates, according to the Financial Times.  “The U.S. was willing to let the conference fail,” said Oliver Meier of the Verification Research, Training and Information Center.  “While U.S. citizens are dying from biological weapons, even the most modest proposals to strengthen the bioweapons ban were not acceptable to Washington” (Williams, Financial Times).

“We had a kind of agreement with the United States ... to be informed of their proposals, and that one took us totally by surprise, and that was totally different from what the [European Union] wants,” said Jean Lint, head of the EU delegation.  “So for us, this was totally unacceptable,” Lint said (Emma Kirby, BBC Online, Dec. 7).

“They treated us like dirt,” said another EU delegate.  “They are liars.  In decades of multilateral negotiations, we've never experienced this kind of insulting behavior” (Sunshine Project release, Dec. 7).

The European Union said in a statement that it remains committed to “multilateral” negotiations and that the Ad Hoc Group's 1994 mandate remains “completely valid” (Richard Waddington, Reuters/Yahoo! News, Dec. 7).

U.S. Answers Critics

The Bush administration believes the enforcement and verification protocol being designed by the Ad Hoc Group would do little to stop rogue nations, such as Iraq, from obtaining biological weapons, according to a U.S. State Department official.  “If the conference had continued, there was a danger that continued negotiations would have undermined our concerted efforts to strengthen the convention,” the official said.

U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton agreed that creating a meaningful way to strengthen the convention is the most important thing.  “We believe compliance is essential for any arms control regime to be meaningful,” Bolton said.  He added that while the Bush administration is “disappointed” that an agreement could not be reached, it was better than “trying to paper over substantive disagreements with artful drafting.”

“I wish we could have continued talking, but it was obvious that we would not reach an agreement,” Bolton said.  “A cooling-off period will be a good thing” (Allen/Mufson, Washington Post, Dec. 8).

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Al-Qaeda:  Anthrax Found in Al-Qaeda Home

Samples of substances found in the Kabul home of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri tested positive for anthrax spores, according to U.S. intelligence officials, Newsweek reported yesterday.  The samples were to be retested.

U.S. operatives in Afghanistan have also discovered evidence indicating that one or more Russian scientists were helping al-Qaeda develop anthrax, and that the terrorist network might have stockpiled anthrax spores.  U.S. bombing raids destroyed most of any stockpiles, intelligence sources said.  The sources did not know how much anthrax was removed from Afghanistan, if any, they said.

The Kabul office of Pakistani scientist Sultan Bashiru-din Mehmood (see GSN, Nov. 28) also contained documents indicating an interest in anthrax (Newsweek, Dec. 9).

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Anthrax:  U.S. Military May Have Ties to Incidents

Those responsible for the recent U.S. anthrax incidents may have some connection to the U.S. military and may even be members, according to reports (see GSN, Dec. 4).

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said Saturday that he believes it probably was someone formerly in the military who sent him a tainted letter.  Daschle said no one could say conclusively that a domestic source is responsible, but “as we look at all the possibilities, that one has the greatest degree of credibility right now” (Agence France-Presse, Dec. 9).

Scientists who worked on the U.S. biological warfare program at Fort Detrick in Maryland said they were surprised that the FBI has not done more to question them.

“That is really, really, surprising,” said I. Michael Greenberger, former head of counterterrorism at the U.S. Justice Department.  “That just takes my breath away.  This is supposed to be a no-stones-unturned investigation,” Greenberger said. “My first instinct would be to go to these guys and ask them what it’s like to make stuff like this.  Plus, they’re potential suspects, because of their experience.”

The remaining former scientists, of whom only two dozen are still living, have been waiting for the FBI to contact them about what they know or about any possible connection to the incidents, according to the Baltimore Sun.  “I’ve got the education to do it.  I live alone.  I’ve got two baths, so I could use one as a lab,” said 84-year-old James Smith, a researcher at Fort Detrick from 1943 to 1971.  “I want to be examined as a potential terrorist.”

Several scientists said the anthrax used in the incidents has no connection to the strains used for research as part of the former offensive biological warfare program in the United States (see GSN, Dec. 4).  At the time of the program, U.S. researchers used a type of anthrax called the Vollum strain.  Genetic tests have shown that the strain in the current incidents is the Ames strain, which is similar to Vollum but not identical, according to the Sun.

The anthrax culprit, however, could have learned more about making an anthrax weapon from the research conducted by the former bioweapon scientists.  Bill Walter, a former Fort Detrick scientist, said that in 1970 he spent months reading and organizing more than 6,000 papers on biological warfare research written during the 27 years of the U.S. program.

Those papers were later sent to other military facilities, Walter said.  He added that he was afraid that routine declassification might have made some of them available to whoever is behind the anthrax incidents.  “A lot of us are shook up by this declassification thing,” Walter said.  “It would give the terrorists a cookbook” (Scott Shane, Baltimore Sun, Dec. 9).

Campus Labs Examined

The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston is scheduled to be the first U.S. university laboratory inspected by the Health and Human Services Department Office of the Inspector General, the Christian Science Monitor reported today.  The inspection, planned for tomorrow, is part of a Congressional effort to examine the security of U.S. research facilities (see GSN, Nov. 27).

The UTMB is scheduled to begin construction in January of a new “level 4” laboratory—the highest biosafety designation.  It will be the first U.S. university laboratory with that level of biosafety, which allows researchers to handle the most dangerous microbes.

Only a rough estimate can be made of the number of facilities that handle anthrax samples because no inventory is kept, according to the Monitor.  About 250 laboratories are registered with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to work with “select agents,” such as Ebola, smallpox and anthrax.  Of those, it is estimated that up to 30 work with anthrax, according to the Monitor.

In order to remedy disparities between research facilities in the way they handle microbes, the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) has asked Congress to consider new safety and security measures.  The new measures would include a better tracking system, a better communications network and increased staffing, among others.  “For years and years and years, the nation did not see the need to spend money on these labs, until recently,” said APHL Executive Director Scott Becker (Kris Axtman, Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 10).

Copiers Could Conceal Clues

Since the note inside the anthrax-tainted letter sent to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) appears to be a photocopied version of the one sent to Sen. Daschle, it may be easier to determine who mailed it, according to FBI sources.

A photocopier can leave behind a “fingerprint,” made up of the tiny scratches and bits of dirt on the copier’s glass and lens, the New York Post reported.  The FBI plans to investigate the Leahy letter for this kind of fingerprint, which could help narrow down what copier the sender used.  The information would allow investigators to focus on businesses and libraries near the homes of potential suspects, according to the Post.

Copy-making stores such as Kinko’s have become increasingly interesting due to terrorist customers, according to the Post.  The newspaper reported that several of the hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks made airplane reservations at a Florida Kinko’s.  Anti-abortion militant Clayton Lee Waagner, believed to be responsible for hundreds of anthrax hoax letters mailed to reproductive health clinics, was recently arrested (see GSN, Dec. 6) outside of a Kinko’s in Ohio (Brad Hunter, New York Post, Dec. 10).

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