Did Anthrax Powder Come from Dugway Proving Ground?

[AntiFascist]

Searching the web, I've come across some interesting information regarding the nature of the anthrax traced to Dr. Ivins.

First of all, it may be important to note that Ivins co-authored a research paper outlining the use of aerosolized anthrax on rhesus monkeys, so in fact he was using live anthrax spores in aerosolized form on live subjects to test effectiveness of anthrax vaccines:

http://www.anthrax.osd.mil/documents/library/efficacyExperimental.pdf

...

B.anthracis challenge

Spores of the virulent B. anthracis Ames strain
were harvested from shaking broth ... After minute respiratory volumes
were measured, animals were exposed in a head-only chamber to a spore
aerosol generated by a three-jet Collison nebulizer.

Note, this alone does NOT prove that Dr. Ivins handled powdered anthrax in his facility as part of his testing, but could he have been testing weaponized anthrax on the rhesus monkeys?

The following blog questions whether the material in the flask was already treated with advanced materials (weaponized):

http://achievingourcountry.blogspot.com/2008/08/first-search-warrant-in-ivins-case.html

Several crucial pieces of information are missing here. First, we don't have the amount of material that is in RMR-1029 or its status in terms of processing with regard to purity or possible processing to weaponize it. In later sections of the warrant, Ivins is said to also refer to this flask interchangeably as "Dugway Ames Spores -- 1997", so it is entirely possible that the spores in RMR-1029 are treated with advanced materials.

...

So we do know that the material in RMR-1029 is highly purified. We still don't know if it is treated in any way to make it more dangerous. We also know that the flask is "large" but still have no idea how much material is there.

This New Scientist article from 2002 notes:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2265-anthrax-attack-bug-identical-to-army-strain.html

So strain D seems to have come from Dugway. The difference between D and the attack strain is not great - there are 36 adenines in a row, instead of 35 - but Keim's team made doubly sure by sequencing that part of the D strain's genome.

This New Scientist article dated Aug. 7, 2008 notes that Ivins was the sole custodian of spores produced by the Army at Dugway:

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/dn14486-investigators-confident-ivins-was-anthrax-attacker.html?feedId=online-news_rss20

Crucially, they say Ivins was "sole custodian" of a single batch of spores of the Ames strain of anthrax, produced at the army's Dugway facility in Utah in 1997 and stored in a containment lab at USAMRIID.

Then there is this odd claim!

The documents say little about the most difficult step in the process – producing a fine, dry spore powder. They say Ivins simply grew fresh bacteria from the batch for each round of mailings, then dried them.

Their only basis for this claim is that two envelopes addressed to the media also contained a common soil bacterium, which they say got in during culture.

There are other ways such a contaminant could get in, however. The Dugway material should already have been powdered, and the attacker could simply have packaged it, which would have required little skill.

Finally, as I have noted in previous posts, there is this Baltimore Sun article from 2001 where it is noted:

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/anthraxmatchesarmyspores.html

Most anthrax testing at Dugway, in a barren Utah desert 87 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, is done using the killed spores to reduce the chance of accidental exposure of workers there. But some experiments require live anthrax, milled to the tiny particle size expected on a battlefield, to test both decontamination techniques and biological agent detection systems, the sources say.

...

Anthrax is also grown at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, where it is used chiefly to test the effectiveness of vaccines in animals. But that medical program uses a wet aerosol fog <see research article above> of anthrax rather than the dry powder used in the attacks and at Dugway, according to interviews and medical journal articles based on the research.

...

Scientists familiar with the anthrax program at Dugway described it to The Sun on the condition that they not be named. The offensive program made hundreds of kilograms of anthrax for bombs designed to kill enemy troops over hundreds of square miles. Dugway's Life Sciences Division makes the deadly spores in far, far smaller quantities, rarely accumulating more than 10 grams at a time, according to one Army official.

Scientists estimate that the letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle originally contained about 2 grams of anthrax, about one-sixteenth of an ounce, or the weight of a dime. But its extraordinary concentration - in the range of 1 trillion spores per gram - meant that the letter could have contained 200 million times the average dose necessary to kill a person. Dugway's weapons-grade anthrax has been milled to achieve a similar concentration, according to one person familiar with the program.

[EFerrari]

1. The science makes my eyes glaze over but I have a question.

Why would he use weaponized anthrax on rhesus monkeys? Wouldn't that make it difficult to measure their exposure in units? If the goal was to test a vaccine, why add that variable?

[AntiFascist]

2. I'm not an expert in this, but my guess would be...

that they wanted to simulate battlefield conditions as closely as possible. The head guy in bio-weapons research, Ken Alibek, was a Soviet defector and brought with him sophisticated techniques developed by the Soviet Union to be used at Dugway. The information about Soviet anthrax is probably not available, but its not hard to imagine sophisticated weaponized anthrax getting into the wrong hands and used against our own troops. I'm restraining myself from going into even worse conspiracy theories.

[defendandprotect]

14. And keep in mind that the stuff used was highly sophisticated . . .

beyond what had been produced before ---

and there is no proof that Ivins knew how to create weaponized anthrax ---

he worked on the other end of this --- vaccines.


Weaponized anthrax this sophisticatedly airborne had never been seen before ---

[JDPriestly]

3. Very interesting.

My conclusion thus far: It could have been Ivins, but either the FBI has not disclosed all of the evidence, or questions remain as to whether (a) he acted alone or with accomplices, (b) whether he had the technical capacity and access to the correct form of anthrax to carry out the attacks by himself.

Also, we have not been told whether the FBI eliminated all of the potential suspects before settling on Ivins.

The FBI has suggested several motives for Ivins. But whether Ivins had the means (technical knowledge to mill the anthrax or enough of the aerosolized anthrax that had already been milled) and the opportunity (to be at the right mailbox at the right time to have posted all the letters) is unclear. The FBI has given partial or insufficient information to support its conclusions on the means and opportunity elements.

I can't definitively rule Ivins in or out at this point. A trial would have given the authorities the opportunity to prove that Ivins acted alone. Without a trial, we will probably never know.

But, the FBI may have lots of reasons not to want a trial including not wanting to present information that is top secret for good reason in a public trial. Frankly, do we really want to be experts on anthrax? Do we want every crazy character on the planet to gain expertise on anthrax? We may have to settle for uncertainty on this one. I believe in open government, but disseminating information about extremely dangerous substances has nothing to do with open government.

This anthrax matter just may be one of those extremely rare issues about which the information provided to the public is very limited. And I do think such issues are very, very rare.

[AntiFascist]

4. I have a darker take on what is going on...

the government may want us to think that weaponized anthrax could be widely available and easily created by terrorists. The information that I posted above may indicate otherwise. There may only be a handful of people with the knowledge required for creating such concentrated forms, and the anthrax provided to Fort Detrick, even if it was in liquid or paste form, may have already been weaponized by one of the few facilities with this capability.

[EFerrari]

5. "The public" could never hurt America as much as Bush has.

There is no good reason not to air this out. Unless you get experts on the stand reciting recipes (which most people wouldn't understand in any case), there is no reason that this crime against the American people can't be resolved.

The motives FBI has forwarded are weak at best. There is a question about means AND opportunity.

What this non-resolution resolution should point out to us is that the corrupt Bush Justice Department is big on theatrics and not so big on justice. And that, finally, they really don't care very much if their show goes over or not.

[Supersedeas]

6. their whole case relies on Ivins adding contaminant

[AntiFascist]

9. and that may only be in the case of the anthrax sent to the media...

the anthrax sent to the Senate may be much more sophisticated, and more like the weaponized version from Dugway.

[suffragette]

12. The ones sent to the media were described as "sand-like granules"

http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/ny-nyanth14,0,5467834.story

or

"a brown granular substance."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1599212.stm

That sent to Daschle:
From: http://www.fact-archive.com/encyclopedia/2001_anthrax_attacksThe anthrax in the Daschle letter was described as fine powder. In comparison, the Daschle material was ten times denser in anthrax spores when compared to the retrieved New York Post sample. The Daschle anthrax consisted of nearly pure spores, with a concentration of a trillion spores per gram.



Whoa. In looking this up and scanning through the BBC article dated Sunday, 14 October, 2001, I saw something I haven't noticed before:

Robert Stevens, a photo editor at the Sun tabloid in Boca Raton, Florida, died from anthrax on 5 October.

Five more Florida-based employees of its parent company, American Media Inc, are being tested for suspected anthrax exposure. Conclusive results are not expected for several days.

In an unusual twist, it has emerged that the wife of the Sun's editor rented an apartment to two of the hijackers in the 11 September terrorist attacks.

The FBI said the link between the attacks and the anthrax scare was purely coincidental.

WTF? I can't even begin to comment on that.

[aquart]

7. Okay. Questions:

Why would Ivins be custodian of Dugway powder if his usage of spores was confined to the wet aerosol version? Where is the confirmation that the Dugway spores were not powder when they went into Ivins' custody?

Dugway is the likely source of powdered Ames anthrax. If so, who else has access to the powder?

Does the aerosolized anthrax have the same vast spore concentration as the Dugway powder? Is the anthrax concentrated (milled?) before it is powdered or after?

It's late and that's off the top of my head. Someone tell me if those questions make sense?

G'night.

[AntiFascist]

10. From the information provided by coworkers...

when Ivins was assisting the FBI in analyzing the anthrax sent to one of the senators, he seemed genuinely fascinated by the way the powder just floated off of the slide (paraphrasing). Maybe he had never seen it before?

Also, in the last article linked to in my original post, the anonymous sources claim that there are extemely tight controls over how the anthrax is checked out and checked back in, and that was only for the liquid form. I would imagine that the powdered form would be treated similarly to nuclear weapons. If the FBI admitted that the source of the weaponized anthrax was ultimately the Dugway Proving Ground, then it could mean that there was an extreme security breach, and probably a scandal on the order of the B-52 nuclear incident.

[aquart]

16. So this is, possibly, a Dugway coverup?

There's a well-known cartoon of a scientist and a blackboards with lots of formula on it...and the words "And then a miracle occurred." I have to admit, when I read the bit about Ivins conveniently making powdered anthrax as needed, that's what popped into my mind.

[AntiFascist]

17. Check this out...

Biodefense researchers began spreading fear immediately before the results of the anthrax attacks were being reported by the media, in this article which appeared in Utah's Deseretnews...Note, this article only comes up under the cached version:

Deseretnews.com
October 01, 2001

65% fear mass attack

...

"A biological agent could be loosed clandestinely as an invisible, odorless aerosal spray that drifted slowly. People would not begin to fall ill for days or weeks, Henderson said. <Director for Civilian Biodefense Studies at Johns Hopkins>

...

Charles L. Bailey, vice president for science at Advanced Biosystems, Manassass, Va. said the ordinary terrorist would have a hard time brewing up deadly anthrax spores...State-sponsored terrorism "would be a whole 'nother story" from some ragtag group whipping up spores in the labatory, Bailey said. "Somehow or other they would get the material in this county in an already 'weaponized' form"

...

How much anthrax would be needed? As much as a truckload? "For a biological agent, absolutely not..."

<Somehow or other?>

[screembloodymurder]

8. I want an investigation because I'd like to see the FBI

explain the exculpatory evidence they didn't release.

[FormerOstrich]

11. Since the time of

the attacks and now I have believed there to be links between Dugway, Battelle, and Monsonto.

I posted links to this article from Novebmer 2003, yesterday or the day before. There is a lot of good information contained in it.

One doesn’t have to look very far to find a powder that more closely resembles the
Senate anthrax. The U.S. Army’s newest batch of anthrax simulant is a closer match,
made with B. globigii (BG) spores, which are similar to anthrax but nonlethal.

http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/Anthrax_Science.pdf

[defendandprotect]

13. If this is true . . . why would Ivins use "aerosolized" anthrax . . .

if he knew how to make it "airborne" . . . ????

Isn't AIRBORNE anthrax what the idea is?


FURTHER . . . evidently there are only 4-5 scientists in America who know how to make

weaponized anthrax -- and Ivins wasn't one of them. But one of them did say that in

order to produce the very SOPHISTICATED AIRBORNE ANTHRAX that was used, especially in

the Daschle letter, that it would take him a year and he'd need a lot of staff and a lab --

and then he wasn't sure if he could do it.


AND . . . supposedly Ivins was surprised when he saw the floatability of the Anthrax

from "the letters" --- and it was these samples from the letters which contaminated his

office and his co-worker's office ---

[Supersedeas]

15. I really don't think Congress wants to get to the bottom of this

[EFerrari]

18. Reading around, I found this 2003 WaPo article on the stalking of Hatfill

The Pursuit of Steven Hatfill

By Marilyn W. Thompson
Sunday, September 14, 2003; Page W06

He says he's a patriot, and some on the front lines of the war against terror sing his praises. But his provocative life and career have kept him at the center of the FBI's frustrating hunt for the anthrax killer.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49717-2003Sep9?language=printer

This is what FBI were saying at that time:

"FBI psychologists, handwriting analysts and forensic experts used the letters to produce an early behavioral profile of the perpetrator. The analysis took into account the words and phrases chosen by the writer, the style of punctuation and the selection of intended targets. The conclusion: The killer was most likely a middle-aged white male with scientific expertise who had some recent beef with the government and chose media and political targets for maximum visibility. It was likely, FBI analyst James Fitzgerald said, that the criminal had timed the letters to take advantage of the 9/11 panic and hoped to use them to draw attention to his special, as yet unknown cause.

Privately, agents shared other theories. The perpetrator might have an interest in an enterprise that could benefit from the hysteria surrounding a bioterror event. And almost certainly, agents hypothesized, the perpetrator had no idea what postal machines would do to a finely ground anthrax powder."

Does Bruce Ivins strike you as someone who wouldn't know how postal machines work? The guy was curious about everything. He could probably have built a postal machine for fun if he set out to explain it to you. I don't buy that for a minute, any more than I buy that Ivins had any reason to mail those envelopes knowing, as he would have, that they would kill total strangers on their way to their recipients' desks.

[jaksavage]

19. Cover Up !!!! nt