FYI: What IS the Ames anthrax strain? Good historical article from NYer.

[EFerrari]

Source: The New Yorker, Nov. 12, 2001.

DEPT. OF EPIDEMIOLOGY

The Ames Strain
How a sick cow in Iowa may have helped to create a lethal bioweapon.
by Peter J. Boyer

On the evening of October 12th, a group of scientists and academics at Iowa State University's veterinary college, in Ames, Iowa, gathered in one of the school's laboratories for a procedure involving the university's collection of Bacillus anthracis, the bacteria that causes the disease anthrax. The school's anthrax collection was noteworthy both for what was known about it and for what was merely speculated. What was known was that over the years Iowa State's veterinary microbiologists had accumulated more than a hundred vials containing various strains of anthrax, some dating back to 1928. In 1978, a fondly remembered professor named R. Allen Packer had uncorked one of the fifty-year-old vials and, after a couple of tries, was able to coax the bacillus back to life. The experiment, a testament to the remarkable durability of anthrax spores, had lent a certain distinction to the collection.

What was speculated about the Iowa State anthrax was even more compelling. One week earlier, on October 5th, a Florida photo editor named Bob Stevens (case 5), at American Media Inc., had died of anthrax, the first bioterror fatality in what has come to be known as "the homeland." Early news reports suggested that the F.B.I. had traced the anthrax to a laboratory in Ames, from which the bacteria had perhaps been stolen or otherwise obtained by terrorists.

The reports of an Ames connection to the anthrax terrors caused much excitement in Iowa, and the College of Veterinary Medicine was suddenly fielding scores of calls from reporters wanting to know about the deadly "Ames strain" of anthrax. The trouble was, nobody at the school knew anything about an "Ames strain" -- whether it was the strain of anthrax infecting the mail, whether the Iowa State lab had ever possessed it, or even whether there was such a thing as an "Ames strain." None of the vials were identified as "Ames," but then the labels were cryptic, some bearing only numbers or dates.

The scientists and teachers at Iowa State's veterinary school had not been incautious with their anthrax specimens, but neither had they been obsessed with security. The school's anthrax collection had been stored in cabinets in the teaching laboratory, the doors of which were routinely locked at night. In the context of the academy, this relative casualness was not unusual, especially in the heart of the farm belt, where science was employed as a plowshare rather than as a sword. When an associated laboratory nearby, run by the United States Department of Agriculture, had outgrown its building space a few years earlier, it had moved some of its work on anthrax and mad-cow disease to a rented space in an Ames strip mall. But all of that was before the Florida incident.

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/Bioter/theamesstrain.html

[AntiFascist]

1. That article doesn't mention Project Jefferson (Ohio)....

Bob Fritakis' FreePress.org article is all over the web:

As I reported in the Columbus Alive immediately after the anthrax scare began, Battelle is involved in developing a new and stronger strain of anthrax at its West Jefferson, Ohio labs. Don't be deceived by the fake farmland facades of the W. Jefferson complex. It's the center of a top secret defense project going under the name 'Project Jefferson,' according to the New York Times. The actual lab is BL-3 Anthrax Lab. The Times also confirmed that the CIA is also involved with its own top secret anthrax project called code name 'Clear Vision.'

As I noted in the Alive, the former No. 2 man in the Soviet
biochemical warfare operation, Kanatjan Alibekov (now going by the alias Ken Alibek) is a classified consultant with both the CIA and Battelle. A 1998 New Yorker article pointed out the work between William C. Patrick III and Alibeck on the anthrax project.

Battelle emerged during WWII as a top secret facility because of its work on the Manhattan Project. Battelle was responsible for innovations in uranium ore that was actually milled in Columbus. Battelle and Bioport stood to get massively rich off an anthrax
scare and, more than any other organization, Battelle controlled access to the Ames strain of anthrax used in the top secret military tests.


The Baltimore Sun reported that the Ames strain was also being produced at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, but more importantly, Battelle directs that program as well. The FBI investigation has led them in the direction of Patrick and
Alibeck. But whether they have the will, or the authority, to
investigate spook central headquarters in Columbus is another
question. The New York Times on Nov. 9 already reported that the FBI made an error in the ์anthrax probe๎ by allowing the 'destruction of university' samples that 'may have caused clues to be lost.'

[EFerrari]

2. Thank you!

[TZ]

3. That has to be untrue

Anthrax, particularly bioweapon strian anthrax is NEVER handled in BSL3..IT is a BSL FOUR level agent.
Thats why it why DETRICK is the source. CDC has a level 4 lab..but they don't handle bioweapon research. I think NIH has a level 4 lab that is not being used for anything past 3. There MIGHT be one more lab..but its not at Battelle, which actually does mostly medical research.
There are currently FOUR BSL level 4 labs in the country. HIV is BSL-3. Want to tell me that HIV and Anthrax get handled the same way? I don't think so.

[AntiFascist]

4. Ivins called the flask in question "Dugway anthrax"....

implying that it came from Dugway. This jibes with various articles referenced in my journal posts. It is also important to note that Batelle (based in Ohio) administered the program at Dugway.

This December 2001 CDC document outlining priorities for anthrax bioterrorism research, references both Batelle and Dugway as sites for performing the research, in addition to the CDC and DOD:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/files/MeetingReport_BTPriorities_Dec1011.pdf

Project Jefferson was actually a DIA project where the military originally requested a Russian-engineered anthrax variant (not received) in order to test the effectiveness of anthrax vaccines. It seems obvious that they would be testing a "bioweapon strain" as part of this program. They even had to assure the public that it was "in compliance with the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention" since it was to be used for defensive purposes:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=44931

"Clarke said the convention allows work that is purely defensive in nature. "It allows you to have small quantities of a known agent, limited quantities of an agent if you want to study it for the purpose of protecting people against that threat," she added."