posted on November 28, 2001 03:59:53 PM new
The misinformation/misleading information about the mill-related death may have been in an AP release. Regardless, it's difficult to understand exactly the degree of exposure that results in disease from the inhalation of the spores, though the effect of the descriptions evokes an inundation. That may not be the case or susceptibility may vary with individuals. One would think, however, especially since Desert Storm, that more extensive study would have been undertaken than appears to be the case.
A NY Times story today reveals that the Institute of Genomic Research has decoded the genome of anthrax bacterium, though that fact was conveyed through an anonymous government source, which the institute reluctantly confirmed. They released the research findings to the FBI for their criminal investigation in attempting to identify the source of the specific Ames strains but were withholding public disclosure at their request.
Continued research would quite probably result in a sufficiently detail fingerprint to identify a strain from elsewhere in the world that originated from Ames. The article made special note that the FBI had approved the destruction of the old vials stored at Ames. Almost coincidentally the article also noted that the decoding and further work would improve the diagnosis and treatment of anthrax.
Yes, it is curious that if the FBI were pursuing the investigation to identify the source of the specific strains used in the letters that they would approve the elimination of the stored samples at Ames. It also makes me wonder how far the FBI wants to go in determining the source.
posted on November 28, 2001 04:41:24 PM new
I read that NY Times article too, this morning.
"Yes, it is curious that if the FBI were pursuing the investigation to identify the source of the specific strains used in the letters that they would approve the elimination of the stored samples at Ames. It also makes me wonder how far the FBI wants to go in determining the source."
Yeah, I think that too. I'm not a science guy, but even I'd think that if I found something that resembled what people told me was the "Ames Strain," one of the first places I'd want to check out would be Ames.
And not only the FBI's approval of the destruction is odd, but Ames' rush to destruction is also odd. There are plenty of other labs in the U.S. that do research on anthrax, and I haven't heard of one of them that all of a sudden got so terrified of its own lax security that it rushed to destroy its samples. And, surely there are other agents at Ames, besides anthrax, that are dangerous; carcinogens, radioactive materials, whatever researchers study, that are there... did they rush to destroy those too?
posted on November 30, 2001 03:09:46 PM new
Since the mid-1980s, the U.S. Army laboratory that is the main custodian of the virulent strain of anthrax used in the recent terrorist attacks distributed the bacteria to just five labs in the United States, Canada and England, according to government documents and interviews.
posted on November 30, 2001 07:50:44 PM new
Thanks, Antiquary, that's an interesting article. And it's the only media source I've seen that confirms what my friend who's a scientist at ISU has said, that, contrary to prior media reports, the Ames strain was not developed at ISU, but at the USDA lab in Ames.
It also repeats some of my other thoughts, especially that, contrary to prior media reports that the Ames strain had been so widely shared that it was useless to try to trace back, the sharing had been limited and documented... which would only make sense if it was the government's development rather than the university's.
posted on November 30, 2001 07:55:36 PM new
Why are we not hearing about all this in the news? And which five labs were they? They better be investigating at each of these labs.
it also troubles me that at first, the news reports said that there was no sign of anthrax on the mail of the woman in Connecticut, now today they announce there were a few stray spores that transferred from the letter to Daschle, to other letters and thus eventually to her mail. These few spores were apparently enough to cause her fairly rapid death.
posted on December 1, 2001 02:14:38 AM new
The five labs are named in the article, I think. As to hearing about it in the news.. well, we are.. now.
This linked article originated in the Washington Post. The question should be - Why did the Washington Post have to use the Freedom of Information Act to get this info?
What a bunch of hooey this all has been. The article says:
(The documents obtained under the Freedom of Information act) "show that the distribution of Ames was much narrower than recently thought"
"Much narrower than recently thought" by whom? By us regular chumps, and the media chumps who have been parroting the gov't's line. But you know dern well that the gov't/military people knew, as soon as the strain had been identified, that it was one of theirs, that it wasn't widely distributed, and they knew who they had distributed it to. All that talk about how the Ames strain had been so widely shared that it would be impossible to track down was a bunch of garbage, from day one.
"The U.S. biological weapons program had been officially dismantled for more than a decade when Fort Detrick received the strain around 1980 from Department of Agriculture researchers in Ames, Iowa"
More confirmation of your hypotheses, donny. You've probably read the latest about the discovery of the letter in her general vacinity that had been mailed from Trenton and contains a minute number of external anthrax spores. Though no mail carrying anthrax spores has been discovered at the lady's residence, the predominant theory will be that she discarded a slightly contaminated letter like the one that was discovered. But experts now admit that some people may be infected through inhalation of small amounts with no set minimum to the exposure and the Ames' strains may be more virulent than those used in prior testing on monkeys. Also, the lady's age could be a factor.
posted on December 4, 2001 05:02:02 AM new
Although this article doesn't shed any light on the origin of the Ames strain, it does present a dilemma:
Inspectors have a printout of 100,000 addresses that passed through sorting machines within 90 minutes of the Senate letters. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) said he was wrangling with the FBI over his desire to tell individual constituents whether they are on that list -- information he believes the government owes citizens but that others fear could stir unnecessary fears.
posted on December 21, 2001 10:34:48 AM new Although investigators have not ruled out other possible motives, they have conducted dozens of interviews in at least two labs to determine whether potential profit from the sale of anthrax medications or cleanup efforts may have motivated the bioterrorist believed responsible for the attacks
posted on December 21, 2001 11:26:52 AM new
Looks like we're going to have to bomb ourselves. We must be terrorists harboring all that anthrax research.
I'm going to start digging a big hole just in case.
KRS has your property in Oregon [which sounds lovely, by the way] got a bomb shelter on it? Peace on Earth ~ Goodwill twords men
posted on December 21, 2001 12:26:30 PM new
Well-when I heard our President say "we" were going to wipe terrorism out worldwide, I found myself wondering if he meant all terrorism/terrorist or only "terrorism/terrorist" with middle east connections????
Looks like we started with the "A's" are we going to just go down the list of countries????
If so, lucky for us we are officially called the USA and not just America...
posted on December 22, 2001 05:21:25 AM new
Yeah, the genetic match between the anthrax in the letters and the anthrax at the army institute isn't any more conclusive than the genetic match between the blood at Nicole's place and the blood in O.J. Coulda been anyone, presumably.
