So Richard Spertzel, former U.N. weapons inspector, had this to say in WSJ:
Information released by the FBI over the past seven years indicates a product of exceptional quality. The product contained essentially pure spores. The particle size was 1.5 to 3 microns in diameter. There are several methods used to produce anthrax that small. But most of them require milling the spores to a size small enough that it can be inhaled into the lower reaches of the lungs. In this case, however, the anthrax spores were not milled.
What’s more, they were also tailored to make them potentially more dangerous. According to a FBI news release from November 2001, the particles were coated by a “product not seen previously to be used in this fashion before.” Apparently, the spores were coated with a polyglass which tightly bound hydrophilic silica to each particle. That’s what was briefed (according to one of my former weapons inspectors at the United Nations Special Commission) by the FBI to the German Foreign Ministry at the time.
Another FBI leak indicated that each particle was given a weak electric charge, thereby causing the particles to repel each other at the molecular level. This made it easier for the spores to float in the air, and increased their retention in the lungs.
Um, no. I’ll trust a peer-reviewed assessment over some policy-pressurized briefing, thank you.
According to the FBI scientist who analyzed the anthrax letters, Douglas Beecher, it was NOT “weaponized.” He published this in Applied and Environmental Microbiology in 2006.
Individuals familiar with the compositions of the powders in the letters have indicated that they were comprised simply of spores purified to different extents (6). However, a widely circulated misconception is that the spores were produced using additives and sophisticated engineering supposedly akin to military weapon production. This idea is usually the basis for implying that the powders were inordinately dangerous compared to spores alone (3, 6, 12; J. Kelly, Washington Times, 21 October 2003; G. Gugliotta and G. Matsumoto, The Washington Post, 28 October 2002). The persistent credence given to this impression fosters erroneous preconceptions, which may misguide research and preparedness efforts and generally detract from the magnitude of hazards posed by simple spore preparations.
Purification of spores may exacerbate their dissemination to some extent by removing adhesive contaminants and maximizing the spore concentration. However, even in a crude state, dried microbial agents have long been considered especially hazardous. Experiments mimicking laboratory accidents have demonstrated that simply breaking vials of lyophilized bacterial cultures creates concentrated and persistent aerosols (4, 8). The potential for propagating disease with crude lyophilized material is illustrated by an outbreak of 24 cases of Venezuelan equine encephalitis throughout three floors of a Moscow virology institute. These infections were caused when vials containing dried infected mouse brain were accidentally broken on a stairwell landing and were spread by air currents and foot traffic (11).
Can we just put this to rest? Dry it, grind it up. It’s good enough for envelope dissemination. Poof!
Filed under: WMD, biological weapons, government, homeland security, infectious disease, intelligence, military, propaganda, science
There is a little problem with Beecher’s peer -reviewed article. It should not have contained that statement on no additives – it did not provide any data or evidence to back it up. Even the editor of the journal admitted this later – when it was too late and was already in print. Thus, Beecher’s peer-reviewed paper has been officially discredited. He was invited to write an follow-up article with data – but thus far he has apparently declined.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks
The August 2006 issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology contained an article written by Dr. Douglas Beecher of the FBI labs in Quantico, VA.[34] The article, titled “Forensic Application of Microbiological Culture Analysis to Identify Mail Intentionally Contaminated with Bacillus anthracis spores ,” states “Individuals familiar with the compositions of the powders in the letters have indicated that they were comprised simply of spores purified to different extents.” The article also specifically criticizes “a widely circulated misconception” “that the spores were produced using additives and sophisticated engineering supposedly akin to military weapon production.” The harm done by this misconception is described this way: “This idea is usually the basis for implying that the powders were inordinately dangerous compared to spores alone. The persistent credence given to this impression fosters erroneous preconceptions, which may misguide research and preparedness efforts and generally detract from the magnitude of hazards posed by simple spore preparations.” However, after this article had appeared the editor of Applied and Environmental Microbiology, L. Nicholas Ornston, stated that he was uncomfortable with Beecher’s statement in the article since it had no evidence to back it up and contained no citation.[35]
In August 2007 Dr. Kay Mereish, UN Chief, Biological Planning and Operations, published a letter in Applied and Environmental Microbiology titled “Unsupported Conclusions on the Bacillus anthracis Spores”.[37] This letter, published in the same journal as FBI scientist Douglas Beecher (see paragraph above), points out that the statements made by Dr. Beecher in his article on the lack of additives were not backed up with any data. She suggested that Dr. Beecher publish a paper with analytical data showing the absence of silica or other additives. Such data would include SEM images of the pure spores as well as EDX spectra and EDX images showing the absence of any foreign additives such as silica or the elements silicon and oxygen. Dr. Mereish referenced a 2006 CBRN, Counter-Proliferation and Response meeting in Paris where a presenter announced that an additive was present in the attack anthrax that affected the spore’s electrical charges.
Thanks for your input. Based on the opinions you’ve relayed, I don’t discount Beecher’s conclusions but you’ve motivated me to look further into it. As I understand it, there were other scientists who had the same opinion – for example, in C&EN it was reported that apparently images such as Mereish wanted were evaluated by “several scientists” but I assume the images were not allowed for publication. From the article:
—–
Harvard University molecular biologist Matthew S. Meselson is one of several scientists asked to examine electron micrographs of the powders and confirms Beecher’s statement. Meselson tells C&EN that he “saw no evidence of anything except spores.”
Meselson also says that “on a small scale it is not difficult” to produce preparations of high purity—up to 1 trillion spores per gram in some of the anthrax-letter powders. A skilled scientist possessing the Ames strain of Bacillus anthracis used in the 2001 attacks could have produced such material using “basic microbiological lab equipment and supplies,” he says.
—–
Your site makes clear your opinion of Meselson so please don’t respond with a diatribe about him – I’ll probably delete it. On the other hand, I have personally listened to Bill Patrick describe the need to treat spores to avoid clumping for efficient aerosol dissemination. I know what the treated and untreated powders look like and how they behave. But I also recall a discussion of how the mail handling equipment would have been able to cause sufficient aerosolization of a small quantity of powder from an envelope to widely contaminate an enclosed space.
There is a better article also at C&EN here. I’ll look into this a little further and let you know if I end up thinking Beecher’s conclusions have no possible merit. Requests for more data are fair; but they don’t in themselves disprove the hypothesis.
I’ll simply quote Meselson’s comments from 1999 on how difficult it is to create weaponized anthrax:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/21stC/issue-3.2/osullbio.html
“People who say that you can make these weapons in your kitchen just don’t understand what’s involved,” says Meselson. He points out that the U.S. chemical weapons program developed during World War II demanded huge facilities (at sites like Pine Bluff, Ark., Camp Detrick [now Fort Detrick], Md., and Dugway, Utah) and immense amounts of water and electricity. “Then they say, Well, what about Saddam Hussein? He must have done it on the cheap.’ Nonsense! If you read the UNSCOM [United Nations Special Commission] reports, there’s something like 14 facilities they knew were connected with the program, the biggest of which was Al Hakam, with enormous equipment–fermenters and the like. So as far as we know, he didn’t even get all the way there. Maybe some genius has a way of doing it in his garage, but that’s not the way anybody’s ever tried to do it–including Saddam.”
“If anthrax is stirred incorrectly it may clump,” notes Meselson, “and if the cells clump you can’t make an aerosol weapon. They stick together like glue. Who would have thought of that? And I imagine that there are hundreds of little wrinkles like that. All the nonsense about ease of production ignores these facts.”
Also. the AFIP Newsletter (in it’s original form) shows the only EDX spectrum they ever released in connection with their anthrax analysis – it is a reference spectrum of silica – used to prove that the material they found on the Daschle spores really was silica. It’s here:
http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/AFIP.html
The C&E News article wrongly states that the spectrum they released showed only a silicon peak and not actual silica:
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/government/84/8449gov1.html
Sometimes scientists misspoke as well, as was the case with the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. AFIP studied the anthrax powder from the Daschle letter using energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry, and a top AFIP scientist, Florabell G. Mullick, reported the presence of silica in an AFIP newsletter. Yet, the spectrum AFIP released shows a peak for the element silicon, not silicon dioxide (silica).
Harvard University molecular biologist Matthew S. Meselson, who has consulted for the FBI on the anthrax probe, dismisses these early statements as misunderstandings or misinterpretations of the scientific studies conducted on the Daschle powder. “I don’t know of anybody with spore expertise who actually worked on the stuff who said the spores were coated,” he says. The FBI has never publicly claimed the spores were coated with silica and, in fact, told members of Congress at classified briefings that the spores were not coated, he says.
I think the comments you’ve added from Meselson are sort of a non sequitur, because we are not concerned with a bulk biological agent program here. A few grams of anthrax spores were produced and theoretically were produced in a relatively sophisticated lab with excellent small-scale production capabilities. I believe the stirring he is referring to applies to production in a large scale fermenter. Small-scale production, not what Meselson was referring to, actually can be accomplished with a much more crude setup than would have been available at USAMRIID.
As to your statement that C&EN wrongly reported that AFIP’s EDX spectrum showed the presence of silicon rather than SiO2, I do not have the reference spectra handy to verify for my own eyes this data against the spectrum you show at the link you provided. If you can produce that or otherwise prove your claim that would be helpful.
There is no other spectrum – that’s the point here. AFIP only ever released that one spectrum shown – with the caption “Silicon Dioxide (Silica), as it appears through energy dispersive X-ray analysis”. There are 2 peaks – one for Si and one for O. Thus the C&E News article is totally incorrect in stating that they released a spectrum showing only a silicon peak.
As far as ease of reverse engineering the powder sent to Daschle is concerned the FBI did not demonstrate that the tools Ivins had access to could reproduce it.
This is in spite of their much touted announcement of six years ago that they were going to do it. 18 months later they announced they had failed.
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/Bioter/fbisecretlyrecreate.html
FBI Secretly Trying to Re-Create Anthrax From Mail Attacks
By Dan Eggen and Guy Gugliotta, Washington Post Staff Writers
FBI investigators and federal scientists have been secretly working for months to replicate the type of anthrax used in last year’s deadly mail attacks, as part of a previously undisclosed strategy designed to determine precisely how the spores were manufactured, officials said yesterday.
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, who revealed the experiments in remarks to reporters here, said that using such “reverse engineering” could help investigators narrow the list of possible suspects.
“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.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-09-29-anthrax_x.htm
FBI fails to re-create anthrax production
By Toni Locy, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Two years after the nation’s deadly anthrax attacks, the FBI still has not been able to re-create the process the killer used to produce the substance sent through the U.S. mail, a top FBI official said Monday.
The debate is over. Here is why Spertzel got it wrong:
http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2008/anthrax.html
August 21, 2008
FBI unveils science of anthrax investigation
Sandia’s work demonstrated anthrax letters contained non-weaponized form
The Sandia news release is incredible. Other previous lab reports that I have seen specifically have stated that the anthrax was easily aerosolized. I’m not a microbiologist just an engineer. Does the silica as incorporated in the spore foramtion of the Sandia specimens act to enable aerosolization?
Short answer is no. For that there would have had to be a coating on the spores, and there was none. There was no aerosolization agent added to the spores.