[tt] New Scientist Short Sharp Science Blog: Was Ivins the anthrax killer?

Wed Aug 6 01:23:22 UTC 2008

Was Ivins the anthrax killer?
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/shortsharpscience/2008/08/was-ivins-anthrax-killer.html?DCMP=ILC-
8.8.1

Every reporter who covered the US anthrax attacks of 2001 has been
over the list of possible suspects in their heads hundreds of times.
It would probably be an anthrax scientist who'd worked in US
military labs, and before the attacks, there weren't that many. So
it was probably someone we'd met.
But I don't know anyone who suspected Bruce Ivins of mailing anthrax
spores to US media outlets and senators, killing five people. He
committed suicide this week, apparently because he was about to be
accused of precisely that.
I met him at the 1998 meeting of the world's then small anthrax
research community in Plymouth, England. One night I found myself at
dinner with Ivins and his lab. His students clearly regarded him as
a great guy, a bit eccentric but not in a bad way.
He'd had a Guinness, which "made me a virtual zombie" he later told
me, as he rarely drank alcohol. But after a reviving Coke, he and a
number of us took a stroll through the midnight streets of Plymouth,
singing snatches of old WW1 songs. He'd written a funny song about
guinea worm, another disease his lab worked on. "Your partner in
song" was how he signed an email to me in 2000.
Ivins [6]committed suicide with an overdose of codeine and
acetamenophen (Tylenol) last Tuesday. According to media reports,
he'd been acting stressed since the US government [7]exonerated the
previous suspect in the anthrax attacks.
He'd been barred from the lab, and was reportedly about to be
involuntarily retired. He and his extended family had been
questioned, and his home raided twice - a colleague described it to
reporters as "hounded" - since the FBI re-launched the investigation
into the attacks under new leadership in 2006. He was hospitalised
for depression in July, say reports.
Little wonder, especially since a colleague told reporters he was
out of money for legal fees, and was "much more emotionally labile,
in terms of sensitivity to things, than most scientists. He was very
thin-skinned." That sounds like the guy I met.
Was this another victim of pressure from a frustrated FBI desperate
to fight the bioterrorists they are sure lurk in US labs?
Like [8]Tom Butler? Or was someone interested in making it seem that
Ivins committed suicide? Like some people believe about the
[9]British bioweapons expert David Kelly?
Only hours after the suicide was announced, an [10]investigative
site posted court papers imposing a restraining order on Ivins in
July after he allegedly threatened a psychological counsellor, who
was due to testify on 1 August at a grand jury investigation of the
attacks.
The papers describe "a history dating to his graduate days of
homicidal threats, actions, plans, threats and actions". That would
be 30 or 40 years ago. Was there really someone with a psychiatric
history like that at the main US biodefense lab, USAMRIID, and he
wasn't investigated before?
Ivins would certainly have had the access to the strain of anthrax
used for the attacks, and the expertise to brew it up. It's not at
all impossible that the conclusion everyone is being asked to jump
to, that Ivins killed himself because he was about to be nailed, is
true.
But I want to see some pretty good empirical evidence about where
those spores came from before I'll believe my partner in song was
the attacker.

Debora MacKenzie, Brussels correspondent
* Posted by Rowan at 22:46

Comments:

I agree. I think the "violent history" was an exagerration by an
person who felt it essential to get the restraining order. I don't
believe he had this history and only a social worker found out about
it. It stinks.
www.bothinonetrench.com
By Anonymous  Anonymous on August 02, 2008 12:20 AM

If an indictment was in the works, that means a grand jury had
concluded. If the facts of the indictment are made public, there
will at least be something to consider.
If the case is closed because Ivins is dead and no facts are
forthcoming - the FBI has failed in their duty to the nation.
So wait for either a resolution by disclosure or a coverup. But
there's not much to decide until that happens.
So wait and watch.
By Anonymous  Anonymous on August 02, 2008 12:45 AM

There has been some awfully poor reporting on this case so
congratulations to the New Scientist and please keep interested.
Some reports have claimed his name was never released to the press,
but the LA Times reports that earlier this year they tried to obtain
annual financial disclosure statements filed by Ivins. That '20
Questions' form of leaking information shows the investigation was
failing and needed a scapegoat. The pressure of having FBI agents
sitting outside his family home for over a year, happily telling his
neighbours why they were there - in effect that was a death
sentence. Then there is the problem of how he could possibly known
how to aerolise the anthrax.
"I don't think a vaccine specialist could do it. This is aerosol
physics, not biology, there are very few people who have their feet
in both camps." - Dr. Alan P. Zelicoff
By Anonymous  Anonymous on August 02, 2008 1:41 PM

"The anthrax scare was created as an excuse to install mail
surveillance," he said. "It's all in those two 8/2/08 New York Times
articles about Hatfill and Ivins."
"Intelligence insiders recognize what happened immediately."
"They needed someone to pin it on. When Hatfill wouldn't fall they
drove Ivins to psychological destruction. It reads like a bad remake
of Arlington Road."
"Study the Ivins article carefully," he continued. "A psychiatrist
and social worker claiming Ivins was exhibiting homicidal tendencies
and issuing death threats, it's classic CIA / NSA tactics to
discredit, disgrace and destroy."
"Does anything there remind you of your own experience?" he asked.
"Damn straight," she spat, "it explains their antics perfectly."
"I understand why they did what they did," she continued. "It was a
series of unsuccessful setups to stress and smear me so I wouldn't
fight back. It didn't work. Thanks for your help."
"You did a lot of it on your own, be proud of yourself," he said.
"Your envelopes and stationery are smeared with substances that will
cause them to be kicked out of the automated mail processing
systems, that's why so many of your letters never arrive."
"I figured that out a long time ago" she replied.
"Good." he said.
"Will the truth about 9-11 ever come out?" she asked.
"The truth about 9-11 IS widely known," he sighed, "it's just not
public, yet.
"Sixty to seventy percent of the CIA's and NSA's budgets go to
private contractors, that's what I'm facing," she quipped. "They
have money and a long reach but they're weak and vulnerable in many
areas."
"You're right," he said. "Hug yourself, stay strong and focused,
you're doing well. I'll be back in touch soon."
By Anonymous  Anonymous on August 02, 2008 4:00 PM

Biosafety & Security: BSL3 & BSL4
Lt. Col. Michael Langford, took command of what was viewed by Fort
Detrick brass as a dysfunctional pathology lab. "I knew we had to
basically tighten up what I thought was a very lax and unorganized
system," he said in an interview last week.
-------
Hundreds of BSL3 and several BSL4 labs are currently being built in
this country and around the world.
Yet, there is no process to establish and share non-competitive,
uniform and state-of-the-art technologies, requirements, security
credentialing or even progressive worker-training for these labs.
The answer is not another governmental agency (like FEMA) but a
robust consulting Commission for real-time CQI and security
standards, with a professional incident reporting and response
structure, and with full public disclosure and oversight. Ultimate
enforcement would not just be prospective, penalizing fines, but by
competitive scoring for continual grant/funding
By Anonymous  Marshall Maglothin on August 02, 2008 7:24 PM

Well, isn't it just too convenient? Guilty by media speculation and
no way to answer the charges from beyond the grave. After 9/11 there
was some doubt about the appropriate response to the attack and the
scope of the terrorist threat but conveniently there was the anthrax
attack to seal the future direction of the US and to support the
neo-conservative policies of the Bush administration that led to the
invasion of Iraq. We soon knew that the anthrax came from inside the
US military establishment and we also knew that the pentagon was
running the show in the "war on terror" so where was our scepticism
about the anthrax attack? The 9/11 attack was low-tech using
aircraft and it did not suggest a threat from nuclear, biological or
chemical attack for which military development and research had been
slowly starved of funds for decades. After the Anthrax the picture
changed and billions were approved for anti-terror spending and much
on NBC research. When there are suspicious events I always look for
who benefits and who gets the money or power. You don't have to look
far! Like the Kennedy assassination the US now has a scapegoat or
patsy, and like Oswald he's dead. One day the truth will be told and
the real guilty punished.
By Anonymous  Graham on August 02, 2008 9:41 PM

Despite my best efforts, I find myself in reluctant agreement with
New Scientist on this one. While I don't buy into the usual set of
conspiratorial assumptions -- government bungling will do the job
nicely, thank you very much -- I do believe there is nothing
persuasive in the government's case. It just doesn't pass the smell
test. I would like to see a full investigation by a neutral party,
but good luck on that. This is something that may not be understood
fully for decades, which is truly unfortunate.
By Anonymous  Anonymous on August 02, 2008 11:14 PM

There are an awful lot of microbiologists dying unexpectedly. I'm
not saying this article has the reason, but it has some interesting
details that stand closer inspection.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/08_09_03/Microbiologists_With/microbiologists_with.html
By Anonymous  Anonymous on August 03, 2008 12:54 AM

maybe he had perfected a beta-radiation emitting strain of anthrax?
Will the last scientifically literate person leaving he country
please turn out the lights?
Benedict
By Anonymous  Anonymous on August 03, 2008 5:01 AM

A billiant point made:
Suddenly we are to believe Ivins was a homicidal maniac from his
school-boy days onward, just waiting for the perfect moment to
spring his attack on humanity. This is belied by the fact that no
one ever thought he was mentally unstable enough over an 18 year
career at a critical defense facility to let him go, and it seems
just about everyone who knew him thinks the accusations don't fit
the man and that he was not the type to do himself in, even if he
was a little "thin-skinned".
They did similar smears of Dr David Kelly's character in the UK,
that he was a "broken man" who had Walter Mitty delusions, blah,
blah, blah. Research Kelly's controversial death and the mysterious
deaths of dozens of microbiologists to get some clue as to what is
going on here.
By Anonymous  PW on August 03, 2008 7:21 AM

Duley, in her interesting petition for restraining order at The
Smoking Gun swears that Ivins had a history of "homicidal threats,
actions, plans" since his graduate days, and that his psychiatrist
David Irwin called him "homicidal, sociopathic with clear
intentions."
In the United States, under the 1976 Tarasoff rule, psychiatrists
and other medical professionals have a duty to warn possible
victims, and/or the police, when a patient tells them of his
intention to do harm.
Government employees with security clearance must fill out the SF-86
forms. Section 21, "Your Medical Record," asks the applicant to
disclose psychological treatment within the last 7 years (except for
marital, family or grief counseling).
Therefore, Irwin should have warned someone of Ivins' threats. I
wonder if Irwin did warn anyone, and who he warned.
I can't understand how Ivins could have worked at Ft. Detrick
without his supervisors knowing this medical history.
If weaponized anthrax is as dangerous as the Bush Administration
says, and if it must be kept contained at all costs, is it a good
idea for Fort Detrick to have a scientist working in the anthrax lab
who is homicidal and sociopathic with clear intentions to commit
harm?
By Blogger  Norman on August 03, 2008 10:47 PM

He knew too much. That was my immediate suspicion. (Apparently Ivins
himself had also investigated the anthrax mailings....
--W.M. Bear
By Anonymous  Anonymous on August 04, 2008 4:30 AM

References

6. 
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14443-anthrax-attack-suspect-dies-in-apparent-suicide.html
7. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19926633.700-60-seconds.html
8. 
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg18825243.600-jailed-microbiologists-appeal-rejected.html
9. 
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn3977-editorial-the-death-of-david-kelly.html
10. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0801081anthrax1.html
11. 
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/shortsharpscience/2008/08/was-ivins-anthrax-killer.html
12. 
http://del.icio.us/post?url=http://www.newscientist.com/blog/shortsharpscience/2008/08/was-ivins-anthrax-killer.html&title=Was%20Ivins%20the%20anthrax%20killer?
13. 
http://digg.com/submit?url=http://www.newscientist.com/blog/shortsharpscience/2008/08/was-ivins-anthrax-killer.html&title=Was%20Ivins%20the%20anthrax%20killer?
14. http://www.newscientist.com/info.ns?id=in153