Ivins Could Not Have Applied High-Tech Coating to the Killer Anthrax

[seemslikeadream]

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/08/ivins-could-not-have-coated-killer.html

As everyone knows, the government initially tried to blame Iraq for the anthrax attack. One of the claims made was that the anthrax contained bentonite clay, which was also used by Iraqi anthrax bioweapons makers to "weaponize" the anthrax by decreasing the tendency of anthrax spores to clump together. (Clumping makes them less deadly since clumping reduces the amount of spores which end up in the target's lungs).

The government later disclaimed that assertion. However, the FBI now claims that the killer anthrax contained silicon. Silicon can be used as an anti-clumping agent to weaponize anthrax.

For example, McClatchy notes:


"Some of Ivins' former colleagues also dispute the FBI's assertion that he had the capability to mill tiny anthrax spores and then bind them to silicon particles, the form of anthrax that was mailed to the office of then-senator Tom Daschle, D-S.D."

And as New Scientist writes, FBI agents "mention a 'silicon signature' for the anthrax in the envelopes with no further comment. Silica may be used to weaponise spore powders."

Evidence for the theory that the anthrax used in the attacks was coated with anti-clumping agents also comes from a a 2001 CBS article:

"When technicians at the Army biodefense lab in Fort Detrick, Md., tried to examine a sample from the Daschle letter under a microscope, it floated off the glass slide and was lost. "
Anthrax would normally clump, so the fact that it "floated off the glass slide" points to the anthrax being treated with anti-clumping and anti-static agents.

Why is this important?

It takes very sophisticated equipment and processes to coat something as small as an anthrax spore with anti-clumping agents:

"Only a sophisticated lab could have produced the material used in the Senate attack. This was the consensus among biodefense specialists working for the government and the military. In May 2002, 16 of these scientists and physicians published a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association, describing the Senate anthrax powder as “weapons-grade” and exceptional: “high spore concentration, uniform particle size, low electrostatic charge, treated to reduce clumping” (JAMA, 1 May 2002, p. 2237)."
Indeed, the anthrax sent in the letters was coated with a very rare, high-tech glass polymer nanomaterial:

[kirby]

1. I dont understand...

Presuming the assertion is true. Does it matter? Maybe the military provided this high quality anthrax to Fort Detrick labs as part of the vaccine/research process. And used the anthrax from that stock.

[EFerrari]

6. No. That lab didn't have weaponized anthrax.

Ivins worked with a liquid form -- some have described it as a paste. It wasn't the same form as the one that got mailed.

[BeHereNow]

2. But John Edwards had an AFFAIR!!!!

Checked out Dr. Nass lately?
She's officially added El Hibri and the Intervac/Emergent Bio Solutions
to the equation.

Hope she stays off small planes.

BHN

[AntiFascist]

3. Ken Alibek disagrees...

In this letter to the editor, he and his colleague were among the first to support the idea that the sophisticated form of anthrax sent to senators could have been made by a lone scientist working independently.

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

Notice that the lone scientist idea originated as early as 2001:

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/EPI/bioter/lonerlikelyanthrax.html

As pointed out in your thread here, Alibek may have had his own agenda with CIA ties to the bio-defense industry and anthrax vaccine programs, and a possible history of supervising the large scale production of anthrax weapons for the US military:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3742970

[seemslikeadream]

5. Scientist Hatfill cleared in anthrax scare

:crazy:


http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/08/08/Scientist_Hatfill_cleared_in_anthrax_scare/UPI-78911218248456/

[EFerrari]

7. Alibek is disputing that the coating was added, not asserting

a lone independent could have produced the substance.

[AntiFascist]

8. Correct, but 'spooky' websites such as this one...

http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/coatings.html

repeatedly cite Alibek's statements in supporting the lone scientist theory.

On Edit:

In the June 1, 2002, issue of The National Journal, author Jonathan Rauch wrote about Meselson and Alibek being shown the Daschle anthrax:
"The material, in fact, is of mediocre quality, <Ken Alibek> told me, and was not produced industrially. It definitely had not been milled, nor did it appear to have any sort of coating to reduce static or otherwise enhance its deadliness. Silica supposedly found in the material, Alibek thinks, may simply be a residue from an unsophisticated drying process. Meselson concurs that the anthrax evinces no sign of special coating or processing. 'There is no evidence that I know of,' he told me, 'that it was treated in any special way.'"


Check out this recent research (August 2007) cited in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks#Controversy_over_coatings_and_additives

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".<34> 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.

Fox News reported in March 2008 that an email written by a scientist at Fort Detrick revealed details of the powder preparation;<35> these details appear to be consistent with a highly specialized powder. The Fox News report said "But in an e-mail obtained by FOX News, scientists at Fort Detrick openly discussed how the anthrax powder they were asked to analyze after the attacks was nearly identical to that made by one of their colleagues. "Then he said he had to look at a lot of samples that the FBI had prepared ... to duplicate the letter material," the e-mail reads. "Then the bombshell. He said that the best duplication of the material was the stuff made by . He said that it was almost exactly the same … his knees got shaky and he sputtered, 'But I told the General we didn't make spore powder!'" The Fox News report added that around 4 persons, all with connections to Fort Detrick, were being looked at as suspects by the FBI.

Alibek has a history of developing bio-weapons for the Soviet Union. After he defected to the US he chose an entrepreneurial career over academia. Notice the pattern under the "Criticism" section of his wikipedia entry, including this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Alibek#Criticism

Some experts question Alibek's characterizations of the bioterriorism threats. Some have asserted that Alibek has a vested interest in raising fears as he profits from government contracts related to countering bioterrorism. Retired Army major general and physician Philip K. Russell , while impressed by Alibek’s knowledge of the former Soviet Union's production of anthrax, "began to think that Ken was more fanciful than precise in some of his recollections" where the genetically engineered smallpox was concerned. Russell also remarked with regard to “…the issue of putting Ebola genes into smallpox virus. That was viewed, at least in many of our minds, as somewhat fanciful. And probably not true."<12>

[AntiFascist]

9. kick, to rise above the Edwards crap. n/t

[BeHereNow]

4. K&R- ENOUGH about John Edwards!

I swear, sometimes I think DU has the attention span of a GNAT.

The Ivins story keeps unfolding and alread it is forgotten
by most of the posting members.

Unbelievable.

Thanks for keeping it alive SLAD, it is FAR from over.

BHN:thumbsup:

[judasdisney]

10. Ivins was creepy, paranoid, suspicious, Leftist, watched porno, obsessed, you are getting sleeeeeepy