Scientists’ Analysis Disputes F.B.I. Closing of Anthrax Case

New York Times
William J. Broad, Scott Shane

Martin E. Hugh-Jones is a co-author
of a new paper on the anthrax attacks.

A decade after wisps of anthrax sent through the mail killed 5 people, sickened 17 others and terrorized the nation, biologists and chemists still disagree on whether federal investigators got the right man and whether the F.B.I.’s long inquiry brushed aside important clues.

Now, three scientists argue that distinctive chemicals found in the dried anthrax spores — including the unexpected presence of tin — point to a high degree of manufacturing skill, contrary to federal reassurances that the attack germs were unsophisticated. The scientists make their case in a coming issue of the Journal of Bioterrorism & Biodefense.

F.B.I. documents reviewed by The New York Times show that bureau scientists focused on tin early in their eight-year investigation, calling it an “element of interest” and a potentially critical clue to the criminal case. They later dropped their lengthy inquiry, never mentioned tin publicly and never offered any detailed account of how they thought the powder had been made.

The new paper raises the prospect — for the first time in a serious scientific forum — that the Army biodefense expert identified by the F.B.I. as the perpetrator, Bruce E. Ivins, had help in obtaining his germ weapons or conceivably was innocent of the crime.

Both the chairwoman of a National Academy of Science panel that spent a year and a half reviewing the F.B.I.’s scientific work and the director of a new review by the Government Accountability Office said the paper raised important questions that should be addressed.

Alice Gast, head of a panel that assessed
the F.B.I.'s scientific work, said the
paper “points out connections that deserve
further consideration.”

Alice P. Gast, president of Lehigh University and the head of the academy panel, said that the paper “points out connections that deserve further consideration.”

Dr. Gast, a chemical engineer, said the “chemical signatures” in the mailed anthrax and their potential value to the criminal investigation had not been fully explored. “It just wasn’t pursued as vigorously as the microbiology,” she said, alluding to the analysis of micro-organisms. She also noted that the academy panel suggested a full review of classified government research on anthrax, which her panel never saw.

In interviews, the three authors said their analysis suggested that the F.B.I. might have pursued the wrong suspect and that the case should be reopened. Their position may embolden calls for a national commission to investigate the first major bioterrorist attack in American history.

But other scientists who reviewed the paper said they thought the tin might be a random contaminant, not a clue to complex processing. And the Justice Department has not altered its conclusion that the deadly letters were mailed by Dr. Ivins, an Army anthrax specialist who worked at Fort Detrick, Md., and killed himself in 2008 as prosecutors prepared to charge him.

Doubt of anthrax suspect's role resurfaces in lawsuit/ Palm Beach Post

AnthraxVaccine

Meryl and other panelists at Anthrax Letters
seminar, Washington, D.C., November 29, 2010

Bob Stevens' family's attorney has filed papers disputing the role of Bruce Ivins (in a much delayed lawsuit against the federal government), regarding the wrongful death of Bob Stevens, a photo editor at the National Enquirer who died after exposure to an anthrax letter in 2001.  From the Palm Beach Post:

Maureen Stevens' attorneys originally agreed to accept the findings of the estimated $100 million FBI investigation. But when Ivins' bosses at the military lab in Maryland insisted under oath that he lacked the time, equipment and know-how to produce the anthrax, the attorneys said they could no longer accept the findings.

They asked for permission to dispute Ivins' role in Stevens' death when the $50 million lawsuit against the federal government goes to trial in December or January. U.S. District Judge Daniel Hurley, who will decide the case, approved their request. That doesn't mean Ivins won't loom large during the trial...

[Two former supervisors of Ivins, also] bacteriologists testified that a variety of people used the lab. "We had people from Egypt, Poland, India, Iran, Latvia and China," Byrne [one supervisor] said...

Still, Schuler said, Maureen Stevens' case against the government doesn't turn on Ivins' guilt or innocence. At its core, the case is relatively simple, he said: The government was negligent in Bob Stevens' death because it didn't provide sufficient security at the labs where anthrax was kept. In court papers, the government concedes that before the attacks, Fort Detrick didn't have cameras to monitor the labs and didn't search workers for pathogens when they were leaving the base.

"We just have to show that there was bad security," Schuler said. "We don't have to solve the crime..."

Science review casts doubt on 2001 anthrax case

Google

WASHINGTON — A scientific review released Tuesday cast doubt on the US government's conclusion that scientist Bruce Ivins, who killed himself in 2008, was to blame in the 2001 case of deadly anthrax mailings.

There was insufficient scientific evidence to support the FBI's assertion that anthrax sent to politicians and journalists in the wake of the September 11 attacks originated in Ivins' lab, said the National Academy of Sciences.

"It is not possible to reach a definitive conclusion about the origins of the B. anthracis in the mailings based on the available scientific evidence alone," said the NAS report.

The anthrax mailings, which killed five people and injured 17, rattled an already jittery American public just days after Al-Qaeda militants hijacked passenger jets and plunged them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The review found that anthrax contained in a flask, known as RMR-1029, in Ivins' lab shared genetic similarities with spores in the mailed letters but "was not the immediate source of spores used in the letters."

"One or more derivative growth steps would have been required to produce the anthrax in the attack letters," the report said, adding that the letters sent to Washington had different characteristics than those sent to New York.

"They have enough physical and chemical differences between the two that they must have come from separate batches," said lead author of the report Alice Gast.

The FBI concluded that the mailed anthrax must have come from a single flask of parent spores that Ivins had created and which he alone had maintained.

The type of anthrax contained in the letters, mailed to NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, the New York Post and senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, was correctly identified as the Ames strain of B. anthracis, which originated from a cow in Texas in 1981 and was shared with labs worldwide, the report said.

But a key problem arose from the way the FBI attempted to narrow down the source of the anthrax by creating a repository of potential samples provided by the labs that maintain them.

The repository was incomplete, leaving the possibility that other sources could remain unexamined, and also relied on scientists to provide their own samples, allowing for manipulation by potential suspects.

"Standards of custody of evidence would dictate that agents of the FBI should have obtained the samples," the report said.

"The sender could have been the instigator and may not have complied with instructions, as the FBI alleges with respect to Dr. Ivins."

Ivins, a bio-defense researcher at the US Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, committed suicide by taking drugstore medications in July 2008 as FBI agents were about to bring charges against him.

Investigators began focusing on Ivins in 2007 after new forensic scientific methods traced the anthrax back to him.

The NAS report was delayed in November 2010 when the FBI, which had just received the final draft for security review, decided to release more, previously classified information for the panel to consider.
FBI investigators had looked at anthrax evidence from "an undisclosed overseas site at which a terrorist group's anthrax program was allegedly located," the report said.

"The information indicates that there was inconsistent evidence of Ames strain DNA in some of these samples, but no culturable B. anthracis," it said, adding that the late-arriving information "deserves a more thorough scientific review."

The NAS reviewers also noted that their analysis of evidence was limited to "the biological, physical, and chemical sciences," and did not consider other traditional forensic science methods.

The FBI, which commissioned the NAS report, highlighted the panel's assertion that a definitive conclusion based on science alone "was not possible" and said a combination of factors led investigators to Ivins.

"The FBI has long maintained that while science played a significant role, it was the totality of the investigative process that determined the outcome of the anthrax case," it said in a statement.
Some lawmakers called for a new, independent probe of the government's response.

"The National Academy of Sciences report released today shows that the science is not necessarily a slam dunk," said Senator Chuck Grassley.

"There are no more excuses for avoiding an independent review and assessment of how the FBI handled its investigation in the anthrax case."

Congressman Rush Holt said he was re-introducing a 2008 bill to establish a legislative commission to investigate.