Anthrax Case Had Costs for Suspects

When Perry Mikesell, a microbiologist in Ohio, came under suspicion as the anthrax attacker, he began drinking heavily, family members say, and soon died. After a doctor in New York drew the interest of the F.B.I., his marriage fell apart and his practice suffered, his lawyer says. And after two Pakistani brothers in Pennsylvania were briefly under scrutiny, they eventually had to leave the country to find work.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s path to Bruce E. Ivins, the Army scientist who committed suicide late last month as federal officials moved closer to indicting him for the 2001 anthrax letter attacks, was long and tortuous. Before the investigators settled on Dr. Ivins — and his defenders still say the F.B.I. hounded an innocent man to death — they had focused on Steven J. Hatfill, another Army researcher, for several years.

But along the way, scores of others — terrorists, foreigners, academic researchers, biowarfare specialists and an elite group of Army scientists working behind high fences and barbed wire — drew the interest of the investigators. For some of them the cost was high: lost jobs, canceled visas, broken marriages, frayed friendships.

At the Army biodefense laboratory in Frederick, Md., where Dr. Ivins worked, the inquiry became a murder mystery, the cast composed of top scientists eyeing one another warily over vials of lethal pathogens.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/washington/10anthrax.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

who were the real culprits. It had dire consequences for the whole country, since it warned Congressional Dems in no uncertain terms that investigating the BFEE could be hazardous to ones health.

Bless the persecuted and their families.

Knowing that you could be subjected to this kind of shit, I'd never do it and I doubt anyone in their right mind will after this.

All the hoopla about the TERRAists and it turns out that a government employee IS ONE!!!

And they're keeping us safe!?!