Mo' spin from the WaHo: FBI to Show How Genetics Led to Anthrax Researcher

By Marilyn W. Thompson, Carrie Johnson and Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 6, 2008; Page A03

The FBI today will begin to unveil how it exploited the rapidly advancing science of genetics to link a single bioweapons researcher to samples taken from the victims of the 2001 anthrax attacks and to powder from the letters that killed them.

The bureau scheduled briefings with Senate leaders who were among the targets and with survivors and relatives of those who died after anthrax-laced mail passed through their hands. It also plans to release about 50 pages of documents offering some details of the case.

The FBI said it will share those details with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, including Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who was the addressee on one of the letters that set off panic on Capitol Hill.

Former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), who was also a target, received a phone call Monday from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III to set up a meeting, one day after Daschle questioned "the overall caliber and quality of the investigation." Daschle said Mueller cited "grand jury limitations" in what he could discuss. It will be Daschle's first briefing on the attacks in five years.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/05/AR2008080503724.html

(If you have a second, please let the editors know how they're doing by leaving a comment.)

;)

but the "trail led to Ivins". :wtf:

(And it was more like 60-80 people, just counting other workers, visitors and other labs who had gotten samples from that lab. Idiotas.)

Got to make it match whatever "evidence" is in the 50 pages they're going to reveal.

Makes me think of a sleight-of-hand act.

Look at my hand with the new, shiny advances in science (so that's the narrative to excuse it taking so long).

I think we're about to have reams of esoteric technical data thrown at us. Someone else said get ready for that in a thread. With this article, here is starts coming.

Quite the contrast to the early simplified-so-anyone-can-get-it assertions that the anthrax had the marker of bentonite and could only have come from Iraq. But we're not supposed to remember that.

has to be crazy. A new method of analysis unveiled just in time for this. What utter and complete bullshit.

i am very eager to hear about. i do some genetic work in my lab, and i'm most curious what this advancing science is that links a microbe strain to a scientist.

:)

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



On edit: The next day, Shane at the Balitmore Sun reported this (now this is real journalism!):

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/custom/attack/bal-te.anthrax13dec13,0,4104922.story?coll=bal-attack-utility