Katherine Heerbrandt: If not Ivins ...

Interesting take from the Frederick community for those of you still following this story:

Katherine Heerbrandt
If not Ivins ...
Originally published August 29, 2008


When Norm Covert, a conservative former Fort Detrick public affairs officer, and attorney Barry Kissin, liberal activist opposing Detrick's biolab expansion, agree that Bruce Ivins was not the anthrax killer, either the world's spinning off its axis, or the truth is staring us so hard in the face we'd have to be blind to miss it.

Covert's piece this week in thetentacle.com establishes what many in our community, including scientists and support staff at USAMRIID, past and present, know: Bruce Ivins had nothing to do with preparing or sending the anthrax letters. --

In a recent letter to the FNP editor, Amanda Lane speaks for many who knew him: "I want to shout from the mountain tops that Bruce was the kind of man we look up to ... He was a decorated scientist and the humblest of men who didn't use his title as a status symbol. He picked up a mop or emptied the trash without a moment's hesitation. If he thought you were having a bad day he would offer candy or a catchy tune to cheer you up. If someone had to stay late to accomplish a task, Bruce would work with you so that the task would get completed faster."

Covert echoes what is widely reported by reputable scientists. The anthrax in the mailings, he says, was "highly bred, weapons-grade ... with a silica coating and a slight electrical charge so that each particle repelled the other ... each particle no more than five microns." Ivins had neither the expertise nor the equipment to create such a sophisticated form of anthrax.

But if not Ivins, then who or what?

http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/opinion/display_comments_columnist.htm?storyid=79410&&refresh={ts%20'2008-08-29%2012:26:53'}#postComment

August 27, 2008

White Powder and 007

Norman M. Covert

Frederick is the epicenter of those who would terrorize the nation with envelopes and little white powder, if one believes the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Count me among the naysayers, who number more than a roomful.



The government mobilized its team of Double-oh (uh-oh!) secret agents seven years ago to identify a villainous mad scientist, who, without genuine motive or opportunity, single handedly:



– Used a Bio-Containment Level Three lab suite at Fort Detrick’s U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), to develop a highly bred, weapons-grade strain of Bacillus anthracis (a scientific achievement not accomplished before, except perhaps in the biological warfare laboratories of the former Soviet Union).



– Manipulated this super bacillus with a silica coating and a slight electrical charge so that, when opened in the containment cabinet, each particle repelled others in a brilliant display.

http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=2747

(2/2008)

SCIENCE-US: Top Scientists Want Research Free From Politics
By Adrianne Appel

BOSTON, Feb 14 (IPS) - Leading U.S. scientists called on Congress Thursday to make sure the next president does not do what they say the George W. Bush Administration has done: censor, suppress and falsify important environmental and health research.

"The next president and Congress must cultivate an environment where reliable scientific advice flows freely," said Susan Wood, a former director of women's research at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Wood resigned her post in 2005 in protest over the FDA’s delay in getting emergency, over-the-counter birth control onto the market.

"Serious consequences can result when drug safety decisions are not based on the best available scientific advice from staff scientists and experts," she said.

Wood joined a panel of prominent scientists in Boston -- convened by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an activist group -- to announce a joint statement asking Congress to protect scientific integrity. Among the more than 15,000 government scientists signing onto the statement are Harold Varmus, president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre and former director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH); and Anthony Robbins, professor of medicine at Tufts University and former director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41205

The media's balancing act

By early 2002, it seemed clear that the United States government was muffing the anthrax investigation. Microbiologists interviewed by the FBI reported that the bureau didn't fully understand the science involved and had allowed the destruction of anthrax stocks that might have provided comparisons with the spores used in the attacks.

In the spring of 2002, I wrote a series of columns about the anthrax investigation, including some in which I referred to a "Mr. Z" as an example of the flaws in the FBI's investigation. Some scientists had mentioned him to the FBI early on as a candidate for closer scrutiny, but those trails weren't initially followed.

Later, after the authorities tipped off television reporters before a raid of his home, Dr. Steven J. Hatfill held a press conference to deny any involvement in the anthrax case. In the process, he confirmed that he was Mr. Z.

The government later named Dr. Hatfill as a "person of interest" in the case, and agents came to trail him constantly. Government officials leaked private information about Dr. Hatfill to reporters and this year paid him a multimillion-dollar settlement as a result.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/29/opinion/edkristof.php