Anthrax:  Senate Spores Match Those From U.S. Army

As the “Amerithrax” investigation continued, officials and experts debated whether the spores sent to members of the U.S. Senate came from a U.S. program (see GSN, Dec. 14), according to reports yesterday.

The spores in the tainted letter mailed to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) are identical to those kept by the U.S. Army, scientists familiar with the genetic testing said.  Only five laboratories have stocks of anthrax spores with genetic matches to those in the tainted Senate letters, the scientists said.  Those spores are kept at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Md., the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, the Porton Down military laboratory in the United Kingdom and microbial depositories at Louisiana State University and Northern Arizona University.

All of the other four laboratories can trace their stockpiles of anthrax spores back to USAMRIID, according to the Washington Post.  “That means the original source [of the spores used in the letters] had to have been USAMRIID,” a scientist said.

It is still unknown which, if any, of the laboratories might have lost control of some of its anthrax stock, according to the Post.  Investigators know little about the security at the Porton Down facility, but have no reason to suspect it is inadequate, one of the two scientists familiar with the genetic testing said.  Among the U.S. facilities, the FBI has focused on Dugway, the scientist said.  Dugway is the only facility known to have produced the weaponized form of anthrax in recent years.

Experts said it is possible, however, that the exact subtype of the Ames strain might have originated somewhere else, such as a dead animal or soil.  “It’s an important finding, but it’s not one of those things that says ‘Aha!’” said Richard Spertzel, former director of the U.N. biological weapons inspection teams in Iraq.

Researchers are still planning to conduct tests on anthrax samples from the Canadian Defense Research Establishment Suffield, the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio,  according the Post.  Those three facilities are the only other ones to have received samples of the Ames strain from USAMRIID, the Post reported.

Scientists also plan to examine other characteristics of the anthrax samples, such as proteins and carbohydrates, the Post reported.  “If there’s also a telltale piece or trace of nutrients or chemicals that show the process, that’s even better,” said University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute President Jennie Hunter-Cevera.  “You start adding the pieces and go from tentative to confirmative” (Weiss/Schmidt, Washington Post, Dec. 16).

U.S. Army Response

The findings of the genetic tests on the spores sent to Daschle and Leahy will not necessarily indicate who was responsible, a U.S. Army spokesman said. 

The USAMRIID received its samples of the Ames strain from the U.S. Agriculture Department and then shared it with five other laboratories, USAMRIID spokesman Chuck Dasey said.

“I’m not sure it tells us anything about who the perpetrator is,” Dasey said.  “You can’t say it all came from USAMRIID,” he said.  “We got it from another lab in the first place and so presumably USAMRIID is not the only lab that got it from the Department of Agriculture” (John Heilprin, Associated Press/Salon.com, Dec. 16).

The genetic test findings could mean a domestic source, rather than a foreign one, is responsible for the anthrax attacks, according to the Wall Street Journal.  FBI agents are heavily investigating military personnel, civilians, and academics that had access to the Army programs.  FBI officials said agents have investigated scientists at Dugway, USAMRIID and Louisiana State University since late October. 

Federal officials said, however, the genetic tests remain incomplete.  “These are important leads,” said Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota.  “But if, in fact, the organization that originally developed the anthrax strain sent it to others, or if it could have been stolen, there are still a wide array of possibilities out there.”

CIA Connection

Investigators have also looked at a CIA program that maintained small supplies of the Ames strain for use in comparisons with other samples, the Journal reported. A CIA spokesman said he did not know the source of the program’s Ames samples. “We are quite confident that whatever the source, it did not come from our supply,” he said (Wall Street Journal, Dec. 17). 

Army’s Admission Angers Some

The Army’s earlier admission that it produced small amounts of weaponized anthrax at the Dugway Proving Ground angered some experts, who said the admission could hurt the credibility of the anthrax investigation, according to the Financial Times.  The Army’s previous silence, even as it conducted chemical analyses on the tainted letters for the FBI, could be a potential conflict of interest, critics said (Gwen Robinson, Financial Times, Dec.14).  

Vaccine Could be Available for Civilians

The United States is debating whether or not to make the anthrax vaccine available to civilians at high risk, such as postal workers (see GSN, Dec. 13), federal health officials said Saturday.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson could make a decision on the matter next week, officials said after a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention forum. 

The first candidates for the anthrax vaccine would be those with possible exposure to heavy amounts of anthrax spores, said D.A. Henderson, director of the HHS Office of Public Health Preparedness.  “We are concerned with people who may have had a very heavy dose,” Henderson said, and added that this group may number close to 3,000 people (Warren Leary, New York Times, Dec. 16).

Also at the CDC forum, state and local health department officials said that the U.S. public health system was unprepared for a larger outbreak. 

Officials said they were concerned over the idea that a more massive bioterrorism attack may happen than the 18 cases of anthrax seen since early October.  “This was not the big one,” said Lou Turner, director of the North Carolina Laboratory of Public Health.  “The big one is still out there,” Turner said.

It was difficult to come up with a definition of a large outbreak, said Ross Brechner, of the Maryland State Health Department.  A 100 cases might be large, “but 1,000 would be a monster,” Brechner said.

Laboratories were unprepared to handle the mass amounts of anthrax tests needed soon after the incidents began, forum participants said.  Public health workers also had difficulties in collecting specimens, maintaining a proper chain of command and in communications, they added. 

Health officials said the anthrax attacks were a test that the U.S. public health system had passed in some ways, and failed in others.  “What we did right, and did a lot of, was learn an incredible amount” during the progression of an outbreak of a disease few U.S. doctors had seen before, Brechner said (Lawrence Altman, New York Times, Dec. 15). 

Anthrax Still in Hart Building

Trace amounts of anthrax are still present in the Hart Senate Office Building, despite fumigation with chlorine dioxide gas (see GSN, Dec. 12), officials said Friday.

Out of 380 samples taken from Daschle’s office, nine came back positive, according to the Los Angeles Times.  The result was “encouraging,” said U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials. 

“That means there is still some live anthrax there,” EPA spokeswoman Bonnie Piper said Friday.  “We still have a ways to go to clean the building, but the use of the gas was so effective we are actually tonight going to fumigate a small portion of the ventilation system to see how well [the gas] performs there,” Piper said.  The goal of the Hart building cleanup, she said, is “zero contamination” (Megan Garvey, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 15).

Supreme Court Recovering from Scare

The anthrax scare that closed the Supreme Court briefly in mid-October (see GSN, Oct. 29) placed a strain on proceedings through mail delivery delays and the taxing of the Court’s traditional paper-based methods due to new security measures, according to lawyers familiar with the situation.

The court may have difficulty finding enough cases to fill its oral argument calendar for the current term, which began Oct. 1, the lawyers said.  No permanent damage is apparent, according to the Washington Post.  Court rules allowed automatic extensions of filing deadlines during the weeklong shutdown. 

The Supreme Court took the nearly unprecedented step of allowing e-mailed or faxed backup copies of filings, the Post reported.  The move prompted discussions on whether the court should make it a permanent practice.  “Even before Sept. 11, there were very compelling reasons for any court, including the Supreme Court, to move that way,” said Representative David Vitter (R-La.).  “After Sept. 11, with the anthrax scare and stoppage of the mail, it doubles the reasons to move aggressively,” Vitter said (Charles Lane, Washington Post, Dec. 16). 

Anthrax in Austria

The U.S. Embassy in Vienna mailed back to the United States 10 mailbags that were tainted with anthrax for further tests, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.  The amount of anthrax spores on the mailbag was so small, it required several tests to detect them, Boucher said (U.S. State Department release, Dec. 14).

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Smallpox I:  Biologist Urges U.S. to Allow Vaccination

Americans should be able to choose to receive a smallpox vaccination, said Paul Ewald in a column in the New York Times today (see GSN, Dec. 6).  Ewald, a biology professor at Amherst College and author of Evolution of Infectious Disease and Plague Time, said voluntary vaccination might prevent a smallpox attack, because if part of the population was immune to smallpox, “the bang for the terrorist’s buck could be drastically curtailed.”

Offering the option of vaccination could also help prevent difficult decisions that would occur if terrorists released smallpox on a vulnerable population, Ewald said.  For example, a woman who intended to become pregnant could choose to receive a smallpox vaccine before pregnancy rather than being forced to choose between the risks to the fetus of a smallpox vaccine and acquiring smallpox itself if an epidemic occurred. 

A partly vaccinated population would also reduce the stress on medical resources if an outbreak occurred, Ewald said (Paul Ewald, New York Times, Dec. 17).

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Smallpox II:  Greece Orders Vaccine

Greece has ordered 150,000 doses of smallpox vaccine, the Financial Times reported Saturday.  The vaccine is to be part of a strategic reserve against a biological weapons attack, Greek officials said, but they did not say who would be inoculated.

“We are not sure as to what extent Muslim elements in the Balkans could be used by extremists,” said the Greek Embassy in London.  “Like any other government in the coalition, we must be thinking of taking precautions.”

Greece’s announcement followed a meeting of European health ministers on ways to better coordinate bioterrorism responses.  European Commission officials said they were aware that some countries had begun to build vaccine stockpiles, especially of anthrax and smallpox vaccines.

“We are getting together all the information we can get on what kind of vaccines people have in stock and asking ourselves whether there is need for strategies for pooling our resources,” said a Commission official (Financial Times, Dec. 15).

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