Anthrax I:  Spore Traces Found in Afghan Laboratory, Myers Says

U.S. forces discovered traces of anthrax and ricin, a toxin derived from the castor bean, in at least five out of the 60 laboratories examined in Afghanistan, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers said yesterday (see GSN, March 25).

“The caveat to that is that there’s such minute amounts that the anthrax could be naturally occurring and the ricin could be there because of the castor bean,” Myers said.  The Pentagon found “no conclusive proof of active agents,” he said.

Operators at an anthrax laboratory discovered over the weekend near Kandahar appear to have attempted to shut down the facility before leaving, Myers said, adding that the laboratory did not have the necessary equipment to produce biological weapons.

“There was a dryer.  There was an autoclave,” Myers said.  “Not all the equipment you would need was there, but there was some of the equipment.  Looked like some of it had been tried to have been destroyed.”

The laboratories in which the traces were discovered might have been using the agents legally because both anthrax and ricin have “dual” — military and civilian — uses, according to United Press International.  U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, however, said al-Qaeda’s history of attempting to obtain biological weapons makes the peaceful use of such agents unlikely.

“We have so much evidence in writing of the desire to develop capabilities, chemical and biological capabilities, that the fact that it’s dual-use is saying a pistol’s dual-use — it can shoot a target or it can shoot a person,” Rumsfeld said (Pamela Hess, United Press International, March 25).

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Anthrax II:  U.S. Postal Service Prepares Massive Cleanup at Brentwood

U.S. postal officials are expected to release details today of plans for decontaminating the anthrax-tainted Brentwood Road mail-sorting facility in Washington, according to the Washington Post (see GSN, Feb. 15).

Officials cleaning Brentwood will model the project on the decontamination of the Hart Senate Office Building, in which crews successfully used chlorine dioxide gas to kill anthrax spores, the Post reported (see GSN, Feb. 7).  The Brentwood cleanup operation, along with the decontamination of a postal facility in Trenton, N.J., is expected to cost $35 million, postal officials said.

“If there’s any message I want to give you, it is that we’re going to make sure we get it right, so that there is an effective treatment and (Brentwood) is effectively decontaminated,” said Thomas Day, U.S. Postal Service vice president for engineering.  “We are absolutely committed to getting this done, but we need to get it done right.”

The Plan

To decontaminate the Brentwood facility, contractors will pump chlorine dioxide gas into the 17.5 million-cubic-foot building and keep the gas at a set concentration and humidity level for 12 hours, according to the Post.

There will be no one inside the facility during the decontamination operation.  Instead, engineers will operate Brentwood machinery remotely so every part is exposed to the gas.  There is no risk of a spark from machines igniting the gas, and the gas has been shown to be harmless to the machines, said Dennis Baca, Postal Service manager for environmental management policy.

After the gas has been in the building at the needed concentration and humidity levels, which engineers will monitor and maintain, it will be sucked outside the facility and made harmless by passing through scrubbers before being released into the outside air, the Post reported.  Hazardous material teams will then enter the building to collect more than 3,000 test strips for determining whether any anthrax spores remain.

Washington health officials have said the decontamination plan is still in an “embryonic” stage and that there are many details that sill need to be worked out, including how to make sure that no chlorine dioxide gas leaks from the building.  Any such leak would likely dissipate into the air and only cause burning eyes and a runny nose, according to experts (Steve Twomey, Washington Post, March 26).

Koplan Defends CDC

Meanwhile, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Jeffrey Koplan yesterday defended the way his agency handled the onset of last fall’s anthrax attacks (see GSN, Feb. 22).

At the start of the outbreak, government officials were criticized for poor communication with physicians and the public.  Federal officials, such as Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, were attacked for giving out information some believed would have been better coming from medical professionals, according to the New York Times.

Today, “we’re all agreed that it’s worthwhile early on to have a public health professional talking to the press,” about bioterrorism issues, said Koplan, who announced his resignation from the CDC last month.

Koplan also disputed rumors that he threatened to resign as CDC director at the beginning of the anthrax attacks unless the CDC was allowed to talk publicly.

“That is absolutely untrue,” Koplan said, adding that to have quit “in the midst of the anthrax attack would have been both unprofessional, unpatriotic and inappropriate.”

Some critics have complained that the CDC is not used to the harsh and brutal tone of politics in Washington, the Times reported.  The agency should be above such issues, Koplan said.

“What’s most important in an investigation of an outbreak like this is not the rough and tumble of Washington politics but the rough and tumble of dealing with a dangerous infectious agent when loose in the field, and that is were we apply our attention,” Koplan said.  “That is the wrestling match I prefer for us to get into, not Washington politics.  Let those up there dwell with that” (Lawrence Altman, New York Times, March 26).

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Anthrax I:  United States Finds Al-Qaeda Anthrax Laboratory

A top U.S. official yesterday confirmed reports the United States has discovered a laboratory in which al-Qaeda attempted to develop anthrax and other biological weapons (see GSN, March 20).  There was no evidence al-Qaeda successfully produced the weapons.

At the site near Kandahar, Afghanistan, “there was evidence of the attempt by [Osama] bin Laden to get his hands on weapons of mass destruction, anthrax or a variety of others,” Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the U.S. Central Command, said on NBC’s Meet the Press.

“What we found in that site, and in fact, what we have found in several sites is evidence of the attempt,” the general said.  “We have not yet found a place where we see weaponized weapons of mass destruction.”

“The laboratories, based on what we’re able to take from it, documentation, vials and so forth, was dedicated to that purpose [developing weapons of mass destruction] … In hot pursuit was bin Laden and were agents of al-Qaeda, but we have not seen a successful product of their labors up to this point,” Franks said (Meet the Press, March 24).

Other officials also confirmed the reports.  “U.S. Special Forces operating in the vicinity of Kandahar found a possible al-Qaeda chemical and biological research facility,” said Central Command spokesman Lt. Commander Matthew Klee.

The facility “contained some laboratory equipment and possibly was intended for use in a biological warfare production effort,” Klee said (BBC, March 24).

The Laboratory

Officials did not find any biological agents in the laboratory, which was under construction when al-Qaeda agents left it.  U.S. intelligence officials believe al-Qaeda would have needed foreign assistance to turn their research into an effective WMD program, the New York Times reported Saturday.

The equipment and documents at the site, however, indicated that al-Qaeda wanted to produce anthrax, the Times reported.  The laboratory contained medical equipment and supplies that scientists could have used for legitimate research but also to produce biological warfare agents, U.S. officials said.

U.S. officials refused to say whether they had information from a former al-Qaeda agent or local resident who might have provided information about activities at the laboratory.

The discovery of the laboratory provides more evidence to support U.S. officials’ belief that al-Qaeda was working to develop weapons of mass destruction but has so far failed, according to the Times.

“It is another example that they had an appetite for developing biological agents,” said a U.S. official.

U.S. agents have been searching more than 60 sites in Afghanistan where they suspect al-Qaeda had been operating during the Taliban’s rule.  Only a few samples showed any possible biological agents in very small amounts.  U.S. officials continue to search the sites and investigate evidence, the Times reported (Michael Gordon, New York Times, March 23).

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Anthrax II:  Officials Examine Sept. 11 Hijacker’s Connection to Disease

Federal investigators are examining a report that one of the hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 attacks was treated for a skin lesion that could have been caused by anthrax three months before last fall’s deadly mailings, U.S. officials said Saturday (see GSN, March 13).

Experts at the Johns Hopkins Center for Biodefense Strategies prepared the report after examining the documents of a Florida doctor who treated Ahmed Ibrahim al-Haznawi, who was a hijacker on United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania, said U.S. officials.  The experts concluded that anthrax was the most likely diagnosis for a lesion found on al-Haznawi’s leg, said Tim Parsons, spokesman for Johns Hopkins University’s school of public health.

Physician Christos Tsonas treated al-Haznawi for the lesion in June, the Associated Press reported Saturday.  Al-Haznawi said he developed the lesion after bumping into a suitcase, but after the Sept. 11 attacks and the anthrax mailings, Tsonas concluded that the lesion was consistent with anthrax, according to the AP.

FBI officials, however, said they did not think there is a connection between the Sept. 11 hijackers and last fall’s anthrax attacks.

“This was fully investigated and widely vetted among multiple agencies several months ago,” said Assistant FBI Director Jon Collingwood in a written statement.  “Exhaustive testing did not support that anthrax was present anywhere the hijackers had been.  While we always welcome new information, nothing new has, in fact, developed” (Associated Press/New York Times, March 24).

The report, along with prior evidence that the hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 attacks were also interested in obtaining access to cropdusting planes, could mean that the Sept. 11 and anthrax attacks were connected, said an FBI official.  Scientists and FBI agents, however, have found no connections in the course of their investigation, the official said.

“We did look into this sometime ago.  This was fully investigated,” the FBI official said.  “It’s a theory, but there’s no evidence.  It’s just not there.  We just have no evidence to feed the speculation that any of those guys came into contact with anthrax.”

“Amerithrax” Investigators Trudge Ahead

Investigators are concerned that the “Amerithrax” investigation into last fall’s anthrax attacks might become a “Unabomber-type investigation” — one that takes years, and possibly a lucky break, before it is solved, said a senior U.S. Justice Department official (Shogren/Meyer, Chicago Tribune, March 24).

FBI investigators had been prepared for a bioterrorism attack conducted in a subway or from an airplane but were surprised by the use of letters, the Wall Street Journal reported.

“None of the training exercises I participated in anticipated that type of delivery,” said a top law-enforcement official involved in the case.  “We had virtually no crime scene in the traditional sense.  We only have the envelopes and the letters and the anthrax.”

So far, one of the most difficult things in the “Amerithrax” investigation has been how to analyze the powder found in the anthrax mailing for clues that might lead back to a suspect, according to the Journal (see GSN, Feb. 26).

Investigators are nonetheless making progress, said two senior law enforcement officials.  One step has been to narrow down the number of U.S. laboratories that have stocks of the Ames strain of anthrax, the same strain that was used in the attacks.

Analysts have conducted a comprehensive review of the possible facilities that could have supplies of the Ames strain, the officials said (see GSN, Feb. 27).  Out of about 22,000 potential U.S. facilities, “We’ve come up with what we think is a pretty tight list,” said one of the officials, adding that the number is less than 100.

Investigators have also had to develop ways to test and analyze the most pristine anthrax samples — those taken from the tainted letter mailed to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).  To do so, the FBI brought to together about 20 experts from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Science Foundation and other research groups, according to the Journal.

“They came up with a flowchart of all the different tests that should be attempted in order to find out how was it made, where was it made, how old is the sample — all these questions,” one of the officials said.

Once tests were developed, FBI researchers created samples of harmless bacteria similar to anthrax to conduct dry runs.  Additionally, to conduct the sophisticated tests needed, the FBI took time to get needed contracts and secrecy agreements to use outside laboratories, the Journal reported.

One test conducted by an outside laboratory determined the ratio of atomic isotopes in a specific element in the powder.  The ratio varies based on where the element comes from, investigators said.  For example, the isotopic properties of oxygen and hydrogen in rainwater vary depending on the water’s geographic location, they said (Schoofs/Fields, Wall Street Journal, March 25).

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