Analyzing The Anthrax Attacks - 2009-2012 edition

Thoughts and Comments
by Ed Lake

Updates & Changes: Sunday, January 29, 2012, thru Saturday, February 4, 2012

February 1, 2012 (D) - Hmm. As I was doing some research this afternoon, I stumbled across a full copy of the Report of the Expert Behavioral Analysis Panel. It's evidently been available since last March, when AUSA Rachel Leiber got it released. It's redacted in the same way as the version I obtained at that time, but I've never been able to provide a link to the complete report before. I would just link to the 30 page "Executive Summary". If you recall, there was a big stink back then from Anthrax Truthers grumbling over the fact that the panel was selling copies via a vanity press publisher, even though the report was government funded. Now, instead of paying $41.73, you can get it for free. :-)

February 1, 2012 (C) - I haven't exactly been waiting anxiously to see the new movie "Contagion," but I was curious about it. I rented it from Redbox yesterday. It's a pretty good okay movie that shows what could happen if a mutated virus got loose that kills quickly and no known vaccine or anti-viral medicine can stop it. The movie is very methodical as it steps through all the work that is done to find a vaccine and manufacture it while millions continue to die, including some of the CDC and health workers trying to stop its spread. My biggest complaint (just above there being too many characters) would be about the "conspiracy theorist" played by Jude Law who works to make a profit from the outbreak. I just couldn't match the motives and actions of the guy in the movie to any of the dozens of conspiracy theorists I've known and talked with. My feeling is that if there were ever a real situation like the one depicted in "Contagion," conspiracy theorists would be an even greater threat than they are in the movie as they try to convince people to NOT take the vaccine because of a belief in some new imagined government plot.

February 1, 2012 (B) - Yesterday, I was so fascinated by the photographs PBS released via their web site on Monday that I neglected to mention the bogus statement they made:

As part of our reporting, we filed more than 30 FOIA requests and recently received a CD from the FBI with a number of rarely seen photos of Ivins’ lab, including the machine the FBI claims he used to make the deadly attack anthrax powder.

As far as I know, the FBI never claimed that Ivins used the lyophilizer to make the attack powders. The FBI just claimed he lied about knowing how to use it. However, in a document filed in the Stevens vs USA lawsuit, lawyers for the Department of Justice erroneously implied Ivins used the lyophilizer to make the powders. But, that error was quickly corrected. PBS knows that. So, the false statement I quoted above seems deliberate, unless it's just another human error like the one the DOJ lawyers made.

I'm going to try to obtain a copy of the CD for myself. The photos of Ivins' lab and office fascinate me. They help me visualize what was going on. And, I have to wonder if there are other photos on the CD that are even more interesting.

February 1, 2012 (A) - I don't know if anyone is interested, but someone just sent me an article from the science journal Nature which says there have been resignations over the publication of the controversial HIV-AIDS article I commented about on January 10, 2012.

January 31, 2012 (C) - Someone just provided a link to a PBS Frontline web page which contains 7 interesting new photos which may never have been seen before. The list below is out of order because the photos are not shown in numerical order on the PBS site:

#1 - Ivins office and desk. Two others shared the office, and they also had desks and computers. It's difficult to figure the exact layout and whose desk is where. However, Ivins' desk can be presumed to be the one with the chair. Note that the chair appears to have a head rest.

#2 - Ivins' locker #10 in Room B301. It's the locker in the corner. The lockers look like they're left over from WWII.

#4 - Part of Room B313? The caption says it's "Suite B3," but it's obviously a room, and it's probably the side of room B313 that was farthest from the door. I wonder what the metalic surface that occupies the entire right edge of the photo is.

#3 - Looking into Room B313? The caption says it's "A window into the secured BLS-3 hot suite lab." It appears to be the door into Room B313 with the biosafety cabinet clearly visible. It's in the correct location in relationship to the door as seen in a different photograph taken years earlier.

#6 - The lyophizer. Supposedly, it's a picture of the lyophilizer kept in Suite B5. That seems to be a closet for laboratory scrubs to the left of the lyophilizer. Pink for women, blue for men?

#7 - Notebook page. The caption says it's a photo of a page from one of Ivins' notebooks where he mentions the lyophilizer. It appears to be a "Statement of Need" in which Ivins lays out four reasons why they need the lyophilizer.

#5 - Flask RMR-1029. Another shot of flask RMR-1029. But, it doesn't show any of the material that was in it. In September 2004 it may have been just some dried crud covering the bottom, or the flask may have been totally empty. It's also possible that the flask is covered with a sheet of some kind of protective plastic to preserve it as evidence.

Interesting stuff, particularly photos #1, #3 and #4. For comparison to photo #3, below is an old photo of Ivins in his lab, showing the biosafety cabinet from a different angle:

Photos #3, #4 and the one above really show the cramped conditions within the Room B313.

January 31, 2012 (B) - Someone just sent me a VERY interesting science article titled "Contradictions Don't Deter Conspiracy Theorists" with these opening paragraphs:

Did Princess Diana fake her own death to escape the public eye? Or was she killed by a rogue element of the British secret service?

If you agree with one of these theories, there's a good chance you'll subscribe to both even though one suggests Princess Diana is alive, the other dead, a new study indicates.

And here's the central idea:

The central idea — that authorities are engaged in massive deceptions intended to further their malevolent goals — supports any individual theory, to the point that theorists can endorse contradictory ones, according to the team.

It's certainly true when looking at conspiracy theorists as a group. I've argued with conspiracy theorists who believe that super-smart people in the U.S. government were behind the attacks, and I've argued with conspiracy theorists who believe the U.S. government is too dumb to realize that Muslims sent the anthrax letters.

I've also argued this week with an Anthrax Truther who claims I should have accepted without question what the FBI said about a person who was investigated in 2001, and then he also accuses me of accepting without question whatever the FBI says - particularly about Bruce Ivins. From my point of view, neither claim is true.

The consiracy theorists certainly have contradictory beliefs about circumstantial evidence. If it support their beliefs, then circumstantial evidence is solid evidence, if the circumstantial evidence disputes their beliefs, it's not any kind evidence at all.

The problem with finding specific examples where an individual conspiracy theorist has contradictory beliefs (like those described in the new article) is that they are usually very reluctant to discuss their specific beliefs. They only want to discuss what they DO NOT believe. They do not believe the government. And, that usually means they'll agree with their fellow Truthers who argue totally contradictory theories, because they all agree on one part of the theory: the government is wrong.

January 31, 2012 (A) - It appears I misunderstood some of the Google software settings on my interactive blog. Richard Rowley had to post a message to Dr. Meryl Nass's blog to tell me that he couldn't post to my blog, even though he's a member. So, I've changed the settings again. Now - if I've set things properly - anyone can post, but all posts are moderated, which means I'll be looking them over before they'll appear.

January 30, 2012 - Hmm again. That same person who posts as "Anonymous" to my blog just sent me an email that says,

You need to stop saying I am threatening you.

This is your final warning.

I guess I need to do some research on the difference between a threat and a warning.

January 29, 2012 (E) - Hmm. I've just been threatened by an anonymous poster on my interactive blog. He wrote:

Just because the internet technically makes it possible for you to ... type words about an important national security matter, doesn't mean you should. ...

I am going to make sure you don't succeed in trying to rewrite history

However, it doesn't appear to be a threat of violence. He also wrote,

your incredibly stupid views are part of the public record and will be quoted back every time you try to misrepresent them.

So, because he was threatening to be malicious in the way he posts to the forum, I had to change the site settings. Now, only people whose email addresses I put into a list can post to the forum. Too bad, I'd hoped to get some more interesting discussions going. It might still be possible, but only time will tell.

Maybe it's a good thing. I need to focus on my new book, anyway.

January 29, 2012 (D) - In my email inbox this morning I found a link to a science article titled "How the craziest f#@!ing 'Theory of Everything' got published and promoted." It's very reminiscent of the nonsense article about the anthrax attacks that was published in the Journal of Bioterrorism & Biodefense back in October 2011. Somehow, this new article was also "peer reviewed," and somehow others also thought that the fact that it was "peer reviewed" meant that it had to be taken seriously. Evidently, it's time to repeat the addage: There is no idea so preposterous that you can't find an expert with perfect credentials to support it. And, it now also appears that there won't be much difficulty in finding experts to positively "peer review" the preposterous idea.

It's difficult to be philosophical about this. It's extremely difficult to argue facts and science when total nut cases case can cite respected experts who agree with them.

January 29, 2012 (C) - While I was studying 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta's handwriting last week, I mentioned that the Y's on his Pilot Profile form didn't match the Y's in the anthrax letters. Then, I took a closer look at the anthrax letters and noticed something I hadn't noticed before: the peculiar way the anthrax letter writer drew his Y's. There are only 5 examples, three on the New York Post envelope (New York Post, New York, NY) and two on the Tom Brokaw envelope (New York, NY):

What grabbed my attention were the little blobs (a.k.a. "pause marks") in the center of the Y's, where the lines connect. They indicate that the writer paused, keeping the pen on the paper, while he checked to see what character he had to write next. So, he was almost certainly copying the addresses from someplace else. But, that was already clear from the other pause marks.

However, what's very odd is that Y #1 seems to show that the writer first drew the long line that goes from top right to bottom, and then he drew the left side of the Y to where it meets the other line. Y #2, however, seems to have been done the opposite way. The long line starts at upper left and goes to the bottom, and then the right side of the Y is drawn. But, it also looks like the writer could have drawn THREE lines to make the Y. Neither of the top lines seems to connect perfectly to the vertical bottom line. Y #3 seems more clearly to have been drawn by starting at top left and continuing to the bottom. But, Y #4 seems to go back to the first way again OR once again the writer used three line strokes to make the Y. And Y #5 seems to be similar to #2 and #3. However, if a professional forensic examination of the actual writing on the envelopes showed that all five examples involved the drawing of three separate line strokes to make each Y, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

It seems truly odd that the writer appears to have drawn the Y in "New York Post" starting on the right and then draw the Y in "New York" starting on the left. And, who but a child would draw a Y using three strokes?   Anyway you look at it, it again seems to be the writing of child who hadn't yet learned to write confidently and smoothly.   And, it is certainly unlike any handwriting by any 9/11 terrorist.

Something else about my handwriting analysis occurred to me last week during an argument on my interactive blog: When talking about creating hypotheses, experts always make it clear that a good hypothesis can be used to make predictions. Without realizing it, I made a prediction when I developed my hypothesis that a child wrote the anthrax letters. I predicted that the anthrax mailer would have access to a six-year-old child. At the time I formulated the hypothesis in 2002 and 2003, the person who I thought was "most likely" the anthrax mailer was a scientist who lived in New Jersey and who had no known access to young children. He was either a bachelor or a divorced man with grown children. To make handwriting hypothesis fit, I rationalized that he must have had some access to a six-year-old that I just couldn't find. But, my hypothesis was predicting that I was wrong about who most likely did it. It was a stunning discovery to me when Bruce Ivins was named the anthrax killer and it turned out his wife ran a day care center in their home at the time of the mailings.

January 29, 2012 (B) - I know it's entirely off-topic, but I need to mention that Stephen Colbert had me rolling on the floor with laughter several times last week on "The Colbert Report," first during his interview with former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, then with his two part interview with Maurice Sendak, the author of the children's book "Where The Wild Things Are." The problem with pointing to any of Colbert's classic bits, however, is that, if you don't know Colbert or watch his TV show, you might think he's serious when he talks like a nit-wit ultra-Republican. Some people just don't "get" satire.

January 29, 2012 (A) - I wasted a lot of time last week in discussions on my interactive blog.   But, I always find it fascinating when Anthrax Truthers argue against their own logic. In one thread, a Truther posting as "Anonymous" berated me because I didn't totally accept the FBI's vague statements that a scientist they were looking at in late 2001 was not the anthrax mailer. "Anonymous" argued that I should have accepted the FBI's statements (and the scientist's claims of innocence) and I should have stopped mentioning the scientist. But, of course, "Anonymous" has been arguing for ten years that Muslims were behind the attacks, even though the FBI said they weren't, and "Anonymous" continues arguing the same theory even though the FBI says that Bruce Ivins did it. So, he doesn't follow the rules he wants me to follow. Also, "Anonymous" and other Anthrax Truthers have been berating me for years for "blindly accepting" everything the FBI says. But, when I didn't accept that the former Battelle scientist had been cleared when the FBI said he was "not the focus of our investigation" and "not officially ruled out," they berated me for continuing to think the scientist could have been involved and not accepting their interpretation of what the FBI said.

There were also several "new" screwball theories from the Anthrax Truthers last week. I haven't bothered to study their theories in detail, but they appear to be arguing that, because the 9/11 hijackers used a Mail Boxes Etc. store in Laurel, MD, that's where they must have purchased the envelopes used in the anthrax attacks. And, they must have made the copies of the letters at a Kinkos and probably also used a paper cutter there to trim off the edges of the letters. (In reality, the cut edges seem to be very irregular.) And, they have been posting comment after comment after comment after comment on Lew Weinstein's site (and one on mine) about a "particulate mixer" being delivered somewhere near where some 9/11 terrorists were when they purchased their airline tickets for 9/11. On my blog "Anonymous" seems to refer to the same machine as a "fine powdered mixer":

Ed perhaps can agree that a fine powdered mixer was delivered to the block where Atta and Nawaf Al-Hazmi was making final preparations for 9/11 in Fort Lee. Ed perhaps can agree that he does not know where the fine particulate mixer was taken.

And I responded:

I can't agree or disagree with something that is so totally irrelevant. Unless some solid relevance can be shown, the subject of a "fine powdered mixer" is meaningless. The FACTS say the media powder wasn't a "fine powder," it was 90 percent dried [slime]. The photos show it to be chunks of dried [slime]. So, it's ridiculous to suggest that the media powder was created using some kind of "fine powdered mixer."

One frequent tactic being used by the Anthrax Truthers is to be very vague about what they are actually claiming, so that if you try to figure out what they are claiming, they can argue that it is YOU who are wrong and not them. And, their claims nearly always involve "circumstantial evidence" far far more vague and flimsy than anything the FBI ever used to point to Bruce Ivins as the anthrax mailer. That's another favorite tactic of the Truthers: If it is circumstantial evidence produced by the FBI, they claim it isn't really evidence. But, if it is circumstantial evidence the Truthers found, then it is solid and only someone with a "closed mind" wouldn't accept it as "proof."

Meanwhile, the Russian/Kazakh attack continues. And, I managed to get a couple chapters done on the first draft of my book, taking me through Chapter 45 and page 359. Chronologically, I'm in July 11, 2008, when Ivins was in a mental hospital after telling his counselors and the patients in his group therapy session that he planned to murder his co-workers at USAMRIID. The current plan is that there'll be a chapter about Ivins' suicide, a chapter or two about reactions to the news that Ivins was the anthrax mailer, and a chapter titled "Leftover Evidence" about the handwriting evidence and a few other things. So, it looks like I'll end up with 50 chapters and about 400 pages. Finishing the first draft is vaguely "in sight," but it's still not possible to predict an actual time of completion. In the past, things I thought were take only one chapter ended up requiring three chapters to explain. Plus, I just cannot resist wasting time by arguing with Anthrax Truthers. It's something I enjoy too much.

Updates & Changes: Sunday, January 22, 2012, thru Saturday, January 28, 2012

January 27, 2012 - Just when it seemed like no one was going to be writing any more news articles about the anthrax attacks of 2001, today The Washington Post published an article titled "Justice Dept. takes on itself in probe of 2001 anthrax attacks." It's basically just a rehash of all the McClatchy/ProPublica nonsense printed back in July of 2011, when it turned out that Justice Department lawyers arguing in the Stevens vs USA lawsuit mistated a few things about the case. As a result, McClatchy newspapers and others jumped all over it, declaring the government was arguing with itself. And now, a "reporter" from the Washington Post has re-discovered it. Plus, he rehashes the old, old debate over the government's investigation of Steven Hatfill, ignoring the role the media (and specifically The Washington Post) played in that fiasco.

Who does the Post quote in support of their "story"? They quote conspiracy theorist Dr. Meryl Nass, Maureen Stevens' lawyer Richard Schuler, Bruce Ivins' lawer Paul Kemp, Bruce Ivins' friends William Russell Byrne and Gerard P. Andrews, and some law professor who had nothing to do with the case but who makes quotable comments. The article says this about Byrne and Andrews:

Prosecutors and FBI officials disputed the contentions of the two scientists, saying in interviews that they were biased because they supervised Ivins and could have missed signs of his guilt. Though Byrne and Andrews were listed as government witnesses in the civil case, officials said they would never have been certified by a judge as experts under the stricter rules in the criminal system, which does not allow speculation.

Right. Byrne and Andrews were speculating, and the FBI had solid facts showing that their speculation had little to do with reality. And the errors made in the Stevens' case were just mistakes. But, The Washington Post rehashes it all anyway.

It must be a very slow news day.

January 25, 2012 - Some Anthrax Truthers have evidently concluded that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta wrote the anthrax letters, in spite of the fact that the evidence clearly says otherwise. When examining Atta's handwriting, one very unusual trait of his that is NOT in the anthrax letters is the unusual way Atta drew the number one. Here are some samples from "Pilot Profile" forms Atta filled out on July 31, 2000 and September 18, 2000 ( boxed in red):

Mohamed Atta's handwriting - drawing 1's

Notice how his 1's look like droopy 7's. If it wasn't for the European way he draws 7's with the horizontal bar, the first date would look like 7-37-2000. And his birth date would appear to be 09.07.7968, if that wasn't obviously wrong. The prefix on his phone number would almost certainly be interpreted to be 947. And his address (not shown) would be interpreted as 576 W. Laurel Rd. instead of 516.

It's also important to note that Atta wrote those 1's as a single stroke, first going up and then down, which is totally different from the anthrax letter writer's method of drawing 1's with THREE separate strokes. (Images of all the anthrax letters and envelopes can be found on the original front page for this web site.)

When comparing Atta's handwriting to another writing sample, any expert would look for such unusual and fairly unique characteristics. The writing of the number 9 as a continuous loop and his open 4's would be other unique characteristics. And, both are very different from the writing on the anthrax letters and envelopes.

I find it incredible that Anthrax Truthers can be arguing that the anthrax handwriting matches that of Mohamed Atta ten years after the attacks. It should have been clear in an instant the first time they were compared that they do NOT match.

January 23, 2012 (B) - Hmm. There were seven emails in my inbox when I came home from the health club this afternoon. They were all from two of the three Anthrax Truthers who have been posting to my blog. One said only:

gentle people - there is no purpose in posting on Ed Lake's blog because he is an asshole

That really amuses me. It confirms that when Anthrax Truthers are confronted with arguments they cannot challenge, they resort to name calling. What else can they do? They have no facts to argue with.

Another email complained that I did not post Mohamed Atta's visa application beside the anthrax letters on this web site and make a comparison. I didn't think it was necessary, since an Anthrax Truther did that HERE, and I wrote a comment on the blog about how the G's don't match, the 4's don't match, and the Y's don't match. I could also have pointed out that the M's don't match, the E's are drawn with two strokes instead of 4, the N's are drawn with two strokes instead of 3, the R's are more Catholic style than public school style, and when he uses serifs on his 1's, he only uses the top serif. So, why would anyone think that there was any reasonable possibility that Atta wrote the anthrax letters? The M's, E's, 4's and 1's should be enough to convince any expert (or non-expert) that Atta didn't write the anthrax letters. And, of course, Mohamed Atta was DEAD for a week at the time of the first mailing, and DEAD for a month at the time of the second mailing, and the facts say that the writer learned a lot about writing between the sending of the first and second letters. How much can a dead man learn? And, there are indications that the second mailing was sent because the first was ignored. How would a dead man know his first mailing was ignored?

The Truther who did the mathematical equation "confirming" that Atta wrote the letters says in an email he didn't "assume" that Atta did it. He says, "The letter was purportedly from Atta." Who did the purporting? Another anthrax truther, of course. The mathemetician just assumed that the Truther was right when he did his calculations. So, technically, he was assuming that the Truther was right about Atta writing the letters, he wasn't assuming that Atta wrote the letters. I stand corrected.

January 23, 2012 (A) - Wow. My interactive blog has never been so busy. And it's doing what I want it to do: It's recording some of the most bizarre thinking anyone could ever come up with. If I claimed someone made such arguments, most people would never believe me. But, the blog is proof. For example, in this week's thread, there's this:

The chance Ivins would pick a first grader who would come as close or better to matching Atta's known sources is low. I would estimate less than .0001 at least.

How many first graders would you have to go through for them to generate an equal or higher match measure to Atta? Maybe a 1 million is not enough.

Same with Ivins disguising his writing to randomly equal or exceed the match measure to Atta.

So we conclude Atta was the source over these competing hypotheses.

And this was despite the fact that it is VERY clear that 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Atta's handwriting does not match the writing on the letters and envelopes. The writer used a mathematical formula to come to his conclusion! Check it out. It appears to begin with the assumption that Atta wrote the letter and then calculates the odds that Ivins could write or find someone who writes exactly like Atta.

And in the thread from three weeks ago, last night someone added this comment :

For all we know OTHER dailies received letters (but no one got sick and the letters were discarded without notice). For all we know CNN in Atlanta might have received a letter that was discarded without incident.

You are judging by (mere) surface things. (Nearly) always a mistake.

So, looking at the facts is (nearly) always a mistake? And, isn't the trail of anthrax spores through the various post offices evidence that no anthrax letter passed through any Atlanta post office? Or, is that evidence just another "(mere) surface thing"?

And, in last week's thread, this afternoon a different Anthrax Truther posted this:

Ed, you are a moron with absolute no understanding of the real world or the use of experts in prosecutions.

But, of course, he didn't explain exactly where I was wrong and exactly what he believed to be true. Instead, he just made general statements that did not appear to address the issue at all. The issue was a situation where the prosecution uses conflicting expert witnesses to show that the prosecution's own evidence is "inconclusive."

January 22, 2012 (B) - One reason for endlessly arguing with Anthrax Truthers is that, in the process of trying to find new ways to counter their repeated arguments, sometimes I come up with something new that seems devastating to their cause. I think an example of that came up in my interactive blog this morning.

The argument was still about the handwriting on the letters. In the blog thread for this week, I argued things one way:

I don't have time to dig into it, but you can probably find an expert who has a totally different opinion about the anthrax handwriting than another expert.

You will undoubtedly pick the expert who supports your beliefs, but I will just say that it only means that handwriting analysis is an art NOT a science. Therefore, we need to determine if the "expert" began with any biases. And we need to compare one "expert's" opinion to another to see which makes the most sense. And that means it becomes my opinion versus your opinion, and we're never going to agree.

So, my analysis stands until it is proved wrong.

But, in the blog thread from last week I argued things in a slightly different way:

Why can't you understand? The FBI's analysis of the handwriting is INCONCLUSIVE. That means they have experts who disagree with each other.

So, all you're doing is looking for some "expert" who seems to agree with YOU, so you can say you are right.

When experts disagree, taking the side of the "expert" who agrees with your personal opinion is RIDICULOUS. The facts are saying that they can all be wrong!

I love it! Why didn't I come up with that argument years ago? I probably I did, but I just didn't express it the same way. I've repeatedly told Anthrax Truthers that they are just siding with the "expert" who agrees with them and ignoring all other experts who have solid facts. But that was usually about science and scientists who disagreed with the evidence or who believed "the government" was hiding the real evidence.

But, handwriting analysis is usually not about solid facts. Handwriting analysis is NOT a science. It's an ART. The FBI has many handwriting experts, and they evidently cannot agree about the handwriting, so the FBI says the handwriting evidence is "inconclusive."

The Anthrax Truther wants to find an expert who agrees with him. But, when experts disagree, that means they can all be wrong.

And, of course, if all the "experts" are wrong, that could mean I'm right. :-)

January 22, 2012 (A) - I allowed myself to get into a series of debates with Anthrax Truthers last week. Most of it was just a waste of time, but some of it was mildly productive. The most productive discussion was the one where it was pointed out to me that Bruce Ivins examined the anthrax powder in the Daschle letter by doing serial dilutions, plating the results and counting colonies. Yet, he evidently failed to notice any morphs. Why? Terry Abshire noticed them. And, she appears to have had far less experience with anthrax than Ivins.

Of course, Abshire only noticed them after she'd unintentionally allowed some colonies to sit and grow for longer than normal. For me, that brought up the question: What is the size of a colony that is formed from a single spore and allowed to grow overnight? To find out, I first checked "The Story of Suzy the Spore." Yup, it's there in the last panel. A colony that is allowed to grow for 24 hours is "2 to 5 millimeters in diameter." However, rather than rely on myself as the authority, I checked my Suzy sources. The source was the Eiko Yabuuchi paper. It says:

Under aerobic condition, dull and off-white colonies >3.0 mm in diameter with fluffy edges appeared on TSA plate after 20 hr incubation at 30 C.

Different anthrax strains could grow at different rates, I suppose, but it's good enough data to work with in this situation. It means that after just 24 hours, the colonies were not the nickel or dime-size colonies used to illustrate how the various morphs looked. They were colonies ranging from between the diameter of the head of a pin to the diameter of a pencil. That would make it more difficult to notice the differences Terry Abshire saw between normal colonies (a.k.a. "Wild Type") and morph colonies.

But, I still find it very interesting that Ivins not only failed to notice the billions of morphs in his creation - flask RMR-1029 - but he was absolutely certain it was virtually free of morphs. If he did notice them, he must have considered them to be "normal" colony variations. And he was absolutely certain that morphological variants were caused by passaging.

His confidence in his own superior knowledge of anthrax was the cause of his downfall. But, that's what I wrote about last Sunday, so I'm repeating myself somewhat.

Interestingly, one of the arguments I had last week was with a microbiologist & Anthrax Truther who thought she spotted an error in the way the FBI Repository collected evidence. On January 10, on Lew Weinstein's site, she wrote this about the subpoena the FBI sent out to collect samples for their repository:

Also note that by following the instructions to incubate the slants for 12 to 18 hours after transfer to assure viability, what is actually being submitted is an actively-growing SUBCULTURE of the original material requested.

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!!!

For over a week, I wondered what she was talking about. Why was the required method of sending samples to the FBI Repository wrong -- in her opinion? Of course, no one on Weinstein's site asked her. Anthrax Truthers there mostly just preach their unproved beliefs without ever being challenged. No Anthrax Truther seems to care what another Anthrax Truther believes. Each one only cares about what he or she believes. And each believes only he or she knows the real truth, and the FBI is wrong. So, that's what they preach. But, last week that same Anthrax Truther/microbiologist sent me an email in which she said the same thing she'd posted to Weinstein's site on the 10th. When I asked her what she was talking about, she explained:

A proper protocol for submission of FLASK RMR-1029 SPORE MATERIAL to ensure the sample is representative and to minimize variation between samples would be AN ALIQUOT OF THE LIQUID SPORE MATERIAL! (DUH!)

Well, obviously she had no understanding of why the FBI sent out the subpoena asking for TSA slants to be made from every available sample of the Ames strain in every lab which had the Ames strain. She ignored all that investigation stuff. She just jumped straight to what the FBI should have done after they spent years finding the source of the attack powders. They should have taken "an aliquot of the liquid spore material," instead of using a slant. And, apparently, she believed the same should have been done with all the other 1,000+ samples. Her bizarre assumption must have been that all the other 1,000+ samples were also flasks of liquid material. I explained to her that many samples were slants, dried crusts on the bottom of beakers, frozen bacteria, and dried agar plates. She apparently saw the error of her ways, since he told me she didn't want to talk about it with me anymore, since she was a microbiologist and I am not.

Meanwhile, two different Truthers calling themselves "Anonymous" were arguing with me about other things in the Jan. 15 and Jan. 8 threads on my interactive blog. When things got confusing, Anonymous #1 identified himself as Richard Rowley, and it was clear Anonymous #2 was "DXer" from Lew Weinstein's site, since he began posting some of the same True Believer sermons on my blog, and I had to delete some of it.

DXer began posting with his favorite argument: He believes I'm wrong in concluding that "The Facts Say a Child Wrote the Anthrax Letters." He endlessly brings up my handwriting hypothesis, claiming that no one agrees with me. When I posted, "I've told you again and again that people have written me to say they agree with the hypothesis," he just ignores my post. Instead, he wrote: "You lack common sense which is why no one agrees with your First Grader Theory." When I point out that the idea originally came from someone called "Brother Jonathan," he then usually accuses me of stealing the idea. This time he argued that even Brother Jonathan doesn't agree with me: "Brother Jonathan, unlike you, knows that the FBI concluded that Ivins acted alone." When I point out the fact that postal employees delivered the letters doesn't change the fact that Ivins acted alone, so an unwitting participant is not a party to the crime, the Anthrax Truther ignores that and seemingly argues that the FBI says Ivins acted alone, therefore the FBI is claiming no one could have done the writing except Ivins. The fact that the FBI has stated that their analysis of the handwriting is "inconclusive" means nothing. Only the Anthrax Truther's beliefs mean anything. And, of course, he repeatedly calls me a "True Believer" because I don't agree with him. And so it goes. It's an argument that he's been waging for nearly ten years.

(I'd really like some suggestions on how to get some recognized handwriting "experts" to evaluate the evidence on my page about the handwriting. I've asked a few, but they want me to pay for their opinions. And, I don't want their opinions that badly. Others have already stated their opinions either to the FBI or on their web sites, so they aren't about to change what they've already officially concluded.)

DXer also berates me because I don't read the books he reads. To him, that means I'm uninformed. In reality, it just means I've got my own reading list. Currently, during breakfast and lunch, I'm reading "Asimov's Chronology of Science & Discovery," by Isaac Asimov. I'm on page 480, with only about 170 pages left to go. Did you know that in 1898 doctors and scientists were desperately trying to figure out why some people were dying of diseases, yet no one could see any disease-causing bacteria under their microscopes? They tried filtering out all the bacteria in the victims' blood, but the material that got through the filter still caused disease. No one couldn't figure out why. Then Dutch botonist Martinus Willem Beijerinck decided that there must be something smaller than a bacterium that also causes disease. He didn't know what it might be, so he simply called it "filtrable virus." Virus is the Latin word for "poison." And, as we now know, it turned out there are a lot of diseases that aren't caused by bacteria, they are caused by viruses.

The other "Anonymous" poster, Richard Rowley, goes round and round with me about how the evidence against Ivins isn't evidence because it's not what he considers to be evidence. And, he calls me a "True Believer" because I accept the evidence that he believes isn't really evidence. In one message, he explained to me that eventually, perhaps years from now, the FBI is going to come around to his way of thinking. I told him that is truly the thinking of a True Believer.

And, meanwhile, the Russian/Kazakh attack continues. They're still trying a new IP address or two every day. They tried two new ones this morning. But they were both in ranges I have blocked. I keep wondering what's going to happen when they find an address I haven't blocked. They should have a lot of pent up frustration by now.

Last week, I only managed to get one new Chapter done for my new book. I'm currently writing about the "off the record" meeting between Ivins and the FBI/DOJ that took place on June 9, 2008. I think it's the only time Ivins was asked questions about Gõdel, Escher, Bach and the handwriting on the media letter.

And Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary! Wow! It's hard to imagine anyone voting for Gingrich. What could the voters have been thinking? But, I couldn't imagine anyone voting for a beady-eyed sociopath for governor of Wisconsin, either. But they did. And now we're going to have a recall election to try to get rid of him.

And, while all the above was going on, I was worrying a bit about my 67-year-old sister and her husband who emailed me to say they are having a good time on their vacation as they bounce around in a bus going from town to town in the southern Philippines. In an email I received this morning, they said they'd decided to fly to another island instead of taking a ferry. That's safer, I think. Maybe.

It's a fascinating world we live in.

Updates & Changes: Sunday, January 15, 2012, thru Saturday, January 21, 2012

January 20, 2012 (C) - I just received another email reminding me that Terry Abshire had left some plates grow longer than normal, and that's what resulted in her noticing the morphs. Yet, in all of Ivins' years working with the contents of RMR-1029, there's no indication that he ever noticed a morph. That says he either (1) didn't notice the unusual colonies, or (2) he was afraid of questioning the unusual colonies since it would lead directly to questioning the contents of RMR-1029 which was his creation and had cost a lot of money and time.

January 20, 2012 (B) - Someone just sent me a very interesting email about my (A) comment this morning. She reminded me that Ivins plated out the Daschle powder and The New York Post powder, and he didn't mention seeing any unusually shaped or unusually colored colonies. And, there were supposedly as much as 20 times as many morphs in those letters than in flask RMR-1029. Yet, it appears everything seemed normal to him as he counted the colonies that grew on the plates.

That seems like solid evidence that Ivins thought that abnormalities in the shape, size and color of anthrax colonies were "normal." And, it's probably because he'd become accustomed to seeing different shaped colonies when he did serial dilutions and quantification tests on material from RMR-1029.

But, in her work, Terry Abshire had not become accustomed to seeing odd shaped colonies. So, she questioned them. And she brought them to the attention of others.

It's the classic discovery process. Someone notices something that everyone else failed to notice. She asks questions. And the answers turn out to be a major discovery. In this case it also led to the identification of the anthrax killer: Bruce Ivins.

January 20, 2012 (A) - I don't know if anyone is going to be interested in this, but it took me hours to track down, so I'm going to mention it anyway. I found copies of the chart and the photos Bruce Ivins gave to the FBI in January of 2002. They're on pages 136 - 138 in the Ancillary Documents File on the CD you can purchase from the National Academy of Sciences. Here's the chart which has a date of January 22, 2002 in the lower right corner (click on the images to view larger versions):

As you can see, the chart appears to show a sample being taken from the original 1981 Ames supply and put into a culture which is then distributed to U of NM, DRES, Battelle and Dugway. And, then there's another depicted route which shows passaging after passaging which ends up in a culture which is used to give a sample to a redacted lab (apparently a "culture collection" of some kind), which gives it to a redacted lab, which gives it to Porton Down, which gives it to a redacted lab, which gives it to a redacted lab.

And, Ivins notes that the Daschle spores seem to have gone the passaging route, NOT the direct, non-passaging route.

Here's the first photo which Ivins saw as representing the often passaged method:

And here's the second photo which Ivins saw as representing the way he did things:

Because they are Xerox-type copies of photos, even in the larger versions it's difficult or impossible to figure out what Ivins was seeing. There appear to be large colonies near the bottom end of both plates. Also note that the date on the photos is November 29, 2001, which strongly suggests they are photos that Terry Abshire took when she noticed unusual morphological variants on the plates. When she showed them to Ivins two months later, he typed the captions onto copies of the photos and drew the chart. He evidently saw it as an opportunity to lead the FBI away from USAMRIID. But, he misunderstood what morphological variants were all about, and may have confused them with contamination by other bacterial species.

January 19, 2012 - I've been studying the FBI report about the June 9, 2008 "off the record" meeting between Bruce Ivins, his lawyers and members of the FBI and DOJ. I can't provide a link because it's no longer on-line in the FBI's archives.

I've been trying to understand the implications of this paragraph (green indicates redacted information I un-redacted, and red indicates information I'm trying to emphasize for this comment):

In January 2002, Terry Abshire provided IVINS a
photograph of the spores from the mail which were grown on a sheep
blood agar (SBA) plate. The photo shows morphological variants
which commonly develop from not using the single colony pick method
used by IVINS and those in his lab. Abshire also provided IVINS a
photograph of "IVINS SPORE PREPARATION" spores grown on an SBA
plate, and these spores are free of variants. When IVINS received
these photographs, he typed captions under them to explain what was
depicted. IVINS also drew diagrams to explain the difference
between spores grown using his single colony pick method and those
grown otherwise. When IVINS drew the diagrams and typed the
captions under the photographs, the information he was providing
honestly reflected his thinking at the time. Namely, spores grown
using his method, including RMR-1029, were free of morphological
variants and did not resemble the spores which were mailed.

So, it appears that, at this time in 2008, the FBI and DOJ understood that when Ivins talked with the FBI about those photographs in January 2002, he was "honestly" talking about "his thinking at the time." In other words, Ivins wasn't making anything up. He thought the FBI was on a wrong track with their analysis of the morphs, and he wanted to put them on what he considered to be the "right track," a track that led to Ivins' belief that the attack spores were untraceable.

The captions Ivins typed under the two photographs are described on page 16 of FBI pdf file #847547, which is part of a report on their February 13, 2008 meeting:

"Ames strain - From xxxxxxxxxxx culture collection at
USAMRIID. Similar in appearance to the Bacillus
anthracis colonies from mail. Sent to Porton Down, who
sent it to xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, who sent it to xxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxx. This version of the Ames strain was
serially passaged before freezing down and storing in the
culture collection."

"Ames strain - from original agar slant from Ames, Iowa,
USDA. This is the version of the Ames strain used by Pat
Fellows and Bruce Ivins. This version of the Ames strain
given to Dugway Proving Ground, Battelle Memorial
Research Institute, DRES, and U. of New Mexico."

So, the first caption belongs to the SBA plate that shows the variants. And Ivins concluded that by X sending it to Y who sent it to Z, it was serially passaged and that caused the creation of the morphs.

And the second caption belongs to the photo of the SBA plate which evidently didn't show any variants/morphs that Ivins recognized as variants/morphs. Ivins described it as the version of the Ames strain he used.

On page 17 of FBI pdf file #847547 there's a description of what Ivins thought about the photos and the captions in February of 2008, six years after he typed them:

After reading the captions and examining the photographs,
IVINS explained that he obtained the photographs from Terry Abshire
and typed the captions on them. Although IVINS was able to
understand what the diagram and captions explained, he could not
remember the specific interview which caused him to create them.
Additionally, he would not adopt the statements or explanations as
his own beliefs.

So, in February 2008 Ivins basically disowned what he'd written in February 2002. And in June of 2008, the FBI and DOJ understood that what Ivins had written in February 2002 "honestly reflected his thinking at the time."

So, I appear to have been wrong in the comment I wrote on Sunday if I implied that the FBI/DOJ still believed Ivins was giving them false information in where I said,

The FBI was right about the morphs, of course, and the morphological variants did lead the investigation directly to USAMRIID and Ivins. But, the FBI was wrong in thinking Ivins was trying to mislead them in January of 2002. Ivins believed in what he was saying, and it was shattering to his ego to learn that he was wrong.

For a long time, the FBI and DOJ may have thought that Ivins had been trying to mislead them in February 2002 by writing false information about passaging in that first caption, but the FBI and DOJ appear to have eventually realized that Ivins wasn't really trying to "mislead" them with false information, he was trying to correct what he thought the FBI mistakenly believed about morphs to agree with what Ivins firmly believed about morphs. And the "correct" path would lead to agreeing with Ivins belief that the spores in the letters were totally untraceable.

Wow! That's complicated!

Grumble, grumble. It's probably too complicated to use in my book, since it doesn't really make any crucial point. It just shows another occasion where the FBI was wrong about something for awhile, but eventually learned they were wrong and corrected themselves before any harm was done. I doubt there's ever been a mystery which was solved without an investigator going down a wrong path or misinterpreting something. If something is solved without anyone making a mistake, it probably wasn't a mystery.

January 18, 2012 - This morning, I received an email from a scientist who just cannot believe that Ivins could believe there were absolutely no morphs in flask RMR-1029.

I think if someone had confronted Ivins and asked him if it was totally impossible for there to be any morphs in flask RMR-1029, Ivins would have had to admit that it was indeed possible that the flask contained some morphs. But, he wasn't talking about scientific possibilities when he was talking about flask RMR-1029 and his submissions to the FBIR. He was speaking the way "normal people" speak. He believed that flask RMR-1029 was virtually free of morphs and contaminants.

The definition of "virtually" is: in effect although not in fact; for all practical purposes.

So, Ivins probably believed that for all practical purposes, flask RMR-1029 was free of morphs. If there was a morph or two in there among the 30 trillion spores, they didn't affect anything. And, the chances were infinitesimal that he'd pick up a bunch of morphs when taking a tiny sample to create a slant. So, when he talked the way "normal people" talk, without qualifying his every word and being scientifically accurate, he talked as if he believed flask RMR-1029 to be free of morphs.

Plus, he believed that passaging created morphs. Like "normal people," microbiologist Dr. Bruce Edwards Ivins could also be wrong sometimes. (Note that I didn't write "totally wrong," since it's scientifically possible that a morph or two can appear during passaging. But, morphs are not caused or created by passaging.)

January 17, 2012 - For what it's worth, I found these two paragraphs in an FBI report about the June 5, 2008 taped conversation between Bruce Ivins and Patricia Fellows to be very interesting (they're on page 68 of the modified version of FBI pdf file #847551):

In IVINS's last interview [with the FBI] he was told the
materials in the letters had colony morphology variance. The way
that XXXXX lab did it was to pick a single colony so they wouldn't
have the morphology variance. One would have to swipe over a plate
to get the morphology variance. IVINS claimed his microbiology
background taught him to always pick a single colony.

Ivins talked about the submissions that XXXXXXXXXXX IVINS
made to the [FBI anthrax] Repository. He claimed that the first
submission was fine, however, someone threw it away; and the second
submission was where the morphologies were seen.

So, Ivins believed that there were no morphs in the first sample he'd sent to the FBIR in February 2002, and there were morphs in the replacement sample he sent in April 2002.

That, of course, is exactly the opposite of what was true.

The question is: How did Ivins come to believe the opposite of what was true about his FBIR submissions?

It appears to be his interpretation of what the FBI was telling him, warped by his rock solid belief that there could be no morphs in flask RMR-1029. But, it could also be a line of baloney he was telling Fellows for some reason.   Or Pat Fellows could have misinterpreted what Ivins told her, and the FBI report shows her misinterpretation. Or the FBI could have deliberately misled Ivins about the morphs to keep him from understanding exactly what the FBI was looking for with the morphs.

I tend to think it was the first of those options. Ivins believed that the first sample that he took from flask RMR-1029 and sent to the FBIR in Febuary 2002 contained NO morphs, and it was therefore considered "fine" by the FBI. But, for some unknown reason his second submission was NOT "fine." That would seem to suggest that Ivins' April 2002 submission to the FBIR was NOT produced with the single colony pick, it was a sample he took from a source other than flask RMR-1029. If he had produced the sample using the single colony pick method, and it contained morphs, Ivins would have considered that to be almost impossible, and he would have talked more about it.

But there are too many unknowns to be certain of exactly what Ivins was thinking. And, we don't have transcripts of that part of the discussion between Fellows and Ivins. The redacted transcript sections shown on pages 70 &71 of the FBI Summary report are only about Ivins' "non-denial denials."

January 16, 2012 (B) - There's a point I should have made more clearly in my (A) comment this morning. I've made it before, but it's worth making again:

In February 2002, Ivins was 100 percent certain that morphs were caused by passaging, and he believed there were absolutely NO morphs in flask RMR-1029, because passaging wasn't used to create the contents of flask RMR-1029. Its spores were grown directly from a pure sample that he was certain contained no morphs. Therefore, when the FBI Repository wanted a sample from flask RMR-1029 to test for morphs, he was more than happy to provide it. The same with the "gold standard" aliquot he provided to Terry Abshire. If the FBI was looking for morphs, Ivins was 100% certain they wouldn't find any in flask RMR-1029.

This means that Ivins' supporters, and particularly the uninformed people at PBS Frontline, The New York Times, McClatchy newspapers and ProPublica were dead wrong when they argued that Ivins would NOT have given a real sample from flask RMR-1029 to Terry Abshire if he was guilty, since Ivins knew that a real sample would contain the morphs. Yes, Ivins knew the FBI was going to test for morphs, but Ivins was totally certain that flask RMR-1029 was free of morphs. That's why the February 2002 slants contained the morphs. That's why the sample he gave to Abshire contained the morphs. Later, he learned more, he became less certain of his beliefs, and that's why he submitted a false sample without the morphs in April 2002.

January 16, 2012 (A) - I've received a couple emails expressing confusion over what I wrote yesterday about Bruce Ivins' January 2002 attempt to utilize for his own purposes his belief that the FBI was wrong in what they believed about morphological variants, a.k.a. mutations or "morphs."

I can see where people might be confused. I was putting things together in my mind as I was writing the comment, and I had to go back and modify it a dozen times just to make it clear for myself. This morning, I could go back and further revise yesterday's comment, but I think it would be better to just explain things further. So, here goes:

When Ivins mailed the anthrax letters, he believed that the Ames strain was a common strain used in labs all over the world, it mutated very very very rarely, and it was therefore totally untraceable. That's why he used it when he prepared the powders.

However, after the letters were found, the FBI focused on USAMRIID very quickly. Ivins didn't know why. His emails suggest he thought it was because all the conspiracy theorists believed the Ft. Detrick was still in the bioweapons business, and the theorists believed the attack powders came from illegal bioweapons stockpiles at Ft. Detrick. And Ivins believed the FBI was following that screwball idea. Ivins didn't know that the FBI had given a sample of the attack powder to Paul Keim, and, of all the samples of Ames strain in Keim's massive collection, the only DNA match to the attack anthrax was a sample Keim had received years earlier from USAMRIID.

So, in email after email, Ivins argued his firm belief that the Ames strain came from the USDA in Ames, Iowa, and it was distributed to labs all over the world. Therefore, focusing on USAMRIID was just an unwarranted attack by anti-military nitwits upon the hard working people working in and for the U.S. military. Ivins believed with total certainty that the Ames strain was untraceable, so he argued that over and over by pointing people to the USDA. He was wrong, but it's what he believed.

In January of 2002, it started to become clear that Ivins may have been wrong about the source of the Ames strain. The USDA knew nothing about the Ames strain, and they certainly hadn't distributed it to labs all over the world.

And, also in January of 2002, Ivins started picking up rumors about scientists in the Diagnostic Sytems Division finding "morphs" in the attack anthrax. Ivins didn't know the details of what they were talking about, but the rumor said that the morphs might pinpoint the source of the anthrax -- possibly a source within USAMRIID.

Again, Ivins believed with total certainty that that wasn't possible. He used the "single colony pick" technique, a technique which he believed virtually eliminated the development of morphological variants. Therefore, he felt the FBI was again on the wrong track. Ivins believed that morphological variants were primarily caused by "passaging," i.e., the transferring of growth material from plate to plate in sequence. But, if the FBI believed "morphs" might lead them to the culprit, he was willing to name people who commonly used "passaging."

So, according to pages 3 - 6 of FBI pdf file #847443, on January 23. 2002, Ivins contacted an FBI agent working at USAMRIID and tried to show the agent how it was "passaging" that caused mutations. That meant the FBI needed to look at scientists who did a lot of "passaging" when they worked with Ames. And he named names.

Ivins offered to produce photographs two different plates, one plate seemingly contained "morphs" that were the result of "passaging" done by a scientist he named. But the FBI agent wasn't in a position to take such evidence, so the agent told Ivins to hold onto the photos until he was contacted by another agent. Ivins was contacted later, possibly the same day, and turned over the photos and a diagram Ivins had drawn.

This all happened a full month before Ivins produced the first slants for the FBIR from flask RMR-1029, the slants which he prepared incorrectly.   He still didn't know exactly what the FBI was looking for, so he created slants that could not be used in court as part of the FBI repository evidence. He used a different kind of media. He didn't think it was possible for any morphs to be in flask RMR-1029 because "passaging" wasn't done to create flask RMR-1029. So, he did create the slants from the contents of flask RMR-1029, and the slants contained the morphological variants. But, he made sure the slants were not usable in court (for the specific comparison needed for the FBIR).

The subject of that first meeting with the FBI agent about "passaging" came up again and again in later interviews Ivins had with the FBI. On pages 16 & 17 of FBI pdf file #847547 Ivins is again asked to explain what he was talking about.   That interview took place on February 13, 2008. In the interview, Ivins stated that he couldn't even remember the 2002 discussion with the FBI or the photos or the diagram. But he apparently still believed it was passaging that created morphological variants, and he seems to still be arguing that the Ames strain came from the USDA in Iowa. This is from page 17:

IVINS eventually explained that XXXXXXXXXXXX would make
several subcultures, or serial passage the organism when growing
them. This caused variants or mutations to appear. IVINS did not
use serial passages. Rather, his cultures were all grown from the
original slant provided to USAMRIID by the USDA, thereby preventing
the creation of variants or mutations.

The subject was mentioned again in an "off-the-record" meeting with the FBI on June 9. 2008. That meeting was described in an FBI pdf file that was later deleted from the FBI on-line archives, so I can't provide a link. But, the original FBI pdf file #847551 had this on page 70:

When growing spores, IVINS and those in his laboratory
streak a plate and pick a single representative colony from the
plate to innoculate a growth medium. This ensures all subcultures
are identical and do not have morphological variants. Using the
single colony pick also ensures any contaminants present on the
plate are not introduced into the growth medium. If one were to
swipe across the plate and use those spores to innoculate the
growth medium, the resulting spore growth would have variants.
Therefore, IVINS would expect that all of his subcultures,
including RMR-1029, are homogenous and free of variants.

In reality, as I described as "Error Two" in my supplemental page about "The Errors That Snared Dr. Bruce Ivins," mutations are generally totally random. Passaging doesn't cause them. The single-colony pick technique can't prevent them.   On average, anthrax mutations occur approximately once in a billion generations, but it could be the first generation in the billion, the last, or anywhere in the middle. It's a matter of statistics. And, the thirty trillion spores produced for flask RMR-1029 virtually guaranteed that there would be billions upon billions of mutations in the flask. Yet, Ivins had thought it was free of mutations. He was as wrong as it was possible to be wrong.

(The single colony pick technique does help prevent contaminants from one plate being transferred to another plate, but that has nothing to do with morphological variants. Ivins may have been connecting contaminants to variants.)

It took a long time for Ivins to accept that he'd made critical errors, and it shattered his ego. He wasn't the most knowledgeable anthrax expert among experts he believed himself to be. He was a careless scientist who believed total nonsense and who made crucial mistakes that caused 5 people their lives and pointed the FBI directly to him as being the anthrax killer.

January 15, 2012 - Last week, the "Russian/Kazakh attack" upon my web site continued. I've gone back to thinking of it in terms of an attack, rather than just a mystery. Each day last week, the attacker would try a different IP address, once trying two different IP addresses in a day. The groups of five HEAD commands were farther apart than previously, often there was an hour or more between groups. But, they all involved ranges of IP addresses I had blocked months ago. On Friday the 13th, he tried something a bit different. He tried 4 GET commands in a row, less than a second apart, from a blocked Ukraine IP address. So, it got him nowhere. And, this morning he was back again using HEAD commands and a different IP address in Kazakhstan, but it was still an IP address I had started blocking months ago.

Meanwhile, the Anthrax Truthers on Lew Weinstein's web site seem to be doing nothing but repeating themselves. If there's anything worse that a silly, irrelevant argument, it's a silly, irrelevant argument that gets repeated over and over. Instead of doing their own investigation, they want access to all the details of the FBI's investigation, apparently so that they can attack and argue with everyone who disagrees with their beliefs.

You'd think that after ten years they'd realize that they have never found any convincing proof to support their beliefs, and the mere fact that they disbelieve the evidence against Ivins doesn't mean that the evidence is invalid or insufficient to prove guilt. And attacking everyone who disagrees with them does not prove the people they are attacking are wrong. That's why I sometimes refer to them as "the Lunatic Fringe." They believe nonsense, they argue against facts, they attack people who disagree with them, and they are absolutely certain they are right - even though no two of them believes in exactly the same thing. So, in actuality, they're individuals who believe they are right and the entire rest of the world is wrong - regardless of what the facts say.

And, on my interactive blog, an Anthrax Truther calling himself "Anonymous" started arguing another familiar and oft repeated argument: that I am a True Believer because I won't convert to his beliefs. Of course, he won't explain exactly what his beliefs are. He'll only argue that he doesn't believe the government's case against Bruce Ivins, therefore the government is wrong. And I'm a True Believer if I don't agree.

In spite of those distractions, last week I managed to make some progress on the first draft of my new book. I'm now on page 343 in Chapter 43. I don't know how much I have got left to go, but it can't be much. Chronologically, I'm in June 5, 2008, when the FBI persuaded Dr. Ivins' former associate, Patrica Fellows, to have coffee with Ivins so their conversation could be taped. It resulted in the conversation where Ivins made his non-denial denials. I thought that discussion would be at the end of Chapter 41, but, as I did research, I found a massive amount of interesting detail that I've never carefully studied before, and Chapter 41 ended with the January 18, 2008 meeting between Ivins, his lawyers, FBI agents Montooth and Lisi, and Assistant US Attorneys Kohl and Lieber. It was the first meeting between Lieber and Ivins, and it was the meeting that Rachel Lieber considered to be a true turning point in her thinking about Ivins.

So, I then figured that the taped Fellows-Ivins conversation would be at the end of Chapter 42. But as I collected facts and details from the time period, put them into chronological order, and then started analyzing it all and writing about it, it turned out that Chapter 42 ended on March 19, 2008, when Ivins made his first suicide attempt.

So, the taped Fellows-Ivins conversation will be in Chapter 43, possibly near the beginning instead of at the end.

I can also see that, after I finish the first draft, I'm going to have to do a lot of thinking about various aspects of Bruce Ivins' personality. Right now, he seems to have been a man who never matured after his first or second year of high school. Yes, he certainly gained more knowledge about science and microbiology, but he apparently never gained any additional understanding of his fellow human beings. In his work, he became very good at doing things he had done many times before.   But how much did he really understand?

And, if I'm right about his lack of understanding, how can I explain it and document it? I'd have to have a very good understanding of it myself before I can even attempt to explain it to others. After all, Ivins participated in the writing of 44 scientific papers, and he was co-inventor on at least two patents.

Ivins appears to have had a massive ego. He often seemed to believe that he was right and everyone else in the world was wrong. And, the massive errors he committed when he launched the anthrax attacks of 2001 tore away at his ego.

One particular error by Ivins seems particularly fascinating because it's matched by what appears to be an error by the FBI and the Assistant US Attorneys (AUSAs). It's the attempt by Ivins in January 2002 to explain to the FBI that the morphs they were seeing in the attack anthrax did NOT point to USAMRIID. He gave them a drawing and two photographs to explain what he was talking about. The FBI and the AUSAs saw that the photos and the drawing as another attempt by Ivins to mislead the investigation by supplying false information. But, to me it seems far more complex than that. I see it as an attempt by Ivins to convince the FBI that they were wrong about something that, in reality, Ivins was wrong about, but he didn't know he was wrong.

Ivins tried to convince the FBI that the morphs they were seeing were the result of the "passaging" being done in FBI testing, i.e., the process of taking spores from a culture, using those spores to grow a new culture, then taking spores from the second culture and using those to create a third culture, then using spores from the third culture to create a fourth culture, etc. Ivins believe it was "passaging" that created the morphs the FBI had found, and Ivins didn't do that kind of passaging.   He would usually start with either the original Ames sample or a second sample, and then he'd use the "single colony pick" technique to seed new cultures, a process which he believed virtually eliminated the formation of morphological variants.

In late 2001, Ivins saw that the FBI was beginning to focus on USAMRIID as the source of the attack anthrax, but Ivins thoroughly believed that the Ames strain was widely used in labs all over the world and was totally untraceable. That's why he used the Ames strain in the attacks. He thought it was untraceable. In January 2002, he didn't know exactly what the FBI was looking for when they became interested in morphs, but he thought they had to be on the wrong track. And the wrong track led to USAMRIID. So, he tried to get them on the "right track" by explaining to them what he believed actually caused morphs: passaging. The "right track" would lead them to the correct understanding that the attack spores were untraceable. Ivins' massive ego assured him that he knew more about anthrax than any FBI scientist or anyone else did.

Ivins was trying to lead the investigation away from USAMRIID by showing the FBI scientists that they were wrong in what they were doing, not by trying to deliberately mislead them with false information.

The FBI was right about the morphs, of course, and the morphological variants did lead the investigation directly to USAMRIID and Ivins. But, the FBI was wrong in thinking Ivins was trying to mislead them in January of 2002. Ivins believed in what he was saying, and it was shattering to his ego to learn that he was wrong. His self-confidence was already severely weakened by his horrendous and unforgivable mistake of thinking the anthrax letters he'd sent through the mails wouldn't harm anyone. His ego was pulverized when he learned that there were vast quantities of traceable morphs in flask RMR-1029. He believed his spore growing techniques made the contents of flask RMR-1029 virtually free of morphological variants. Once again, his understanding was totally wrong. And he soon learned he had made another huge mistake in choosing the Ames strain, which, instead of being a common strain used in countless laboratories all over the world, turned out to be a rare strain used primarily by USAMRIID. When he saw all the critical mistakes he'd made, his ego was virtually destroyed. "Ivins the Anthrax Expert" ceased to exist.   He'd become "Ivins the Fool," a careless scientist who made stupid mistakes in life-and-death situations. He began talking about becoming a greeter at a WalMart after retiring on his government pension. Or, at most, he'd work as a laboratory technician for someone else, and he'd do only as told.

It wasn't any hounding by the FBI that drove Ivins to suicide. It seems to have been the totally shattering of his ego. He'd seen himself as was a top expert among experts. Yet, his own mistakes - one huge and critical mistake after another - had put him in the FBI's crosshairs. He could live with being considered sloppy and forgetful, but he couldn't live with being viewed as dangerously careless and ignorant of basic scientific facts.

I'll have got to make sure that is all totally understandable, fully documented, completely believable, and also interesting reading when I start working on the second draft of my book.

Updates & Changes: Sunday, January 8, 2012, thru Saturday, January 14, 2012

January 10, 2012 - The last thing I need right now is another "conspiracy theory" involving complex science. But, someone just sent me a link to a science article titled "Fighting on after the war is over, HIV contrarian publishes yet another paper." I didn't even know there was a controversy over the connection between HIV and AIDS. But, apparently there is, and the people who don't believe the connection are still writing and trying to get "scientific papers" published which promote their beliefs. In 1991, "a collection of people who called themselves the Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV/AIDS Hypothesis managed to get a letter published in Science in which they stated their case." The new article says this about the 1991 letter:

Although the letter's signatories labelled themselves skeptics, its language is that of conspiracy theorists and cranks. With a few exceptions, most of its signatories don't even have the relevant expertise, and many of them have serious issues with science in general. In short, these are not people who should be listened to when it comes to matters of evidence.

Unfortunately, someone did. And, even more unfortunately, that someone was Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa, who appointed at least two of them to a committee that evaluated his country's response to AIDS. One result of this was a long delay in the widespread use of antiretroviral therapies in South Africa, which a 2010 paper estimated as having cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

Sounds familiar. I recall another item from Science magazine that was about bogus science that wasn't identified as bogus science, and which will probably be cited in new scientific papers forever.

The new AIDS article I was just sent also includes this:

Whatever damage was done by Duesberg and other contrarians in the past, they've now been relegated to the sidelines; nobody is basing public policy based on their unfounded skepticism anymore.

Unfortunately, it's all too easy to see why some people might have found them compelling in the past. The contrarians included a Nobel Prize winner and a member of the National Academies of Science—if you didn't pay careful attention to the company they kept and the fact that they had a tendency to back zany ideas, it was easy to conclude they were an impressive group. And, to someone who didn't look into the details, their arguments sounded scientific. After all, as described above, they were able to paint the medical establishment as ignoring Koch's Postulates, the very foundation of infectious disease research, and present themselves as the true scientific skeptics.

That also seems very familiar. I recall a recent nonsensical article about the Amerithrax case that three scientists with impressive credentials paid to get published.

It confirms what I've learned again and again over the past ten years: There's no idea so ridiculous that you can't find an "expert" with perfect credentials to support it.

And, "fighting after the war is over" is what the Anthrax Truthers, 9/11 Truthers, Moon Hoaxers, and JFK conspiracy theorists continue to do every day. Facts and logic have no meaning to them. To them, only their beliefs represent "the truth." The "war" won't be over until these True Believers convert every one else in the world to their beliefs.

January 9, 2012 (B) - Apparently in response to my (A) comment this morning, an Anthrax Truther posted this to Lew Weinstein's web site:

As we know the slants Ivins prepared worked, because a copy were kept and tested at another location. That is experimental proof that the Ivins slants were equivalent in fact.

That is admissible evidence in court that the Ivins’ slants were equivalent.

The slants "worked," therefore they were "equivalent"? Really? That's like saying a car works to get from New York to Los Angeles, so a car is equivalent to a jet airliner. And death stops headaches, so taking asprin is equivalent to death. Lunacy!!

The slant retained by Paul Keim definitely "worked" when it was used to create a new and properly prepared slant for the FBI Repository. And, it definitely "worked" to show that Ivins didn't know exactly what the FBI was looking for in February of 2002, so he didn't eliminate the morphs. He created slants that were not useable as evidence. So, the slant "worked" to show Ivins was attempting to mislead the investigation.

And the Anthrax Truther's comment "worked" to get me to realize I can't just waste my time debunking every screwball claim they can come up with. I'm going to have to spend more time on my book and try to leave the debunking for my Sunday comments.

January 9, 2012 (A) - The preposterous Anthrax Truther nonsense continues. Now they're claiming that, since the FBI subpoena said "Tryptic Soy Agar (TSA) slants (Remel catalog #05932 or equivalent)," whatever Ivins used was an "equivalent," and therefore Ivins was right in submitting whatever he submitted in February 2002, regardless of how different it may have been, and the FBI was wrong in throwing the slants away.

According to the August 8, 2008 press briefing, "He didn't use the proper medium." So, Ivins apparently didn't even use TSA, but the Truthers still consider it to be equivalent.

And the FBI also stated at that briefing, "The first sample we received didn't really meet our requirements for the chains of custody issue, either."

But, in the fantasy world of Anthrax Truthers, the FBI was still wrong in throwing the slants away, and, since that proves the FBI makes mistakes, the FBI obviously cannot be trusted about anything. And that means Ivins was innocent and Muslims did it.

January 8, 2012 (B) - Since I'm not allowed to post to Lew Weinstein's web site, they have to post their nonsense there, and I have to debunk their nonsense here. A new post there in response to my (A) comment this morning shows that at least one Anthrax Truther has a basic misunderstanding of slants and the FBI repository.

All the slants for the FBIR had to be identically prepared, otherwise, when comparing the 1,200+ samples in the FBIR to one another, no one would be able to state with certainty in court that a difference in the contents of a specific slant wasn't the result of a different medium or a different method of preparing the slant.

Labs doing various kinds of other tests to assist the FBI in the Amerithrax investigation (such as Lawrence Livermore or the IIT Research Institute) weren't sending slants to the FBIR in response to a subpoena. Therefore, the subpoena rules for creating slants for the FBIR didn't apply. It made no difference to the FBIR how they prepared their slants. So, the Anthrax Truther's new argument that those labs prepared their slants differently has absolutely nothing to do with the improperly prepared slants Ivins sent to the FBIR in February 2002.

January 8, 2012 (A) - I can't believe I spent almost all of last week on my Russian Statistics Mystery. But, I did. However, I seem to have solved the mystery - at least to the point where everything now makes sense. Here's how I "figured it out" (a.k.a. "stumbled across the answer"):

I contacted my web site host and showed them my new web page about the "mystery," but they had no advice to offer. They just suggested I keep doing as I've been doing, i.e., blocking HEAD accesses from specific ranges of IP addresses.

I also contacted a couple computer experts I know, and they didn't have any idea about what the guy is doing, either. And they had no advice to give. However, one of them sent me a link to a recent news article about a different kind of problem. The article was titled "One Man's Fight With Google Over a Security Warning." I found the comments that follow the article to be more interesting than the article itself, since nearly every one of the people commenting says that Google is right and Dr. Roger Epstein is wrong. Then I realized something: Dr. Epstein's problem seemed to be virtually identical to the problem I had over a year ago, when some hacker installed "Trojan horse" malware in my web site host's computer.

Yesterday, when I researched that Trojan horse incident to refresh my memory about it, I found this in my November 28, 2010 comment:

It appears that, although I solved the "Russian attack problem," I also had a different problem. This morning, people began telling me that I had the trojan horse "serial.jar" on my web site. It seems to have appeared on November 21. Fixing that problem was my top priority for most of the day. So, I didn't have time to write any other comment for today until around 1 p.m. Central Time. That's when my web site host advised me that the problem has been fixed. It was a problem located in my host's computer in Atlanta, not in my own computer at home.

Bingo! My Russian Statistics mystery involved some kind of residue connection to that Trojan horse attack in November 2010! I first noticed the "Russian attacks" involving the HEAD command on November 18, 2010. And people started telling me about the "Trojan horse" on my site a week later. I'd totally forgotten about that Trojan horse incident, and, as a result, I just never realized that the two events could be connected. The guy in Kazakhstan doing all the HEAD accesses to my web site could be the hacker, since he seems to have a lot of resources, and he's very persistent. It's also possible, although much less likely, that he could be another victim of the hacker.

Either way, there's nothing I can do that I'm not already doing. And, either way, it seems to be the solution to the mystery.   It's residue from that Trojan horse attack. The hacker may be trying to find a way back in. I can't prove it definitively, but I don't need to prove it definitively. It makes sense. And, that's enough for me.

However, I'll have to keep watching and blocking, since he's still there this morning trying a different IP address.   And, it's still a mystery as to why he's so persistent and why this matter seems to be so very very important to him. He seems to be looking for a way to put another Trojan horse into my host's computer via my web site. But, why is my web site so special to him?

Meanwhile, the only other happenings of interest last week were the endless nonsense questions from the Anthrax Truthers. They simply cannot accept that Ivins was making anthrax powders in his lab during those unexplained evening hours prior to the attacks in 2001, since that would mean that Ivins was the anthrax killer, and that would mean their various theories about someone else being the culprit are totally bogus.

So, they're asking irrelevant questions, because every time one of their silly questions goes unanswered, to them it means that the Amerithrax case has not yet been fully investigated - and that means Ivins could have been innocent.   It's the same mindless tactic they've been using for over 10 years. Ten years ago, one Anthrax Truther was asking questions involving an endless stream of Arabic names. The questions went something like this:

What was Haid D'Salami doing in Malaysia in 1997?
Why did Awana Fugya meet with M'Balz Ez-hari in 1998?
What did Grabirr Boubbi study at the University in Cairo?
Was I-Zheet M'Drarz ever alone when he visited USAMRIID in 1996?

Now, the same Anthrax Truther's meaningless and irrelevant questions are about what Bruce Ivins and other people at USAMRIID were working on during the day on the days when Ivins' "unexplained" evening hours occurred.

It's the same plan: If they can ask enough irrelevant questions, they'll prove (at least to themselves) that the case wasn't fully investigated, and, therefore, Ivins was innocent (and the Anthrax Truther's favorite suspect must have done it).

Unbelievably, the Anthrax Truthers are still trying to prove that Ivins was doing legitimate work during those "unexplained" evenings he spent alone in his lab just prior to the anthrax attacks of 2001.

The fact that Ivins himself could not provide any explanation for what he was doing - other than he'd gone into his BSL-3 lab to get away from his troubled family life, and/or to get away from a guard he didn't like - doesn't prevent the Truthers from trying to find something Ivins could have been doing that would allow them to argue that Ivins was not making anthrax powders -- even though there is a mountain of evidence which says Ivins was the anthrax mailer and he almost certainly must have been making anthrax powders during those "unexplained" even hours.

But, that doesn't mean they can't also distort the facts and try to mislead people. An example of that is in this ridiculous post from yesterday on Lew Weinstein's web site:

In 2001, FBI Kept Its Ames Anthrax In An Old Building In Virginia That Didn’t Have Secure Evidence Storage For Samples Before Or After Testing

It's total nonsense, of course. In 2001, the FBI kept all Amerithrax anthrax samples at USAMRIID. The comment is about the State of Virginia's Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services (DCLS), which had absolutely nothing to do with the FBI's Amerithrax investigation. Virginia's DCLS was just another state health organization which worked on first responder situations. If someone in Virginia was suspected of having anthrax, test samples were sent to the DCLS for testing. Similarly, in Florida, when a doctor at JFK Memorial Hospital in Atlantis, FL, suspected that Bob Stevens had anthrax, they sent samples of his blood to the Florida Department of Health (DOH). The Florida DOH confirmed that Stevens had anthrax and notified the CDC. The CDC re-confirmed and notified the FBI. That doesn't mean that the FBI also kept "its Ames anthrax in an old building" in Florida. The Anthrax Truther's statement is total nonsense. Virginia's DCLS was involved in the attacks because there were victims in Virginia. Plus, they were involved because they had to test countless false-alarm samples. They never needed to secure evidence samples for the FBI.

And now, the big debate is over the wording on the subpoena that requested samples from all labs which had the Ames strain. Ivins didn't obey the subpoena when he prepared the February 2002 slants for the FBI repository. The Truthers are arguing that's because the FBI didn't word the subpoena properly. However, of the 1,200+ samples sent to the FBIR, only Ivins failed to sent the right type of slant. According to the August 8, 2008 press briefing:

QUESTION: I understand that, but the question is just how many were destroyed.

BACKGROUND OFFICIAL: Remember, the only sample received outside the space of subpoena was that one sample. So that's the only sample we destroyed.

Only the slants Ivins sent to the FBIR in February 2002 were destroyed. (And, since Paul Keim saved his copy of the slants, we know all we need to know about them.) So, the Truther's argument now is that it's the FBI's fault that only Bruce Ivins couldn't follow the instructions. And, the FBI are "idiots" because they didn't write the subpoena instructions properly.

In another bizarre thread, the Truthers want to see "Laborary Chain-of-Custody" forms for the February 2002 slants that were rejected because they were not valid as evidence. There would never be any "Laboratory Chain-of-Custody" forms for materials that were not useable as evidence. It's another totally silly request.

Now the Truthers will claim the FBI are "idiots" because the FBIR copy of the slant was not valid as evidence, yet Paul Keim's identical copy was valid as evidence. Why? Because Keim's copy was used for different purposes, and, when Keim's copy was turned over to the FBI, the slant was used to create a new slant that was compatible with all other FBI repository slants. So, the new slant became additional evidence in the FBI repository showing the source of the attack powders, and the old slant became additional evidence of how Ivins tried to mislead the investigation. But, the Anthrax Truthers don't want to know that.

Anthrax Truthers are clearly not interested in finding answers to any questions. They're only interested in creating doubt by asking irrelevant questions, by distributing misinformation and by falsely accusing the FBI of causing Ivins' "mistakes."

All prior Thoughts and Comments are also available.
Click HERE for year 2012
Click HERE for year 2011 - Part 3
Click HERE for year 2011 - Part 2.
Click HERE for year 2011 - Part 1.
Click HERE for year 2010 - Part 2.
Click HERE for year 2010 - Part 1.
Click HERE for year 2009 - Part 2.
Click HERE for year 2009 - Part 1.
Click HERE for year 2008.
Click HERE for year 2007.
Click HERE for year 2006.
Click HERE for year 2005.
Click HERE for year 2004.
Click HERE for years 2001, 2002 and 2003.

References:

The FBI's summary report of the Amerithrax case
The revised version of the FBI' summary report of the Amerithrax case
Search warrants and attachments to the Summary report
The 2,720 pages of supplementary files for the Amerithrax case (OLD)
The 2,720 pages of supplementary files for the Amerithrax case (NEW)
The 2,720 pages of supplementary files for the Amerithrax case (NEWER)
Dr. Bruce Ivins' emails while at Ft. Detrick
NAS "Review of the Scientific Approaches Used During the FBI's Investigation of the Anthrax Attacks of 2001"
HistoryCommons.org - Timeline of the 2001 Anthrax Attacks
Edited version of the Hatfill v Ashcroft et al lawsuit Court Docket
Edited version of the Hatfill v Foster/Vanity Fair/Readers Digest Court Docket
Edited version of the Hatfill v The New York Times Court Docket
Edited version of the Maureen Stevens vs The United States lawsuit Court Docket
Edited version of the Maureen Stevens vs Battelle Memorial, et al lawsuit Court Docket
UCLA's "Disease Detectives" site about the anthrax outbreak of 2001

Click HERE to view references from 2005 through 2008.
Click HERE to view pre-2005 references.

NOTE: The (X) following references below includes a link to my copy of the articles, which may or may not be visible on-line.

2009

2010

2011

Gazette.net - Feb. 14, 2011 - "Report on FBI's anthrax findings to be released Tuesday" (X)
The New York Times - Feb. 15, 2011 - "Review Faults F.B.I.'s Scientific Work in Anthrax Investigation" (X)
The Washington Post - Feb. 15, 2011 - "Anthrax report cast doubt on scientific evidence in FBI case against Bruce Ivins" (X)
The Los Angeles Times - Feb. 15, 2011 - "Evidence linking anthrax to Bruce Ivins 'not as definitive as stated,' panel says" (X)
CNN - Feb. 15, 2011 - "Scientific review reaches no conclusion on source of anthrax" (X)
NPR - Feb. 15, 2011 - "FBI Faulted For Overstating Science In Anthrax Case" (X)
ABC News - Feb. 15, 2011 - "Panel Review Questions FBI Theory in Anthrax Attacks after 9/11" (X)
USA Today - Feb. 15, 2011 - "Panel can't rule out other sources of deadly anthrax spores" (X)
The Washington Post - Feb. 15, 2011 - "Ivins case's inconvenient issue: his polygraph" (X)
Nature - Feb. 15, 2011 - "Science falls short in anthrax investigation" (X)
CIDRAP News - Feb. 15, 2011 - "NRC: Data insufficient for firm conclusion in anthrax case" (X)
Frederick News-Post - Feb. 16, 2011 - "Report casts doubt on FBI's investigation of anthrax attacks" (X)
Salon.com (opinion) - Feb. 16, 2011 - "Serious doubt cast in FBI's anthrax case against Bruce Ivins" (X)
New Scientist - Feb. 16, 2011 - "Scientists critical of FBI's anthrax conclusions" (X)
The Washington Post - Feb. 16, 2011 - "Sen. Leahy on anthrax case: 'It's not closed.'" (X)
CIDRAP News - Feb. 16, 2011 - "Anthrax expert says NRC report supports FBI" (X)
The Washington Post (Editorial) - Feb. 17, 2011 - "Answers in 2001 anthrax attack are still elusive" (X)
Frederick News-Post (Opinion) - Feb. 19, 2011 - "NAS on Amerithrax" (X)
Frederick News-Post - Feb. 20, 2011 - "One year after FBI closes Ivins case, doubts still linger" (X)
Frederick News-Post (Opinion) - Feb. 21, 2011 - "Flawed Science" (X)
The Boston Globe (Editorial) - Feb. 22, 2011 - "Consider the case solved" (X)
The Brown and White - Feb. 25, 2011 - "Gast heads panel discussing anthrax letters" (X)
Stanford Medicine - Feb. 25, 2011 - "New review of anthrax case discussed by review committee vice chair" (X)
The Baltimore Sun - Feb. 28, 2011 - "Trouble in the air at Ft. Detrick" (X)
The New York Times (letter to the editor from Rush Holt) - Mar. 1, 2011 - "The Anthrax Attacks" (X)
University of Maryland (press release) - Mar. 7, 2011 - "University of Maryland School of Medicine publishes scientific paper on 2001 anthrax attacks" (X)
UPI - Mar. 8, 2011 - "Science behind anthrax letters revealed" (X)
News-Medical.net - Mar. 8, 2011 - "Institute for Genome Sciences plays key role in investigation of anthrax attacks" (X)
ScienceBlog.com - Mar. 8, 2011- "Now, the story can be told - how scientists helped ID 'Amerithrax'" (X)
NPR - Mar. 9, 2011 - "Lab Vs. Courtroom: Different Definitions Of Proof" (X)
LiveScience.com - Mar. 14, 2011 - "Anthrax in 2001 Letters was Traced to Maryland by Genetic Mutations" (X)
DiamondbackOnLine.com - Mar. 17, 2011 - "UMD: Anthrax Investigation" (X)
VillageSoup.com - Mar. 18, 2011 - "Q&A: Meryl Nass" (X)
The Los Angeles Times - Mar. 22, 2011 - "Report Faults Army in 2001 anthrax mailings" (X)
The New York Times - Mar. 23, 2011 - "Panel on Anthrax Inquiry Finds Case Against Ivins Persuasive" (X)
CNN - Mar. 23, 2011 - "Suspect in 2001 anthrax case had long history of mental problems" (X)
Associated Press - Mar. 23, 2011 - "Expert panel faults Army in anthrax case" (X)
The Miami Herald - Mar. 23, 2011 - "FBI's anthrax suspect is likely killer, panel concludes" (X)
MSNBC - Mar. 23, 2011 - "Medical records point to doctor in anthrax attacks, report says" (X)
ABC - Mar. 23, 2011 - "Report: 2001 Anthrax Attacks Were Preventable" (X)
The Washington Times - Mar. 23, 2011 - "Panel: Anthrax-attack suspect sent up red flags" (X)
Reuters - Mar. 24, 2011 - "U.S. Experts: Army researcher was anthrax attacker" (X)
Wired Magazine - Mar. 24, 2011 - "Anthrax Redux: Did the Feds Nab the Wrong Guy?" (X)
The Times (Trenton, NJ) - Mar. 25, 2011 - "Holt remains skepical about conclusions in anthrax investigation" (X)
Wired Magazine - Mar. 28, 2011 - "Postage Stamps Delivered Anthrax Suspect to FBI" (X)
The Gazette - Apr. 7, 2011 - "Joe Volz: Frederick massacre averted?" (X)
The Washington Post - Apr. 16, 2011 - "How anthrax sleuths cracked the case by decoding genetic 'fingerprints'" (X)
The Miami Herald - Apr. 20, 2011 - "Was FBI too quick to judge anthrax suspect the killer?" (X)
TheRealNews.com - Apr. 21, 2011 - "Did FBI Target Wrong Man as Anthrax Killer" (X)
ProPublica.com - April 23, 2011 - "Colleague Says Anthrax Numbers Add Up to Unsolved Case" (X)
Palm Beach Post - Apr. 30, 2011 - "Doubt of anthrax suspect's role resurfaces in lawsuit" (X)
BioPrepWatch.com - May 2, 2011 - "Attorneys contest Ivins' guilt" (X)
McClatchy Newspapers - May 19, 2011 - "FBI lab reports on anthrax attack suggest another miscue" (X)
TickleTheWire.com - May 26, 2011 - "Rep. Nadler Criticizes the FBI in Letter to Director Mueller Over Anthrax Probe" (X)
McClatchy Newspapers - May 26, 2011 - "Congressman presses FBI for anthrax information" (X)
The Los Angeles Times - May 29, 2011 - "The anthrax killings: A troubled mind" (X)
The Daily Beast - June 3, 2011 - "Anthrax Attacker Bruce Ivins' Obsessions" (X)
Associated Press - June 3, 2011 - "The anthrax scare and one deeply troubled man" (X)
The Frederick News-Post (Opinion by Barry Kissin) - June 4, 2011 - "Lessons from Amerithrax" (X)
The Frederick News-Post (Opinion) - June 6, 2011 - "A marathon, not a sprint" (X)
The Gazette - June 9, 2011 - "A treasure trove of information about Amerithrax" (X)
RealClearPolitics.com - June 9, 2011 - "Anthrax Attacks and America's Rush to Judgment" (X)
The Washington Post (Opinion) - June 10, 2011 - "Inside our own labs, the threat of another anthrax attack" (X)
The Los Angeles Times - June 12, 2011 - "Book Review: 'The Mirage Man' by David Willman" (X)
The Boston Globe (Opinion) - June 15, 2011 - "Revisiting Mueller and the anthrax case" (X)
Clinical Psychiatry News - June 21, 2011 - "Use of Psychological Profile to Infer Ivins' Guilt is Problematic" (X)
The Philadelphia Inquirer (book review) - July 17, 2011 - "Bungled pursuit of a killer" (X)
The Boston Herald - July 18, 2011 - "Justice Department lawyers contradict FBI findings in anthrax case" (X)
Salon.com - July 19, 2011 - "DOJ casts serious doubt on its own claims about the attack anthrax" (X)
Frederick News-Post - July 19, 2011 - "Justice Department filings poke holes in Ivins' case" (X)
The New York Times - July 19, 2011 - "U.S. Revises Its Response To Lawsuit On Anthrax" (X)
Associated Press - July 19, 2011 - "Justice Department corrects court filing in anthrax suit" (X)
The Washington Post - July 19, 2011 - "Justice Department corrects legal filing regarding anthrax attacks" (X)
MSNBC - July 19, 2011 - "Government lawyers backtrack on anthrax case " (X)
Village Voice (blog) - July 19, 2011 - "Bruce Ivins Maybe Didn't Send Anthrax, Government Admits in Court Papers" (X)
The Macon Telegraph - July 19, 2011 - "Justice Department retracts court filings that undercut FBI's anthrax case" (X)
The Sacramento Bee - July 20, 2011 - "Justice Dept backtracks on anthrax claims" (X)
Wired Magazine - July 20, 2011 - "Justice Department Trips in Anthrax Case. Again" (X)
Miami Herald - July 20, 2011 - "Justice Department waffling in anthrax case could be costly, experts say" (X)
ProPublica.org - July 20, 2011 - "Government Anthrax Flip-Flop Could Boost Victim's Lawsuit" (X)
CIDRAP news - July 20, 2011 - "DOJ defense of Army lab stirs up anthrax case controversy" (X)
The Frederick News-Post (Opinion) - July 25, 2011 - "Another Ivins twist" (X)
The New York Times - July 26, 2011 - "Suspect's Manifesto Points to Planned Anthrax Use, But Also to a Lack of Expertise" (X)
ProPublica - July 26, 2011 - "Stephen Engelberg on the FBI's Anthrax Case" (X)
Global Security Newswire - July 27, 2011 - "Norway Killer Wrote of Anthrax Attacks" (X)
Kansas City Star - July 27, 2011 - "Judge says US must show 'good cause" to revise anthrax filing" (X)
The Miami Herald - July 29, 2011 - "Judge allows feds to revise filing in anthrax case" (X)
The Washington Post (review) - Aug. 11, 2011 - David Willman's 'The Mirage Man'" (X)
WMD Junction - Aug 22, 2011 - "New Questions About the FBI's Anthrax Case" (X)
NPR (Laurie Garrett interview) - Aug. 26, 2011 - "A look back at 9/11 in 'I Heard the Sirens Scream'" (X)
National Journal - Sept. 1, 2011 - "After 9/11, Anthrax Attacks Seemed Too Natural" (X)
CIDRAP news - Sept. 1, 2011 - "Public health leaders cite lessons of 2001 anthrax attacks" (X)
The Kansas City Star - Sept. 2, 2011 - "Sen. Grassley asks Justice Department to explain contradictory acts on anthrax" (X)
Montgomery Life - Sept. 7, 2011 - "9/11 Ten Years Later" (X)
Ames.Patch.com - Sept. 8, 2011 - "Ten Years after 9/11: ISU Recalls Anthrax Scare" (X)
The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, IN) - Sept. 11, 2011 - "Pence: 'Remember the triumph of freedom'" (X)
Wired Magazine - Sept. 11, 2011 - "Terror and Bioterror: 9/11 to 10/4 - Part 1" (X)
Arizona Daily Sun - Sept. 12, 2011 - "NAU researcher thrust into the maelstrom" (X)
National Review - Sept. 14, 2011 - "Saddam: What We Now Know" (X)
The Guardian - Sept. 15, 2011 - "The anthrax scare: not a germ of truth" (X)
New Scientist - Sept. 15, 2011 - "Did research funding lead to anthrax attacks?" (X)
Asbury Park Press - Sept. 16, 2011 - "Another 10th Anniversary: Anthrax Attacks" (X)
The Wall Street Journal (Book Review) - Sept. 17, 2011 - "When Death Came Hand-Delivered" (X)
Wired Magazine - Sept. 18, 2011 - "Terror and Bioterror: 9/11 to 10/4 - Part 2" (X)
Wired Magazine - Sept. 25, 2011 - "Terror and Bioterror: 9/11 to 10/4 - Part 3" (X)
USA Today - Sept. 30, 2011 - "Strides in biodefense follow 2001 anthrax scare" (X)
CNN - Oct. 1, 2011 - "Strange sorority fixation was link that led to anthrax suspect" (X)
USA Today - Oct. 2, 2011 - "Al Qaeda lab lingers in anthrax story" (X)
Wired Magazine - Oct. 2, 2011 - "Terror and Bioterror: 9/11 to 10/4 - Part 4" (X)
The Daily Mail (UK) - Oct. 3, 2011 - "The laboratory crush that led the FBI to the U.S. Anthrax killer" (X)
Annals of Internal Medicine - Oct. 3, 2011 - "The Anthrax Attacks 10 Years Later" (X)
The Hartford Courant - Oct. 5, 2011 - "Anthrax Attacks Still A Mystery After 10 Years" (X)
PBS (Press Release) - Oct. 5, 2011 - "Frontline Investigates the Anthrax Mailings" (X)
University of Wyoming News - Oct. 7, 2011 - "UW Professors: Accused Anthrax Killer Couldn't Have Done It" (X)
Aberdeen News - Oct. 9, 2011 - "Ten years since Daschle received anthrax-laced letter" (X)
The Times of Trenton - Oct. 9, 2011 - "A decade on, legacy of anthrax attack lingers in Mercer County and beyond" (X)
The New York Times - Oct. 9, 2011 - "Scientists' Analysis Disputes F.B.I. Closing of Anthrax Case" (X)
The Baltimore Sun - Oct. 9, 2011 - "Frontline's 'Anthrax Files' takes hard look at FBI role in suicide of Ft. Detrick scientist" (X)
The Kansas City Star - Oct. 10, 2011 - "Fresh doubts raised on 2001 anthrax attacks" (X)
PBS Frontline - Oct. 10, 2011 - "Clair Fraser-Liggett: 'This Is Not an Airtight Case By Any Means'" (X)
PBS Frontline - Oct. 10, 2011 - "Edward Montooth: 'The Mandate Was to Look at the Case with Fresh Eyes'" (X)
PBS Frontline - Oct. 10, 2011 - "Rachel Lieber: 'The Case Against Dr. Bruce Ivins'" (X)
PBS Frontline - Oct. 10, 2011 - "Paul Keim: 'We Were Surprised It Was the Ames Strain'" (X)
The Miami Herald - Oct. 11, 2011 - "Decade-old anthrax attacks included hit to Boca Raton offices" (X)
Science Magazine - Oct. 11, 2011 - "New Challenge to FBI's Anthrax Investigation Lends an Ear to Tin" (X)
The Macon Telegraph - Oct. 11, 2011 - "Was FBI's science good enough to ID anthrax killer?" (X)
The Gazette - Oct. 12, 2011 - "Questions remain 10 years after anthrax mailings" (X)
The Miami Herald - Oct. 12, 2011 - "Newly released files cloud FBI's anthrax finding" (X)
Council on Foreign Relations (opinion by Laurie Garrett) - Oct. 12, 2011 - "The Anthrax Letters" (X)
ProPublica.com - Oct. 15, 2011 - "Despite Evidence of FBI Bungling, New Probe Into Anthrax Killings Unlikely" (X)
The Los Angeles Times - Oct. 16, 2011 - "Science in anthrax letter case comes under attack" (X)
The New York Times (editorial) - Oct. 17, 2011 - "Who Mailed the Anthrax Letters?" (X)
Fox News - Oct. 18, 2011 - "Doubts Persist About Anthrax Investigation 10 Years Later" (X)
The Daily Reveille - Oct. 20, 2011 - "Professor is worldwide anthrax specialist" (X)
The Washington Post (editorial) - Oct. 21, 2011 - "New questions about FBI anthrax inquiry deserve scrutiny" (X)
The Frederick News-Post (opinion by Barry Kissin) - Oct. 22, 2011 - "Anthrax whodunit" (X)
The Vancouver Sun - Oct. 22, 2011 - "Was this man the anthrax killer?" (X)
The New York Post - Oct. 23, 2011 - "Anthrax and the FBI" (X)
The Vancouver Sun - Oct. 24, 2011 - "The Hunt for America's anthrax killer" (X)
ProPublica.com - Oct. 24, 2011 - "Secret Reports: With Security Spotty, Many Had Access to Anthrax" (X)
The New York Times - Oct. 27, 2011 - "The Anthrax Investigation: The View From the FBI" (X)
The Palm Beach Post - Oct. 28, 2011 - "Lantana anthrax widow settles $50 million lawsuit against federal government" (X)
NPR - Oct. 29, 2011 - "Scientific Case Still Open on 2001 Anthrax Case" (X)
Associated Press - Oct. 30, 2011 - "Settlement reached in anthrax death lawsuit" (X)
Reuters - Oct. 30, 2011 - "Deal reached in U.S. 2001 anthrax death suit: filing" (X)
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - Nov. 1, 2011 - "Amerithrax review: Lessons for future investigations" (X)
AAAS - Nov. 1, 2011 - "Ten Years After Deadly Anthrax Mailings, AAAS Event Explores Lingering Questions" (X)
Patch.com - Nov. 21, 2011 - "The Day Terror Came to Oxford" (X)
Associated Press - Nov. 29, 2011 - "U.S. to pay widow $2.5M in 2001 anthrax death" (X)
AP & Time Magazine - Nov. 29, 2011 - U.S. to pay widow $2.5M in 2001 anthrax death" (X)
CNN - Nov, 29, 2011 - "Family of 2001 anthrax victim settles with government" (X)
Palm Beach Post - Nov. 29, 2011 - "U.S. to pay Lantana widow $2.5 million for the 2001 anthrax attack that killed her husband" (X) (X)
The Washington Post - Nov. 29, 2011 - "Federal government settles suit in fatal anthrax attacks" (X)
The New York Times - Nov. 29, 2011 - "U.S. Settles Suit Over Anthrax Attacks" (X)
ProPublica.org - Nov. 29, 2011 - "Government Settles Case Brought By First Anthrax Victim For $2.5 Million" (X)
Palm Beach Post - Nov. 30, 2011 - "Anthrax victim's wife: $2.5 million settlement brings 'a little finality'" (X)

2012

The Washington Post - Jan. 27, 2012 - "Justice Dept. takes on itself in probe of 2001 anthrax attacks" (X)
Slate Magazine - Jan. 30, 2012 - "How fake bioterrorism attacks became a real problem" (X)