By Luis F. Perez
Staff Writer
Sun-Sentinel.com

June 10, 2005

The on-and-off anthrax cleanup of the former American Media Inc. building is off again.

This time, the delay stopped the company hired to decontaminate the first building in the country attacked with anthrax just weeks away from finishing the job.

Bio-ONE officials walked off the Boca Raton property on Broken Sound Boulevard after a May 31 contract deadline passed without an extension, once more clouding the future of the building in the Arvida Park of Commerce.

Karen Cavanagh, Bio-ONE general counsel and chief operating officer, said the company couldn't agree to extend the contract with building owner David Rustine because of "economic" terms.

The company planned a gala June opening with former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who co-founded Bio-ONE. Company officials wanted Giuliani and an employee sickened in the anthrax attack, Ernesto Blanco, to be the first people to walk into the anthrax-free building.

The Palm Beach County Health Department quarantined the building after the Oct. 5, 2001, death of an AMI photo editor, Bob Stevens, who inhaled the biological agent from a contaminated letter.

Company officials also planned to move into the building and make it their headquarters. However, the contract dispute puts that move in doubt.

"Right now, a move into the building or any lease relationship is moot," Cavanagh said. "In some ways, we need to sit down and start over again."

Tim O'Connor, county Health Department spokesman, said the building owner is responsible for the cleanup, and health officials won't lift the quarantine until all the boxes inside the building are decontaminated.

"At this point, it's in the same position as it was," he said about the building.

Rustine, president of Crown Companies, could not be reached Thursday afternoon despite attempts by phone.

Bio-ONE completed the interior fumigation of the former home of the publisher of Star, National Enquirer and Weekly World News, among other publications, July 12 with chlorine dioxide gas. Company officials said the cleanup was successful. The original plan called for the building's contents, packed up hastily in about 12,000 boxes, to be incinerated.

But cleanup was stalled by a dispute over ownership of freelance photographers' photos in those boxes. The tabloid photo collection contains historic images of the jet set and celebrities such as James Cagney, Cary Grant, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Princess Diana and Elvis Presley.

After months of delays, Bio-ONE and Rustine, who bought the building two years ago for $40,000, agreed to decontaminate the photographs and everything else in the boxes. The company created a decontamination chamber in the building's basement level to fumigate about 305,500 pounds of files, photos, employees' personal belongings and mundane office items.

Crews unloaded boxes in April and started treating the contents with chlorine dioxide gas. Last month, Bio-ONE hired a medical-waste company to help disinfect boxes that held less-sensitive materials.

Cavanagh said crews finished the fumigation process. They needed a few days for the medical-waste company to finish disinfecting the remaining boxes and two or three weeks to complete the entire project.

An April 2005 deadline was set 11/2 years ago when Bio-ONE signed a contract to clean the building with Rustine, Cavanagh said. The deadline was extended to May 31.

Rustine and company officials have not disclosed the terms of their contract. Last year, Giuliani said the building's cleanup would cost about $5 million.

The prized picture collection of generations of celebrities remains sealed away, tucked in the basement of an empty building. Cavanagh emphasized the boxes are not a public health danger and Bio-ONE is ready to complete the project.

"We're anxious to get back and finish the job," she said.

Luis F. Perez can be reached at lfperez@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6641.

USAMRIID ready for 'new era in biodefense'
Commander looks back at successes, challenges

by Caree Vander Linden
U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases

This article is the first of a two-part series on USAMRIID transformation based on interviews with Col. Erik A. Henchal, outgoing commander of the Institute. In Part I, Henchal talks about the events following 9/11 that served as a catalyst for change at the Nation's premier biodefense laboratory, followed by a discussion of biosurety, safety, physical plant issues, and the National Interagency Biodefense Campus. The second and final article will appear in the July 7th issue of The Standard.

On June 20, 2005, Col. Erik A. Henchal relinquished command of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, the nation's lead biodefense laboratory and his professional home for the past 13 years. Reflecting on his three years as commander, he said he's proud of the Institute's achievements and its continuing effort to transform itself to meet new demands in the post-9/11 world.

Henchal took the helm in June 2002--a particularly challenging time in the Institute's history. Following the anthrax mail attacks of October 2001, USAMRIID was used as a confirmatory site for identifying and characterizing anthrax spores. As chief of the Diagnostic Systems Division at that time, Henchal oversaw an operation in which USAMRIID processed over 30,000 samples and performed approximately 260,000 diagnostic assays over an eight-month period.

In April 2002, as that effort was starting to wind down, USAMRIID identified very low levels of anthrax spores in a few localized areas outside of a containment laboratory. There were no cases of illness due to anthrax exposure at the laboratory and appropriate measures were taken to ensure the safety of the USAMRIID workforce. Nonetheless, the incident highlighted the need for improvements in the Institute's safety program.

The convergence of these events, together with the FBI's widely publicized questioning of a scientist with ties to USAMRIID as a "person of interest" in the anthrax letters case, heightened scrutiny of the Institute and led some to speculate that the material used in the attacks had originated at USAMRIID.

According to Henchal, his first priority as commander was to raise the visibility of USAMRIID and re-establish its reputation.

"People had misguided perceptions about the Institute when I took over," he said. "USAMRIID was seen as the source of the anthrax letters. My impression was that the staff was demoralized and didn't know where we were going anymore. I think we are now recognized as important contributors to biodefense for the country."

Biosurety guidelines handed down

Shortly before Henchal took command, the Department of the Army issued guidelines for its biosurety program, a comprehensive effort to ensure the safe and secure use of biological agents. The program encompassed physical security, biological safety, agent accountability, and personnel reliability measures to prevent unauthorized access to select agents of bioterrorism.

While USAMRIID already had efforts in each of these areas, the Army guidelines imposed additional requirements. Some were costly--like additional security cameras, x-ray machines and other security measures. Others were burdensome--such as the "two man rule" that required researchers accustomed to working independently to have an observer present. In small labs that were crowded to begin with, this requirement quickly proved unworkable.

Fortunately, USAMRIID was able to broker a compromise in which security cameras took the place of the "observer." To address the issue of containment laboratories where cameras were not yet installed, the Institute created the Elite Roving Observer Force, or EROF, a cadre of specially trained soldiers who have access to any lab at any time and can monitor the research being performed. Henchal credited LT. COL. Ross Pastel, his deputy commander for safety, biosurety, operations, plans, and security, with helping to develop a workable biosurety program.

"Something that not everyone at USAMRIID appreciates is that biosurety protects us," Henchal said. "It's not just a bureaucratic notion. We have a documented program--and if another bioterrorism event happens, that program will protect us from the type of criticism and speculation that we experienced in 2002."

In addition to strengthening physical security at the Institute, and improving documentation of how biological agents are stored and accessed, the biosurety guidelines called for a personnel reliability program. USAMRIID had always performed background security checks on personnel who worked in containment laboratories, but the new program contains some additional requirements--including urinalysis and enhanced medical screenings. While unpopular with employees, Henchal said, a program like this is a necessary inconvenience in today's world.

"It's a burden--but ultimately it allows us to do our work without suspicion," he added. "If we had not been able to implement a viable biosurety program, we would have been shut down."

Renewed emphasis on safety

USAMRIID has a comprehensive safety program that emphasizes safety training, risk management, environmental surveillance, and occupational health screening. In the past 34 years, there have been only five confirmed cases of laboratory-acquired infections. Moreover, said Henchal, safety records for the past 3 years have documented a steady decline in the annual rate of potential hazardous exposures from about 16 to 4 per 1,000 personnel in the program. From the commander on down, a culture of safety and risk management is encouraged at the laboratory.

That being said, the events of 2002 made it clear that some changes were necessary. Henchal directed a reorganization of the safety office and mandated division chief involvement in the safety committee. He stepped up regular safety meetings at the office, division and Institute level.

"Safety has always been our number one mission," said Henchal, "but before 2002, people seemed to think safety was the job of the safety office. We emphasized that it was everyone's responsibility."

At USAMRIID, every new laboratory employee attends a safety workshop on laboratory operations, and annual refresher training is required. Safety-related Minimum Essential Training tasks are specified for each employee. Supervisors are held accountable for the safety of their subordinates, and a safety standard is included in the performance objectives of all USAMRIID employees.

In addition, the safety committee meets regularly to review safety data and to propose methods to prevent accidents. Safety concepts are emphasized by the publication of institute-wide safety messages. The entire workforce receives risk management training. Finally, according to Henchal, environmental monitoring for the presence of biological agents now takes place both inside and outside containment laboratories on a weekly basis.

Facility challenges...and a new building

During Henchal's tenure, the USAMRIID facilities have undergone several renovation projects totaling about $30 million. He called facilities manager Mr. Robert (Bob) Koning "a miracle worker" in keeping the aging building running safely.

Among the highlights: the complete renovation of a Biosafety Level 4 laboratory and containment clinical laboratory, additional office space, and an expanded Center for Aerobiological Studies that is slated to open in July. It features unique open suites, custom-designed aerosol equipment, and an improved workspace design that will double the Institute's capacity to do aerosol testing of vaccines and therapies in animal models. This testing--a core capability of USAMRIID--is a critical step in the process of obtaining Food and Drug Administration approval of medical products for biodefense.

Even more exciting has been the campaign to replace USAMRIID's aging facility, spearheaded by MAJ.  GEN. Lester Martinez-Lopez, former commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command. USAMRIID's existing facilities were built in the 1950's and 1960's for 325 personnel and now house more than 750 people, according to Henchal.<

"Basically, our lab complex has exceeded its life expectancy, and we are spending up to 25 percent of our operating budget on maintenance costs," he said. "Most importantly, our mission has expanded and the facilities we currently have are inadequate to meet the demand."

The proposed new USAMRIID would be constructed in two phases over a period of eight years. The programmed amount is approximately $1 billion, which consists of $610 million for Phase I and $405 million for Phase II. The total includes costs for design, site work, construction, equipment, furniture, transition, relocation of buildings in the footprint, and demolition of existing buildings.

USAMRIID has formed a project team and is moving forward with the planning process, according to Henchal. The first step will be preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS. A contract was awarded in April to begin the EIS process.

Cornerstone for medical biodefense

Over the past three years, USAMRIID has emerged as a cornerstone of the nation's interagency biodefense strategy. In a series of U.S. House and Senate reports since September 2001, USAMRIID is not only acknowledged as the military's premier biodefense laboratory, but recognized as a national asset whose biocontainment facilities and expertise provide critical support to the federal biodefense research system.

Efforts are currently underway to establish a National Interagency Biodefense Campus at Fort Detrick that will consist of several federal laboratories, including USAMRIID, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (part of the National Institutes of Health), the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The intent is that close proximity and shared resources will facilitate interagency research on medical countermeasures, benefiting both civilian and military populations.

"The campus is a reality," said Henchal. "And coordination on the campus begins with coordination among people. I think we have the elements now for scientific forums where scientists can truly exchange information and decide where the best opportunities are...the ones that can lead to breakthroughs."

Reflecting on his accomplishments as commander, Henchal was quick to praise his staff.

"This is about USAMRIID--not about me," he said. "If I had to point to one major accomplishment during my tenure, it would be this: we prepared the Institute for its new role in the biodefense community. We're on the cusp of a completely new era in medical biodefense--the fruition of the National Interagency Biodefense Campus. And everything we've done in the past couple of years has prepared us for it."

Editor's Note: Coming up in Part II: Henchal and USAMRIID Commander Col. George W. Korch, Jr., talk about USAMRIID's new way of doing business, including organizational restructuring, changes in research programming, and creation of a civilian scientific director for the Institute. They also discuss the challenges facing USAMRIID in the next decade.

The old media, with their documented and demonstrable liberal bias, have lost much of their clout. But through the networks, the major papers, and the White House press corps, they continue to set the national agenda. And that means there are some things you just don't write about if you want to remain "in" with the liberal media.

Newsweek senior writer Charles Gasparino, appearing on Tina Brown's now-defunct CNBC show, made the following admission. "We sow the seeds of our own demise. Journalists have been advocates of the liberal attitude for way too long, and now we're paying the price-Fox News." Gasparino was saying something that should be quite obvious-that Fox News is a response to the overwhelming liberal media bias. He explained, "Journalists are generally liberal. That does come out in the reporting…It comes out in the stories that they do."

ABC News political director Mark Halperin and his staff explained the bias this way:

"Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps operate with a good number of biases and predilections. They include, but are not limited to, a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the default, while more conservative positions are 'conservative positions.'...The press, by and large, does not accept President Bush's justifications for the Iraq war...It does not accept the proposition that the Bush tax cuts helped the economy...It remains fixated on the unemployment rate..."

Evan Thomas of Newsweek estimated that media bias for Kerry-Edwards was worth between 5 and 20 million votes.

The bias is evident, as Thomas said, in coverage of Democrats vs. Republicans. But the bias is also evident in coverage of the issues. Here are some of the things you can't write about objectively in the mainstream media:

    *       The harmful effects of abortion. Abortion is considered a sacred right of women that should not be challenged. In a related matter, a link between abortion and breast cancer is always discounted.
    *      The theory of intelligent design. This theory, an alternative to Darwinian evolution, says that life has a purpose. But because it has possible religious implications, our media side with secular humanists who do not want the theory even discussed in the public schools.
    *      That DDT has saved lives and can save millions more. DDT has been demonized by the environmentalists and the media for decades, leading to its banning. This is changing somewhat, as even the New York Times has now editorialized that some use of DDT may be justified to save lives. But the Times' recognition of the truth has come millions of lives too late.
    *      The violent nature of Islam. The media repeat claims that Islam is a religion of peace, despite passages in the Koran justifying violence against unbelievers. Diplomacy might justify the "Islam is a peaceful religion" mantra of the Bush administration, but there's no excuse for the media to ignore the facts that are available at such websites as www.prophetofdoom.net 
    *      The link between pornography and violence against women. The media depict Playboy founder Hugh Hefner as a cultural icon, even though he is a dirty old man with a long history of manipulating and exploiting women. Hefner's Playboy Foundation contributed funding to a recent Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) film, "The Education of Shelby Knox," about a teenager who becomes an advocate of explicit sex education and a "gay-straight alliance" in her school. No expressions of concern came from the media over Playboy funding of a PBS film because reporters were too busy writing articles decrying the possibility that the public broadcasting budget might be cut by 25 percent.
    *      Questions about the real cause of AIDS. The  HIV=AIDS theory is never questioned, even though the official definition of AIDS does not require a diagnosis of having HIV, and AIDS tests are notoriously unreliable. In a related matter, objections to massive spending on AIDS at the expense of other diseases are completely ignored by the press. As the FAIR Foundation has shown (www.fairfoundation.org), in terms of federal government spending per death, AIDS gets more money than 16 diseases that kill one million more Americans annually. The only national journalist who has tackled this sensitive subject is ABC's John Stossel.
    *      Real reform of the CIA and FBI. Anonymous CIA bureaucrats frequently leak information to the Washington Post and New York Times in order to make their critics look bad, especially when questions are raised about the performance of the CIA. Even though the FBI has been racked by a series of failures, ranging from Ruby Ridge to Waco to 9/11 and the failure to solve the anthrax attacks, very few reporters write critically of the bureau, especially its treatment of former scientist Steven Hatfill, labeled by the government a "person of interest" in the anthrax case without any evidence at all. 
    *      That homosexuality is a lifestyle one can leave and reject. Homosexuality is portrayed by the media as natural and acceptable, and all major papers run announcements of homosexual "marriages." Ex-homosexuals are ignored. This bias extends to groups such as the National PTA, which refused to allow ex-homosexuals to run a workshop at its national convention. But the PTA did allow Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) to hold a workshop.
    *      That the Bush Doctrine is leading to positive developments in the Middle East, including democratic progress and women's rights. It is fashionable to write of Iraq being a quagmire and a dead-end, in order to make Bush look bad. 
    *      That Alfred Kinsey, the father of the sexual revolution, was a sex pervert who gathered data from sexual experiments on children performed by a Nazi pedophile. Instead, Kinsey has been presented in several films as a ground-breaking scientist who uncovered true facts.
    *      That foreign aid doesn't work. Rather than examine how hundreds of billions of dollars have been wasted on foreign aid, the major media give glowing coverage to events such as the Live8 concerts which demand even more money.
    *      Support for nuclear power from some members of the environmentalist movement, including a founding member of Greenpeace.

And the fact

    *      That so-called medical marijuana is a complete hoax. A video shows Ed Rosenthal of High Times magazine telling fellow marijuana activists, to laughter, cheers and applause, that he smokes dope to treat glaucoma, which he admits he doesn't have, and because he likes to get high.

This is certainly not a complete list of major issues ignored by the press. Indeed, almost every significant issue is subjected to such distorted coverage. The good news is that the old media are losing their clout and hold over the minds of the American people.

But further bad news is that the bias in the old media may get worse.

Chris Mooney, a liberal writer for the New Republic and the Boston Globe, among other publications, has written that traditional "balanced" coverage of climate change and an abortion-breast cancer link cannot be justified because, in his view, the evidence supports the liberal view of those issues.

Victor Navasky, publisher of The Nation and now chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review, wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times under the headline, "Objectivity is Highly Overrated." He argued for more "opinion journalism" from the media.

He'll get his wish. The trouble is that the opinion journalism is being provided under the cover of objective reporting.

8/4/05
10NBC - Rochester, NY

I-Team 10 has a follow up to the anthrax investigation that led agents to the southern tier a year ago.  On August 5, 2004 FBI agents raided the home of a doctor in the town of Wellsville. Since then, Doctor Kenneth Berry has neither been charged, nor formally cleared.

The FBI never said, what, if anything they found from their search of Dr. Berry's home but the investigation apparently never yielded anything that implicated berry in any wrongdoing. Still, the publicity surrounding the raid has left him in legal limbo.

Dr. Berry’s home sits quietly on a hill in the southern tier town of Wellsville but a year ago, in dramatic fashion, it became the focal point of an intense federal investigation.

The FBI was looking for clues into the 2001 anthrax mailings that killed 5 people and sickened 17 others.

A year after the raid, the man at the center of the investigation, Dr. Kenneth Berry, has never been charged.  He also has never been cleared of suspicion.

Reverend Dick Helms is an internet pastor and close friend of Berry. "It's outrageous that the FBI and the investigators have not publicly cleared him, although they have privately and verbally told him and his attorney that he is no longer under investigation. He has reason to be bitter. It shouldn't have happened. He has reason to be angry."

Kenneth Berry was a small town emergency room doctor with a big interest in the threat of bio-terrorism. He was director of the emergency room at Jones Memorial Hospital in Wellsville from 1996 to 2001. Colleagues, like ER Nurse Manager Joan Hand, say he spoke constantly of the importance of emergency response to a biological attack. She shared an office with Dr. Berry. "All of the staff was aware of his concerns and his interest. He was very interested in our ems system, anti-terrorism, and in particular the anthrax threat."

So much so that he started an organization called pre-empt designed to train medical professionals on how to respond to a biological attack.

Berry lectured on the threats of anthrax and spoke at conferences on domestic terrorism.

Ironically, it's his level of interest in the topic that probably drew investigators to his doorstep.

Dr. Berry knew a few months prior to the raid here at his house in Wellsville that he was under investigation by the FBI. In fact, he and some of his associates had been interviewed by investigators. But it was the very public search of his home that friends say began his professional and personal descent."

Images of agents in protective suits removing items from his home in full view of TV cameras angered the doctor. They also raided his parent's beach home in New Jersey where he was staying with his family as cameras captured footage from above.

"It didn't surprise him that they came to look through his home. They could have brought two or 3 agents and quietly done it," said Helms.

In his only interview since the raid, berry told the local Wellsville paper in March that he cooperated with the FBI and in return, the investigation has destroyed his life.

A dispute with his wife on the day of the raids led to assault charges and she has since filed for divorce. A fight has ensued over custody of their son.

Professionally, he lost his job at a Pittsburgh hospital where he commuted and claims his reputation is ruined.

"There's a lot of us that feel they didn't prove anything and what did they have to base their investigation on," said Hand.

The FBI tells I-Team 10 it will not comment on Berry or the case.

Did Berry fit a profile agents were looking for? Shortly after the anthrax mailings, he received patents related to bio-terrorism including one for a surveillance system that would detect an attack. His pre-empt website also flaunted credentials and powerful connections. He had reportedly bragged of having contacts in Washington that included former senator Sam Nunn and retired admiral William Crowe.

Reached at home by I-Team 10 the retired admiral said quote: "I have no knowledge whatsoever of Kenneth berry. No recollection of every meeting him."

Still, his longtime friend Pastor Helms says Berry is a pioneer in homeland security and is owed a major apology. “They have totally destroyed this man. Totally destroyed him. Without cause."

I-Team 10 contacted doctor berry by phone and he referred us to his attorney who would not say if the doctor plans to sue the federal government. 

Dr. Berry still has his medical license, but is unable to find work as a doctor.

Pastor Helms says his friend is developing a small business and may at some point decide to write a book.

WELLSVILLE — A year has passed since the Federal Bureau of Investigation performed simultaneous raids on past and present homes of Dr. Kenneth M. Berry, a former Wellsville doctor.

FBI officials descended on two properties in Wellsville, one in New Jersey as well as Dr. Berry’s plane on Aug. 5, 2004, one year ago today. More than 30 federal officials raided Dr. Berry’s home on 211 E. Pearl St., a former rental apartment at 125 Maple Ave. and his father’s vacation residence in New Jersey.

As a result of the raids, Dr. Berry later lost his medical job in a Pittsburgh hospital, is undergoing divorce proceedings and has had his reputation tarnished, despite no formal charges by the FBI as a result of their investigation.

The FBI said they were investigating Dr. Berry because of an alleged connection to the anthrax-laced letters mailed in fall of 2001 which left five people dead and caused illness in another 17 people. Dr. Berry had worked in the emergency room at Jones Memorial Hospital from 1996 to 2001 and had most recently worked in a Pittsburgh hospital until shortly after the FBI raids.

Some believe that Dr. Berry was investigated because of his involvement in his Planned Response Exercises and Emergency Medical Preparedness Training (PREEMPT) organization, which gave information on handling bio-terrorism issues to emergency responders.

The organization, founded in 1995, has filed several patents for recommended procedures in combating bio-terrorism incidents.

The New York Times reported in an Oct. 3, 2004, article that Dr. Berry’s influence “as a player in the bio-defense world” brought him in contact with the likes of Congress, the military, defense contractors and news organizations.

Itinerant pastor and close friend Rev. Dick Helms said in an interview with The Times Herald that Dr. Berry and others associated with PREEMPT had been the subject of investigation prior to the raids and that it did not come as a surprise.

“Dr. Berry had been under investigation for some time,” Rev. Helms said. The pastor added that he did not have a problem with the FBI investigating his friend’s home, but said they went about it the wrong way.

“What they did was not wrong, but the way the FBI did the raids was wrong,” he said. “It put a cloud over him so that he can’t work and caused him to lose his family and job.”

Rev. Helms said he still keeps in close contact with Dr. Berry, who declined to be interviewed for this story. The FBI has verbally told Dr. Berry that he is no longer under investigation, Rev. Helms said, but has not put it in writing.

Federal investigators almost never publicly clear anyone who has come under scrutiny, the New York Times reported.

“They’ve actually said that they’re doing all this to clear him,” John Moustakas, a lawyer for Dr. Berry, told the New York Times.

Rev. Helms said the FBI made news of the raids into “a purposefully created media circus. There was no call for it. The FBI had an open search warrant and could have had access to his house at any time.”

Wellsville police chief Steven Mattison said that he had been briefed the day before the raids, but had not been aware of how large scale the investigation would be. At the time, he was filling in as interim police chief as then-chief James Cicirello was on medical leave.

“I just thought that I’d be shuffling papers until Jim came back,” Chief Mattison said. A regional FBI investigator contact briefed Chief Mattison as well as other law enforcement officials on the nature of the raids.

Wellsville Mayor Bradley Thompson said he had even shorter notice regarding the FBI’s presence in the village. “I didn’t know about it until the morning of the raids,” he said.

His first concern was ensuring the safety of village residents, Mayor Thompson said. Once it was established that there was no public threat, he said that he turned his attention to handling the large contingent of media on the scene.

Even though his department had been briefed, Chief Mattison said he was “a bit overwhelmed” by the FBI’s response. The police department received several phone calls from neighbors reporting that strange men in suits, ties, unmarked cars and even yellow bio-hazard protective equipment were entering homes on East Pearl Street and Maple Avenue.

At that point, Chief Mattison said he made the decision to have uniformed police officers on the scene. “We called in all available officers because we did not have enough personnel to answer all the questions” from residents and media, he said.

“We got the word out quickly that there was no imminent danger.” He was told at the time that the FBI was only looking for trace amounts of anthrax.

Chief Mattison said the FBI conducted themselves in a professional manner and kept him informed about their actions. The FBI even later presented the police department with a certificate commemorating “cooperation and assistance” during the searches.

As far as he knew, the FBI’s investigation was still ongoing, Chief Mattison said.

Mayor Thompson said the FBI “came, did what they had to do and left.” He added that was a reminder that “terrorism can happen anywhere — even in Wellsville.”

In retrospect, despite much media fanfare drawing national attention to Dr. Berry, he remains uncharged by federal officials.

In November of 2004, Dr. Berry did plead guilty to two charges of simple assault resulting from an incident at a borough hotel in Point Pleasant Beach, N.J., reported the Ocean Star of Point Pleasant Beach.

Shortly after the raid on his parents’ summer home, Dr. Berry had an altercation with his wife, Tana Leucken-Berry and step-daughter, leading to his arrest. In entering his guilty plea, he agreed to drop similar charges brought against his wife and step-daughter. He was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to pay a $1,000 fine.

The Rev. Helms said a medication Dr. Berry was taking at the time may have contributed to his outburst.

Dr. Berry, age 47, had moved to Wellsville in 1996. He became a member of the Jones Memorial Hospital medical staff, working in the emergency room. He left the hospital in June 2001.

In March of 1999, State Police charged Dr. Berry with two counts of second-degree forgery after he allegedly signed the forged will of Dr. Andrew Colletta, who owned a doctor’s office in the area, according to previously published reports.

Dr. Berry later pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct charge.

The Rev. Helms said Dr. Berry still has his medical licenses, but has been out of work since the FBI raids.

“People are now realizing that this guy is innocent and they are asking why there were no charges,” Rev. Helms said.

Saddam's germ war plot is traced back to one Oxford cow
By Dominic Kennedy

A BRITISH cow that died in an Oxfordshire field in 1937 has emerged as the source of Saddam Hussain’s “weapons of mass destruction” programme that led to the Iraq war.

An ear from the cow was sent to an English laboratory, where scientists discovered anthrax spores that were later used in secret biological warfare tests by Winston Churchill.

The culture was sent to the United States, which exported samples to Iraq during Saddam’s war against Iran in the 1980s. Inspectors have found that this batch of anthrax was the dictator’s choice in his attempts to create biological weapons.

The discovery has angered some British politicians. Austin Mitchell, the Labour MP for Great Grimsby, has renewed his call, supported by 126 MPs in the last Parliament, for a UN investigation into whether Washington broke a weapons control agreement. “It just makes them look more hypocritical than ever,” he said.

The odyssey of the Iraqi anthrax was unravelled by Geoffrey Holland, a politics student and antiwar campaigner at the University of Sussex. The exact batch chosen by Saddam was disclosed in the CIA report by Charles Duelfer, the former UN weapons inspector, last autumn.

“Iraq declared researching different strains of B. anthracis, but settled on the American Type Culture Collection strain 14578 as the exclusive strain for use as a BW,” Mr Duelfer said.

A congressional investigation into Gulf War syndrome by Don Riegle had already uncovered invoices showing that this batch was shipped from the United States between 1986 and 1988.

The ATCC is a private, non-profit-making collection of cultures of living micro-organisms, viruses, plants and human and animal cells, stored in Virginia.

Its catalogue shows that batch 14578 consists of “bovine anthrax”, isolated by R. L. Vollum, a professor of bacteriology at Oxford University during the 1930s. It is named after him.

Martin Hugh-Jones, who co-ordinates the World Health Organisation’s Working Group on Anthrax Research and Control, said: “We have traced it back and it would have come in on some contaminated bones from Southern Rhodesia.

“England was importing sun-dried bones from dead animals in the colonies. They would be shipped to London and used to make soap. When they got the fat out, (the bones) were meant to be sterilised and ground as bone meal and fed to cattle. The sterilisation was not always complete. It was the major cause of anthrax for almost 100 years.”

The Vollum anthrax was used in biological weapons tests on the Scottish island of Gruinard in 1942, which had to be quarantined for 48 years. “It killed any number of sheep in Gruinard,” Professor Hugh-Jones said.

“(Saddam) obviously at one point had a programme because he was buying the laboratory’s cultures to underwrite a programme. Why would he want peaceful research with Vollum? Come on!”

DEADLY SPORES
# Anthrax is caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis
# The spores can survive in soil for years
# Herbivores are most vulnerable. Humans get it from contaminated flesh
# The word comes from the Greek for “coal” because victims develop black skin lesions
# Contaminated mail was used to attack US Congress in 2001. Two postal workers died

The World Today - Wednesday, 10 August , 2005  12:38:00
Reporter: Karen Barlow
ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

ELEANOR HALL: Scientific research in the UK is today ringing warning bells about the adequacy of international controls over the movements of deadly biological materials.

A British researcher has sourced the oft-cited Iraqi anthrax threat under Saddam Hussein's regime to pre-World War Two Britain.

A United States congressional hearing had previously found that anthrax samples were exported to Iraq from the United States in the 1980s. Now, Iraq's anthrax's source has been tracked further back to the ears of a cow, which died in south Oxfordshire in 1937, as Karen Barlow reports.

KAREN BARLOW: The intelligence about chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in Saddam Hussein's Iraq is now deemed to be faulty, but the Bush administration stood by it in the lead up to war.

US SPOKESPERSON 1: There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

US SPOKESPERSON 2: He's amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of biological weapons including anthrax, botulism toxin, possibly small pox.

KAREN BARLOW: With no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, the "Coalition of the Willing" chose to focus on what could have been.

The British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, cited the UN Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix's last report in 2003, which he says detailed unanswered disarmament questions.

JACK STRAW: For example, saying that the Iraqis had failed to account for the whereabouts of 10,000 litres of anthrax and that the chances were that that was still in existence and that it could still be viable.

KAREN BARLOW: But where did Iraq get this anthrax?

The United States intelligence agencies knew that Iraq had anthrax samples because the US gave them to Baghdad in the 1980s.

Geoffrey Holland is a politics student at the United Kingdom's University of Sussex.

GEOFFREY HOLLAND: In 1994 there were a series of hearings, Senator Donald Riegle as was then, chaired, and I came across the Riegle report and was absolutely riveted by it. Within the Riegle report are some pretty extensive details of the materials that were transferred by the American Type Culture Collection, which at that time was based in Maryland and one of the items on the agenda was anthrax strain 14578.

KAREN BARLOW: Geoffrey Holland then used a US Culture Collection catalogue, which details the source of every strain of anthrax.

GEOFFREY HOLLAND: It became apparent that the origin of this particular strain was in south Oxfordshire, probably 1937 and you know, it had gone through, as I say, various sets of hands through the Second World War when it had been used and developed and weaponised by the British in conjunction with the Americans and the Canadians as well, as a potential weapon of war.

KAREN BARLOW: Geoffrey Holland's work has been confirmed by the world's foremost expert on anthrax, Emeritus Professor Martin Hugh-Jones, who told The World Today that the anthrax can be traced back even further to the former British colony of Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

Professor Hugh-Jones says sun-dried, but inadequately sterilised bones were sent to the UK for soap processing and a by-product, bonemeal, was then fed to English cattle leading to anthrax emerging in British herds.

The International Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention came into effect in 1975, well before Britain handed the anthrax to the United States, but researcher Geoffrey Holland says the United States' anthrax export to Iraq should be further investigated.

GEOFFREY HOLLAND: The fact that it was then transferred to Iraq does seem to me to indicate that it was in breach of the Convention. Other people would perhaps argue that that's not the case, but I'd like really to… I think we deserve to hear from them why that's not the case.

If there is an international convention in place, if there is such a thing as a Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, which is legally binding, then it seems to me that something obviously went wrong.

ELEANOR HALL: That's Geoffrey Holland from the University of Sussex, ending that report from Karen Barlow.

BY MARK JURKOWITZ
The Boston Phoenix
Issue Date: August 12 - 18, 2005

Two months ago, the surprise identification of former FBI official W. Mark Felt as the nation’s most famous confidential source ended a three-decade mystery and triggered a noisy, partisan debate over whether "Deep Throat" was a Watergate hero or a self-serving traitor.

This summer, the media and political establishments have been riveted by the tale of Valerie Plame, the CIA operative whose public outing triggered a criminal probe that has reached deep into the Bush White House. For refusing to disclose her confidential sources in the case, New York Times reporter Judith Miller has spent more than a month behind bars, becoming both a media martyr and a public celebrity.

Yet for all the buzz and hand-wringing generated by Deep Throat and Plamegate, another battle is likely to have an even greater impact on journalists and those who provide them with information under the cloak of anonymity. Currently grinding its way through the courts, the case brought by Wen Ho Lee — the former nuclear scientist who was suspected of espionage — pits an individual’s right to privacy and to protect his or her reputation against the free flow of information and the public’s right to know.

Four reporters — James Risen of the New York Times, former CNN staffer Pierre Thomas, H. Josef Hebert of the Associated Press, and Bob Drogin of the Los Angeles Times — are now under contempt citations for failing to disclose confidential sources in connection with Lee’s suit against several government agencies, which alleges the government leaked personal information that violated his privacy and helped fuel a feeding frenzy against him.

Lee’s assertion of his legal rights has put journalists directly in the cross hairs. And First Amendment advocates are worried, angry, and fearful that this case will do more damage to investigative journalism than anything that comes out of the Plame probe.

"While we’ve always had a certain number of federal prosecutors going after journalists, we’re seeing a different type of phenomenon — the federal employee who’s been wronged. If you can somehow compel the journalists to be agents of discovery, it’s going to have a chilling effect," says Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "This is very troubling."

"In some ways this ... has the potential to have much broader implications in the long run. This is more of a garden-variety day-to-day journalism issue than the Valerie Plame case," says Jane Kirtley, Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. "It is not the role of the courts ... or private litigants to impose standards on the press by means of a coercive tactic like this."

Adds Kirtley ominously, "I think this is just bizarre."

RUSH TO JUDGMENT

A former Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory scientist, Lee was indicted in December 1999 on 59 counts of mishandling classified information. But the much-ballyhooed case fizzled, and Lee ended up pleading guilty to only one count. The judge who released him apologized for the government’s actions, and President Clinton voiced his regrets as well.

It wasn’t exactly the media’s finest hour either, as critics complained that coverage created a rush to judgment about Lee’s guilt. In September 2000, the New York Times published a rare half-page note to readers admitting that its reporting had failed to "give Dr. Lee the full benefit of the doubt" and "did not pay enough attention to the possibility that there had been a major intelligence loss in which the Los Alamos scientist was a minor player, or completely uninvolved."

Dalglish says that the eventual backlash of sympathy toward Lee was so potent that "you can also argue that the media did a lot to rehabilitate his reputation in recent years. A lot of people feel sorry for him."

Shortly after his indictment, Lee filed suit against several government agencies, claiming their leaks of his personal information to news organizations violated the Privacy Act, which prohibits such agencies from intentionally disclosing personal and private records. (Lee’s lawyer failed to respond to several Phoenix phone calls for comment.)

After making efforts to discover the origin of the leaks through government channels, Lee issued subpoenas to the journalists, who unsuccessfully sought to quash them. In a dramatic ruling last summer, US District Court judge Thomas Penfield Jackson found Risen, Drogin, Thomas (now at ABC), Hebert, and the New York Times’ Jeff Gerth in contempt for refusing to disclose their sources and ordered them to pay fines of $500 a day — although those fines are on hold pending the appeals process.

The news organizations reacted with dismay. The Los Angeles Times issued a statement saying that the "ruling seriously jeopardizes the press’s ability to report about our government’s actions and the public’s right to know." A similar message from the New York Times said that "confidential sources are critical for us to give the public as broad a perspective as possible on the important issues of the day, particularly when they concern the actions of government."

A challenge to Jackson’s ruling failed on June 28, 2005, when the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the contempt citations against all the reporters except Gerth. In late July, attorneys for the other four journalists petitioned for a rehearing before the appeals court.

"I’m not going to speculate about whether or not we get a rehearing," says Risen’s attorney, Joel Kurtzberg. But he does point out that if the court does not agree to the petition, the next option to consider would be the US Supreme Court.

A CIVIL MATTER

Other recent attempts to breach source confidentiality via the courts have been related to criminal investigations: Plamegate involves a possible federal criminal violation, while Providence TV reporter Jim Taricani was sentenced to home confinement for refusing to reveal the source of a secret tape in a municipal corruption case. But reporters caught in the Wen Ho Lee saga are being asked to cough up confidential sources in a civil Privacy Act lawsuit, and journalism advocates see that as an even greater threat.

"It lowers the bar for when somebody in a civil lawsuit can demand, when a reporter must unmask a source," says Charles Tobin, an attorney representing Thomas.

Lee Levine, an attorney for Hebert and Drogin, says that "there’s an additional concern that the interest of a private litigant would be held to be more important than the journalist’s or source’s [right to confidentiality]."

In his petition for rehearing, Levine argued that given the DC Circuit’s ruling, "no reporter today could make a credible promise of confidentiality to a contemporary Deep Throat because any modern-day Watergate suspect or even convicted felon could file a Privacy Act suit and compel disclosure of the reporter’s confidential sources."

In fact, reporters could be compelled to testify in a Privacy Act suit filed by Steven Hatfill, the researcher whose name surfaced in connection with the investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people. Claiming he was the victim of leaks to the media, Hatfill sued the government under the Privacy Act and subpoenaed about a dozen news organizations. (Hatfill has also sued the New York Times for libel, litigation that had been dismissed but was reinstated by a federal appellate court in late July.)

For now, Hatfill has withdrawn the media subpoenas while his legal team pursues a full-fledged discovery strategy against the government. But he could still come after the news outlets later. In a brief filed in connection with the Wen Ho Lee case earlier this year, Hatfill’s lawyers argued that "neither the First Amendment nor the common law gives reporters or media enterprises any exemption from a citizen’s obligation to disclose evidence of illegal acts committed in his or her presence, including violations of the Privacy Act."

Judging the public’s attitude toward the complex issue of reporters and their confidential sources is a pretty tricky matter. In one survey touted as a good sign for the media, a May 2005 poll commissioned by the American Journalism Review and the First Amendment Center found that 69 percent of the respondents agreed with the statement, "Journalists should be allowed to keep a news source confidential.’"

Yet another survey taken around the same time by the University of Connecticut seems to fly in the face of those sentiments. In that poll, 57 percent of the general public voiced approval for the court ruling that forced Miller and Time magazine’s Matt Cooper to reveal their sources during the Plame investigation.

NORMAL METHODS

In their petitions for a rehearing in the Lee case, the journalists’ attorneys argued that specific circumstances relevant to their clients’ reporting should exempt them from the court’s ire. But they also focused on the broader dangers to journalism posed by Lee’s suit.

Hebert’s legal team argued that "[t]he authors of the Privacy Act ... would likely be among the most surprised and troubled to find that a statute aimed at combating the misuse of computer database technology has become a vehicle for imposing onerous sanctions on reporters for using normal journalistic methods to report about a matter of such obvious public importance as alleged nuclear espionage."

Thomas’s lawyers contended that "the trial court erroneously failed to require Dr. Lee to demonstrate that he had exhausted alternative sources for the information sought to be compelled from Pierre Thomas specifically." And the filing on behalf of Risen stated that "the newsworthiness of the stories published here outweighed any harm caused by any of the leaks."

In a potentially significant development, lawyers for the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus — an accomplished national-security reporter whose case has lagged procedurally behind those of the other Wen Ho Lee reporters — argued before US District Court judge Rosemary Collyer last week for the court to create a common-law application of a reporter’s privilege similar to attorney-client privilege. (Judge Jackson, who issued the August 2004 contempt rulings, has retired.)

"There’s no overriding public interest in compelling disclosure. That’s the main thing I argued to Judge Collyer," says Pincus’s attorney, Kevin Baine. "I argued that there was no substantial harm caused by any leak in this case."

It’s not clear how a favorable ruling by Collyer might affect other reporters already in contempt. But Kurtzberg says it could re-open the entire matter: "As a practical matter, we would likely have the opportunity to raise the argument with her — even if we lose at the appellate [level] — that we should have the benefit of that same argument."

In the meantime, the complicated, convoluted fight to protect the Wen Ho Lee sources goes on. And the stakes for investigative reporting and freedom of the press couldn’t be higher.

"The question really is whether or not reporters have the right to promise confidentiality to their sources and then abide by their promises," says Baine, suggesting that forcing journalists to choose between disclosure or incarceration isn’t a realistic alternative.

"In the long run that’s not a very secure basis for sources to operate on," Baine adds, "that reporters are going to be willing to go to jail."

Mark Jurkowitz can be reached at mjurkowitz@phx.com

09/19/2005
By CHARLES WEBSTER 

Staff Writer 
The Trentonian

TRENTON - Almost fours after killer Anthrax-laced letters were mailed from a Hamilton post office the FBI doesn’t have a clue that can crack the case.

The FBI has been tracking down leads as part of one of the most extensive investigations in its history, but every promising lead has gone nowhere.

"This globe-spanning investigation remains intensely active and broadly focused," Debbie Weierman, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Washington field office told The Washington Post last week. 

"The FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service remain steadfastly committed to the 22 victims of the attacks and to bring to justice those responsible." 

Investigators have interviewed over 8,000 people on four continents in their quest for answers. Dozens of homes, office spaces, laboratories and other locations like a small pond in the rural Catoctin Mountains near the presidential retreat of Camp David have been searched and probed - still no solid clues have surfaced.

As the fourth anniversary of the anthrax attacks draws near the case is in desperate need of a big break, but the number of investigators is dwindling.

In the past year, 14 investigators have been pulled from the case and reassigned, as 21 FBI agents and 9 postal inspectors continue to probe the case.

FBI officials told The Washington Post last week that investigators are still working diligently to find whoever is responsible for the killer anthrax-laced mailings, which killed five people, sickened 17 others and led to the temporary shutdown of the House and Senate office buildings, the Supreme Court building and numerous postal facilities along the East Coast, including the John K. Rafferty Postal Facility in Hamilton.

Dr. Steven Hatfill, a bio-terrorism expert, is the only individual labeled a "person of interest" by the FBI.

Hatfill worked at the U.S. Army’s Fort Detrick, from 1997 to 1999.

Fort Detrick is home to the U.S. Army’s Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. The facility is located outside of Frederick, Md., a nearby pond in the Catoctin Mountains was drained by the FBI in late 2003 in search of clues, but turned up nothing that could crack the case.

Hatfill has repeatedly denied any involvement in the killer anthrax-laced letters. He was hounded by the media and investigators, but he was never charged with any crime related to the mailings.

"He remains innocent today as he was four years ago," Hatfill’s attorney Thomas G. Connolly told The Washington Post last week. 

"They were getting enormous pressure, and a way to alleviate the pressure was to offer someone up, and that person happened to be Dr. Hatfill," Connolly said. "That caused enormous harm to Dr. Hatfill. It didn’t advance their investigation one iota." 

Last summer, the FBI raided the upstate New York home of Dr. Kenneth Berry, an emergency room physician and the founder of an anti-terrorism organization that trains medical professionals to respond to chemical and biological attacks.

The FBI also raided Berry’s parent’s Lavallette shore house which he vacationed inside the home. He was relocated to a Point Pleasant hotel where he subsequently got into a tiff with his wife and was charged with domestic violence.

Berry lost his job at the University of Pittsburgh Hospital emergency room shortly after the FBI began investigating him.

The FBI later said they were "not excited" about what was found in either of the Berry homes. He has not been charged by federal authorities for any role in the killer anthrax mailings.

In the nearly four years since the killer anthrax-laced letters were mailed from the Hamilton postal facility in September and October 2001, more than $1 billion has been spent cleaning up several postal facilities. The Hamilton facility was only reopened late last year.

The FBI and postal inspectors are currently putting the finishing touches on an internal report that is expect to list all "persons of interest," the latest results of lab testing and volumes of other important data.

But still no suspect has been charged in relationship to the killer anthrax letters.

The profile of the suspected culprit remains the same: a U.S.-based scientist with the knowledge and access to tamper with weapons-grade anthrax. 

By Tania Valdemoro
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Thursday, September 22, 2005

WEST PALM BEACH — Four years after anthrax attacks shuttered American Media Inc.'s former headquarters in Boca Raton, a freelance photographer is suing the tabloid publisher in federal court to retrieve more than 1,400 of his negatives, transparencies and prints contaminated with the deadly bacterium.

Greg Mathieson, a Washington-based photographer, seeks at least $2 million in damages, according to the suit filed this month. He alleges AMI failed to: return his work in its original condition; protect and insure his photos; compensate him for his losses; and keep accurate records. Mathieson further accused AMI of not telling him where his photos were or what condition they were in.

Mathieson shot photos of celebrities such as Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Bruce Willis, Jacqueline Onassis, former President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, and Princess Diana.

His is the first lawsuit filed by freelance photographers over the contaminated photos. Last year, they threatened to sue AMI and real estate investor David Rustine after they learned of Rustine's plans to incinerate the photos. Some photos are worth thousands of dollars, they say.

Rustine bought AMI's contaminated former headquarters and the building's contents, including a photo library containing 4.5 million images, for $40,000 in April 2003.

AMI says the lawsuit is baseless.

"The introduction of anthrax into our offices was a horrible crime that impacted our employees and the entire Boca Raton community," said spokesman Stu Zakim. "We think it's unfortunate Mr. Mathieson has decided to exploit this crime into an economic windfall. We believe his claim is entirely without merit, and we will vigorously defend this action."

Mathieson and his Miami attorneys, Kendall Coffee and Mark Journey, did not return several phone calls Wednesday.

The photographer has licensed photos to the Globe, Star and National Enquirer since 1985. Following a common industry practice, he let AMI keep his original photos so that the publisher could reuse them. As photos were republished, AMI paid him a licensing fee. Publishers such as AMI typically pay photographers $1,500 when their work is damaged, lost or destroyed, photographers said.

"I'm not surprised Mathieson is suing AMI," said Mark Reinstein, a freelance photographer whose work also is housed in the former AMI building. Reinstein exposed presidential adviser Dick Morris' affair with prostitute Sherry Rowlands in 1996 for Star.

"AMI basically walked away from that library," he said. "All those pictures were under their control and they said, 'See ya.' "

The Palm Beach County Health Department shut down the former AMI building following the death of Sun photo editor Bob Stevens of anthrax inhalation in October 2001.

Rustine hired BioONE to fumigate the building, which it did in July 2004. BioONE began decontaminating 8,500 boxes of anthrax-laden materials stored in the building's basement — about 2,500 boxes contained photos — in mid-April. The company's contract with Rustine expired May 31. At the time, BioONE officials said they had cleaned thousands of boxes.

Rustine then hired BioONE's rival, MARCOR Remediation, to begin the cleanup from scratch. But the project has not resumed, John O'Malley, a health department official, said this week. "Both sides are working to finalize a new cleanup agreement."

By Missy Stoddard 
Staff Writer 
The Sun-Sentinel
Posted September 23 2005 

A freelance photographer has sued American Media Inc., claiming the Boca Raton-based tabloid publisher owes him at least $2 million for more than 1,400 images that have yet to be returned to him after AMI's building was contaminated with anthrax in 2001, according to a federal lawsuit filed earlier this month.

Photographer Greg Mathieson alleges that AMI has numerous images of celebrities, including Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Sophia Loren, Bruce Willis, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Princess Diana and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. AMI publishes The National Enquirer, Star and Globe, among other magazines.

AMI photo editor Bob Stevens died Oct. 5, 2001, after inhaling anthrax from a contaminated letter. Since then, according to the lawsuit, Mathieson has tried repeatedly to retrieve negatives, transparencies and prints of his work.

Mathieson says he was assured his work was stored in a vault, which he says he later learned was nothing more than a room referred to as such by AMI staff. A licensing agreement between Mathieson and AMI states that each time one of Mathieson's images was to be published, he was to receive a licensing fee, the complaint states. AMI typically compensates photographers $1,500 per damaged, lost or destroyed image. Mathieson's suit alleges that AMI recovered millions in insurance claims, but has refused to compensate Mathieson or his company, MAI Photo News Agency.

Since Crown Companies purchased the AMI building and its contents in 2003, Mathieson alleges that he has been unable to recover his photographs. AMI cleaned and removed selected documents but made no attempt to decontaminate Mathieson's work, the lawsuit claims. In 2004, David Rustine, a principal of Crown Companies, told Mathieson that cleaning the pictures would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and probably wouldn't work anyway, according to the complaint. AMI told Mathieson in April 2004 that he would have to pay to retrieve and decontaminate the images.

Neither AMI nor Rustine could be reached for comment Thursday, despite attempts by phone. Mathieson said he had no comment. His Miami attorney, Mark Journey, said Mathieson doesn't know if AMI still has his photographs, but he plans to find out.

"He wants the pictures back if possible, but if he can't, he wants to be compensated per the agreement," Journey said.

Cleanup of the building is not done, according to John O'Malley of the Palm Beach County Health Department. After a contract dispute with another company, Crown retained Marcor Remediation, which must submit a health and safety plan for its workers as well as how the building will be treated. Federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, will review those plans. The Health Department has a quarantine on the building until it's notified that it is safe to reopen.

Missy Stoddard can be reached at mstoddard@sun-sentinel.com or 561-832-2895.

Anthrax terrorists outfox the FBI
By Tim Reid
The Times of London
Failure of inquiry has astonished Americans and angered widow
 

FOUR years after the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks, which brought fresh terror to the US days after the September 11 hijackings, the biggest criminal investigation in American history has gone cold. 
The failure to solve one of the most baffling and sinister terrorist cases of modern times has not only led to intense frustration for the FBI, but has also prompted the British widow of one of the victims to sue the US Government. 
 

Bob Stevens, a British picture editor from Berkshire who worked in Boca Raton, Florida, was one of five people who died in and seventeen who became ill in September and October 2001, after coming into contact with a weapons-grade strain of anthrax posted to media organisations and the offices of two Democratic senators in Washington. 

His widow, Maureen, who believes that the anthrax came from a government biodefence laboratory in Maryland, spoke yesterday of her anger and frustration at the failure of the FBI to make an arrest in the case. She is suing the Government for $30 million (nearly £17 million), alleging that security lapses at the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases in Fort Detrick led to her husband’s death. Much of her case is aimed at getting leading bioterrorism experts to testify in court. 

“There’s nothing coming out — it’s just amazing,” Mrs Stevens said. “I’ve had one meeting with the FBI. I have had little communication with them. I would have thought they wanted to talk more.” 

She said that she found the case difficult to talk about, because of anger and other emotions, and that she and her lawyer were “just meeting a stone wall”. 

The failure to make one arrest in the case has astounded and dismayed many Americans. FBI agents and officials from the Postal Inspection Service have conducted more than 8,000 interviews on four continents and served more than 5,000 subpoenas. They have travelled to Afghanistan twice. 

In the past year, the FBI says, the number of agents on the case has dropped from 31 to 21, a far cry from the hundreds assigned to the investigation in its early weeks. Despite a $2.5 million reward for information leading to a conviction, the case “is going nowhere”, a former investigator said. The favoured theory has remained consistent: that the culprit is an American scientist who had access to the anthrax. 

Spore-laden letters were posted on September 18 and October 9, 2001, to media organisations in New York and Florida, and to the offices of Tom Daschle, then the Senate Democratic leader, and a colleague, Senator Patrick Leahy, of Vermont. Five people were killed — Mr Stevens and two postal workers, and also a New York hospital worker and an elderly Connecticut woman, whose deaths were not a direct result of the mail attacks. 

Panic gripped Washington, with the Senate, House of Representatives, Supreme Court building and numerous postal facilities being shut down. The letters included photocopied notes referring to the September 11 attacks and Islamic rhetoric. 

Investigators soon determined that the anthrax used was the Ames strain, most commonly used in American biodefence research. Attention focused on Fort Detrick, and in particular on Steven Hatfill, an American biodefence expert who worked at the facility between 1997 and 1999. Dr Hatfill, who has not been charged and fiercely denies any involvement, was named as a “person of interest” by John Ashcroft, then the Attorney-General. 

Numerous tips have proved fruitless. Two years ago the FBI spent three weeks draining a pond near Fort Detrick, believing that the culprit may have discarded materials there. The pond yielded nothing. 

Another tip, apparently from an inmate in Guantanamo Bay, led agents to fly to Kabul, the Afghan capital, in May last year, and then to the Kandahar mountains — but nothing was found. US scientists have still not been able to identify the laboratory from which the anthrax came, but other facilities have been investigated, including one at Louisiana State University and another in Utah. 

DEATH IN THE POST

Sept 25, 2001 Erin O’Connor, an assistant to an NBC journalist, opens a letter postmarked Trenton, New Jersey, containing a brown granular substance

Oct 5 Bob Stevens, picture editor of the Sun newspaper, dies in Boca Raton, Florida. Traces of anthrax are found on his computer keyboard 

Oct 10 Anthrax is found in a sorting office that handles post for the White House 

Oct 12 A case of anthrax is reported in New York City; O’Connor becomes the first person to test positive for skin anthrax 

Oct 15 A letter containing anthrax is received by Tom Daschle, the leader of the United States Senate 

Oct 21 and 22 Two male postal workers at the office in Washington that sorts post for Capitol Hill die 

Oct 29 Fresh anthrax spores are detected at the Supreme Court, prompting justices to meet outside the building for the first time in its 66-year history

    * 10:00 24 September 2005
    * NewScientist.com news service
    * David Hambling

THE US military wants to buy large quantities of anthrax, in a controversial move that is likely to raise questions over its commitment to treaties designed to limit the spread of biological weapons.

A series of contracts have been uncovered that relate to the US army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. They ask companies to tender for the production of bulk quantities of a non-virulent strain of anthrax, and for equipment to produce significant volumes of other biological agents.

Issued earlier this year, the contracts were discovered by Edward Hammond, director of the Sunshine Project, a US-German organisation that campaigns against the use of biological and chemical weapons.

One "biological services" contract specifies: "The company must have the ability and be willing to grow Bacillus anthracis Sterne strain at 1500-litre quantities." Other contracts are for fermentation equipment for producing 3000-litre batches of an unspecified biological agent, and sheep carcasses to test the efficiency of an incinerator for the disposal of infected livestock.
Major concern

Although the Sterne strain is not thought to be harmful to humans and is used for vaccination, the contracts have caused major concern.

"It raises a serious question over how the US is going to demonstrate its compliance with obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention if it brings these tanks online," says Alan Pearson, programme director for biological and chemical weapons at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington DC. "If one can grow the Sterne strain in these units, one could also grow the Ames strain, which is quite lethal."

The US renounced biological weapons in 1969, but small quantities of lethal anthrax were still being produced at Dugway as recently as 1998.

It is not known what use the biological agents will be put to. They could be used to test procedures to decontaminate vehicles or buildings, or to test an "agent defeat" warhead designed to destroy stores of chemical and biological weapons.
Highly provocative

There are even fears that they could be used to determine how effectively anthrax is dispersed when released from bombs or crop-spraying aircraft. "I can definitely see them testing biological weapons delivery systems for threat assessment," says Hammond.

Whatever use it is put to, however, the move could be seen as highly provocative by other nations, he says. "What would happen to the Biological Weapons Convention if other countries followed suit and built large biological production facilities at secretive military bases known for weapons testing?"

A spokesperson for Dugway said the anthrax contract is still at the pre-solicitation stage, and the base has not yet acquired the agent. They refused to say what it will be used for.

By Sue Vorenberg
Tribune Reporter
September 26, 2005

You can tell a lot about a biological terrorist by looking at their garbage.

Problem is, their garbage is much smaller than most people's. Typically it's made up of chunks of metal, chemicals and organisms that are 10 times smaller than a red blood cell.

Getting useful tips from such biochemical soup left over from an anthrax, plague or botulism toxin attack might sound like an impossible task, but scientists at Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories are able to find many of them.

Both labs have started creating groups of expert scientists and unique technologies to help the federal government build its abilities in the relatively new field of bioforensics. The goal is to be prepared for an attack so terrorists can be captured quickly, said Luke Brewer, a Sandia bioforensic scientist.

"The idea is to create a tool kit for any future bioterror incidents," Brewer said. "We want to answer questions about how a weapon was made, where it was made, how it was used."

Sandia and Los Alamos are working with other labs in the Department of Energy complex to help create the Department of Homeland Security's new $4 million National Bioforensic Analysis Center in Maryland. The labs are pooling resources to create a battle plan and strategy for the center to fight biological attackers.

"We have several unique capabilities in specialty areas that aren't ready to be transferred to the national center because all of this is so new," said Babetta Marrone, a bioforensic scientist at Los Alamos. "There are a lot of approaches we can use to track information about a sample. For example, we can analyze the DNA of a strain of anthrax, get a genetic signature - like a fingerprint - and tell what part of the world that strain came from."

Los Alamos has a database full of genetic maps of different types of anthrax that can be quickly referenced through a lab supercomputer, she added.

If an attack were to happen, samples could be sent to New Mexico to take advantage of the technology and expertise at the state's two labs, Marrone said.

"Some samples could be sent here, although we can't take certain types of biological agents because we don't have a high enough level bio safety lab," she said.

Still that doesn't necessarily rule out samples of the leftover junk coming to the labs, Marrone and Brewer said.

Both Sandia and Los Alamos have several instruments that can look at tiny chemical components and shapes inside tiny samples.

"If I see a stainless steel particle in the garbage that comes with the sample, then that tells me something about the kind of containers it was processed in," Brewer said. "It's not just about the main organism used in an attack - it's about all the other stuff that comes with it. If you look through that stuff you can find a lot of clues that can lead you back to the attacker."

One way to tease information from a sample is by firing a stream of electrons at it and reading the information that bounces back, Brewer explained.

"We drag our beam back and forth like someone would drag their finger over braille writing," Brewer said. "Then we feed that into a computer and it pulls out what's in the sample just like pulling a needle out of a haystack."

With the increasing risk of global terrorism, pooling resources into a new department makes sense, although ultimately the technologies might move completely into the new Maryland-based Analysis Center, Brewer said.

"The idea is not to be caught off-guard," Brewer said. "We want to have tools set in place so if we have an incident we can quickly find the people that did this, apprehend them and prosecute them."

Lab sweet Lab
Institute's newest facility key to drug, vaccine approval

by Karen Fleming-Michael
Standard Staff Writer
Fort Detrick Standard

The Center for Aerobiological Sciences will allow researchers to test the effectiveness of biodefense vaccines, drugs and diagnostics by permitting aerosol, or inhalation, challenges on animals. The center's design boasts the latest in technology.

A dozen community and media members had a chance to see the newest lab and the inner workings of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases Sept. 20.

Expected to open in a month, the Center for Aerobiological Sciences will allow researchers to test the effectiveness of biodefense vaccines, drugs and diagnostics by permitting aerosol, or inhalation, challenges on animals.

"The new laboratory is designed as a state-of-the-art facility with ideas that were generated from decades' worth of hands-on experience," said Col. George Korch, commander since June of the institute, better known by its acronym, USAMRIID.

The aerobiology center will help prove to the Food and Drug Administration that the medical countermeasures the institute's researchers create really work. Inside the metal and glass chambers, researchers will help develop animal models so medical countermeasures against bioterrorism agents can earn approval under the FDA's animal rule. In effect since 2002, the rule permits the FDA to approve vaccines and drugs that can't ethically be tested in humans if they're shown safe and effective in two relevant animal models.

"This is the unique challenge that we have: to develop animal models that are relevant, that are similar to the disease that we find in humans and to challenge with aerosols... This lab has been custom designed with that mission in mind," said Dr. Louise Pitt, the center's director and one of its designers.

When working with aerosols, there needs to be "dedicated laboratories and trained personnel to conduct these types of experiments. (This lab is) the U.S.'s most valuable laboratory for performing this type of work," Korch said. "The nation is depending on USAMRIID to be able to continue its outstanding record of aerobiology work because it is essential to product development."

In creating the aerobiology center, the designers were "pushing the boundaries of science, product development and facility design," the colonel said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention evaluated the facility the week of Sept. 12. In fact before the facility opens, it will have undergone two rigorous, independent safety inspections, one from the CDC and the other from the Department of the Army.

The center's design boasts the latest in technology. A new autoclave cuts the chore of decontaminating cages from three days to three hours.

Designers also adapted the newest technology being used in other labs, "but this is the first time it's been incorporated for biocontainment," Pitt said.

The lab design will change lab processes for the better, said Roger Williams, a biological sciences technician who has worked in aerobiology for six years.

"Most of the time you have to bring the animal out of the Class III biosafety cabinet or hood covered by a decontamination cloth, and then we carry them to the animal room," he said. "With these transporters, they're going to come right into and off the hood line and ... whoever is in the animal room will be able to take the animal out" of the transporter and back to the cage. For researchers on the experiment side of the house, this means they won't handle the exposed animals at all.

"It'll be a really nice lab to be working in. We'll be able to work smarter and safer," Williams said.

The center, Korch said, will continue the legacy of USAMRIID's safety record, which is a result of engineering controls, laboratory controls and equipment and the mandatory training personnel must undergo before working with biological agents.

"The safety record for 35 years, when you (have) anywhere from 200 to 300 people working in the suites over the course of a year times the number of hours times the years, you can see that the safety record here is outstanding," he said.

Before arriving at the aerobiology center, the Tuesday morning tour visited the institute's "slammer," where laboratory personnel are quarantined for observation after a possible accidental exposure to a dangerous pathogen, for example, by a needle stick. The crowd also made a stop outside the Department of Homeland Security's National Bioforensics Analysis Center as well as a high-containment laboratory where researchers work on viruses like Ebola and Marburg.

The institute's scientists, Korch said, have generated at least one new medical countermeasure or candidate countermeasure each year over the past 15 years and routinely partner with industry, academia, government agencies and foreign governments to develop countermeasures.

Because of its reputation for excellence in biodefense research, the institute will serve as the cornerstone for the National Interagency Biodefense Campus. The campus will co-locate laboratories from four cabinet-level organizations at Fort Detrick "to pool the research to protect the nation," said Col. Mary Deutsch, commander of Fort Detrick's garrison. "The dirt moving on Fort Detrick is bringing the other labs to life now. The bulldozers are moving every day to bring to fruition (that) dream that was crafted" in 2001.

Having the group visit the institute also provided an opportunity to recognize the unsung heroes and years of work that go into the eventual products, said Brig. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, commanding general of U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command and Fort Detrick.

"By the time you get a chance to see the results, no one can see or celebrate the intermediary heroes who worked for decades to bring them to fruition," he said.

By Tony LaRussa
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, October 3, 2005

A former doctor at a McKeesport hospital whose homes were searched in the wake of the 2001 anthrax attacks is living on unemployment in New Jersey, according to a longtime friend.

Dr. Kenneth Berry, 48, who once claimed to have powerful connections in the federal government and founded a company advocating training of medical professionals for a bioterror attack, had worked as an emergency room physician at UPMC McKeesport. He was put on leave shortly after the search, and his employment ended Nov. 8, 2004. Hospital officials would not elaborate.

"Life has not been very easy for Dr. Berry during the past year," said the Rev. Richard Helms, of Wellsville, N.Y., an independent evangelical pastor who ministers over the Internet and has known Berry for about 10 years. "Let's face it: His life was turned upside down.

"Who's going to hire him with this thing hanging over his head? It's a very unfair situation," Helms said.

Berry, who could not be reached for comment, has not been charged, and the FBI has made no arrests in the attacks. Berry's lawyer has said the doctor had nothing to do with the anthrax mailings.

Michael A. Mason, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Washington, D.C., field office, wrote last week in the Washington Post that the agency and the Postal Inspection Service believe the case will be solved. Mason wrote that agents "go the extra mile in pursuit of every lead" and described the effort as one of the largest, most complex investigations in law enforcement history.

Beginning Sept. 18, 2001, letters containing anthrax-laced powder were mailed to several prominent politicians and media outlets over several weeks. The mailings killed five people, caused serious illnesses to 17 others and led to the closing of congressional and other federal offices, including several postal facilities, in Washington, New York and New Jersey.

Berry received three patents related to bioterrorism. One involves a system that would detect a biological attack through a sensor system, which would seal a building. Another was for a system that would identify attacks over a wide area. That patent application was filed only days after the first anthrax letters were processed.

Berry founded PREEMPT Medical Counter-Terrorism, an organization that trains medical professionals to respond to chemical and biological attacks.

At UPMC McKeesport, Berry typically worked four or five shifts in a row, then spent five days at home in Wellsville, N.Y. Berry, who obtained his medical degree at the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine in St. Maarten, Netherlands Antilles, also worked at Jones Memorial Hospital, a 70-bed hospital south of Buffalo, from November 1996 until October 2001.

In August 2004, dozens of FBI agents and postal inspectors -- many dressed in protective suits -- searched Berry's Wellsville home as part of the anthrax investigation. Federal agents also searched Berry's car parked at the Connellsville Airport in Fayette County, where his former wife and two children live, and questioned his former neighbors there. Agents also searched his parents' vacation home in Ocean City, N.J.

Helms said he speaks with Berry regularly and provides him with spiritual counseling. He said the doctor is cooperating with the FBI and hopes to be cleared of any suspicion.

"I don't know that anything they (the FBI) do will give him back what he lost, but that would be a start. That would be nice," Helms said.

The FBI has conducted more than 5,200 interviews in connection with its investigation, dubbed Amerithrax.

Berry is one of two doctors to lose their jobs after becoming entangled in the anthrax investigation.

Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, a bioterrorism expert, was fired from his job at Louisiana State University in September 2004 after the FBI called him "a person of interest" in the anthrax probe.

After his dismissal, Hatfill filed a defamation lawsuit against the government, claiming that several employees, including then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, violated his civil rights by publicly naming him in connection with the anthrax case.

Like Berry, Hatfill has not been charged.

Tony LaRussa can be reached at tlarussa@tribweb.com

The media Bush-bashing on the matter of Hurricane Katrina was somewhat to be expected. But we were shocked to read the "respected" Washington Post columnist David Broder giving readers a history lesson of how other presidents bounced back from disasters. "We have seen this before," said Broder. "Bill Clinton was foundering in his third year in office when the destruction of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City shocked the nation and set the stage for his flawless performance of the symbolic rites of healing and comfort for the victims."

Flawless performance? First of all, Clinton went around the country trying to blame the bombing on conservative talk radio. He shamelessly politicized the event so that he could politically profit from it. Clinton had charged that there are "purveyors of hate and division" on U.S. airwaves who "leave the impression, by their very words, that violence is acceptable."

Bryant Gumbel, then co-host on the NBC News Today show, reported that "The bombing in Oklahoma City has focused renewed attention on the rhetoric that's been coming from the right and those who cater to angry white men. While no one's suggesting right-wing radio jocks approve of violence, the extent to which their approach fosters violence is being questioned by many observers, including the president…"

Gumbel said that "Right-wing talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Bob Grant, Oliver North, G. Gordon Liddy, Michael Reagan and others take to the air every day with basically the same format: Detail a problem, blame the government or a group, and invite invective from like-minded people."

That approach-detail a problem, blame the government, and invite invective from like-minded people, sounds like what the media are trying to do to President Bush in the wake of the Katrina disaster. But this approach to Bush is deemed perfectly acceptable.

The twist in the Oklahoma City case is that the "angry white men" blamed for the bombing, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, are seen by many as part of a much larger conspiracy. The best book on this subject is The Third Terrorist, by Jayna Davis. 

The FBI also used the "white guy did it" profile in going after the Washington, D.C.-area sniper. It turned out it was two black guys. The "white guy did it" profile is also why the FBI pursued Steven Hatfill in the anthrax case, despite evidence implicating al Qaeda.

Broder's praise of Clinton's shameful performance after Oklahoma City demonstrates how a major figure in American journalism can completely get the facts wrong. Or else he decided to ignore the facts. Either way, he ought to retire.

AIM.org

NBC Today Show host Tim Russert says that the media's tough questioning of federal officials about the Katrina disaster reflects the need for government accountability. After all, he says, the federal government is supposed to protect people from things like this. Oh really?  Then why have there been no media demands for accountability from the FBI for not having solved the post-9/11 anthrax attacks? It's been four years and the case is still unsolved.

The answer is that the FBI used the media to mislead the public into thinking that the case was being solved when the bureau publicly and falsely fingered former scientist Steven Hatfill as a "person of interest" or possible suspect. Hatfill has sued the government and the media for their role in destroying his life and career and letting the real perpetrators of the attacks go free. So, in this case, there are no demands for government accountability from the media because the media were complicit in the government misconduct.

The difference between the anthrax case and the Katrina disaster is that the media can use the latter for obvious political purposes to damage President Bush. In the anthrax case, a Bush appointee to run the FBI, Robert Mueller, had been on the job for only a few days when 9/11 occurred.

The media's complicity in the FBI's misconduct in the Hatfill case demonstrates why reporters are not entitled to a special federal media shield law to protect their government sources. Such a law would enable the media to protect the identities of the government agents who were behind the false accusations against Hatfill. Shouldn't  these agents be identified and held accountable? Or isn't Tim Russert concerned about government accountability in this case? If not, why not?

The notion that reporters have suddenly become concerned about government accountability in the Katrina disaster doesn't ring true. And in this case it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Insisting that he was trying to hold officials accountable, Russert was anxious on his September 4 program to blame the federal government alone for the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Director of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff appeared on the show only to be badgered by Russert about resigning and "accountability."

But one has to wonder what the impact would be if the federal official directing the relief effort were to suddenly quit, in response to Russert's demand. Then the media would have something else to complain about. Then the media would charge that Chertoff had left the department short-handed at a time of crisis when he should be helping people.

Speaking of accountability, no heads rolled after NBC put on a September 2nd Hurricane relief program that itself turned into a disaster. The program, designed to raise money for victims, showed a rapper named Kanye West making the reckless and absurd charge that "George Bush doesn't care about black people." NBC dismissed the inflammatory and racially polarizing comments by saying that he didn't follow the script and was giving viewers his "opinion."

Speaking of accountability, a better use of time might be to ask local and state officials why dozens of city school buses weren't used to evacuate poor blacks and whites from the city. An AP photo showed the buses partly underwater after the levee broke. Was this supposed to be Bush's fault, too?

Russert's background as a Democratic Party operative is showing through.

Russert did bring up the matter of the unused busses when he interviewed New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin on September 11. Nagin said he didn't have any drivers. The interview was decidedly different than the one he had conducted on September 11 with Michael Chertoff. While Russert asked Chertoff if he would resign over alleged federal lapses, he didn't ask Nagin to resign. Nagin, you see, is a Democrat.

Toledo postal center installs biohazard-detection system

By KARAMAGI RUJUMBA
BLADE STAFF WRITER

A biohazard detection system that could quickly identify anthrax or another deadly chemical agent has been installed at the U.S. Postal Service's Toledo Processing and Distribution Center.

"Before the 2001 anthrax attacks, we never envisioned that we would need to become biohazard experts," said Ray Jacobs, a postal service spokesman.

But he said the federal government has spent more than $971 million since 2002 to install biohazard detection systems in distribution and mail processing centers nationwide.

The filter system, a three-stage pump on the processing floor of the distribution center at 435 South St. Clair St., is designed for a detection-and-containment approach, said Gary Schultz, the facility's emergency manager.

Mr. Schultz said samples of air are collected as mail moves through a canceling machine, and airborne particles are absorbed into a sterile water base, which creates a liquid sample that can be tested. The liquid sample is injected into a cartridge, and an automated test for a DNA match is performed.

He said the Toledo mail processing and distribution center handles 1.8 million to 2 million pieces of mail a day.

While the automated process is not designed to identify a particular piece of contaminated mail, it can make a positive match for the presence of anthrax or other chemical agents in the plant within 38 minutes of contamination, said Bruce Connor, a postal service inspector.

Mr. Connor said all the mail going through the screening process is local mail because "the theory of this system is to test the mail as early in the processing system" as possible.

Once a positive match is made, what follows is a series of laboratory tests to confirm the results, at which time the federal Department of Homeland Security is notified, and steps are taken to secure the plant and notify the public and emergency responders, Mr. Jacobs said.

"I feel a lot safer now," said Peter Fisher, a mail handler who has worked at the Toledo processing and distribution center for 19 years.

"This greatly minimizes the risk when you consider the capability of putting a chemical weapon through our mail system," said Michael Wolever, Toledo's assistant fire chief.

Also at yesterday's unveiling of the biohazard detection system were Lucas County Sheriff James Telb, Toledo Fire Chief Mike Bell, and Dr. David Grossman, Lucas County health commissioner.

LIMA — The U.S. Postal Service has installed a new technology to detect anthrax, but it’s not the same technology the service first used four years ago in Lima to destroy the toxin.

Service representatives unveiled the new Biohazard Detection System at the Lima distribution center, demonstrating a technology that will be installed in every distribution center around the nation by the end of next month. Most of the centers already have the system, said Ray Jacobs, communications programs specialist for the Postal Service.

“The strategy was to reduce the risk,” added Jan Bruns, plant manager for the distribution center. “We actually have two different systems.”

One of the systems checks each piece of envelope-sized mail generated in the center’s cover-age area for anthrax by taking air samples just after the mail is processed. Pieces of mail run through high-speed “pinch points,” in which they were fired through the system by fast-spinning rollers.

Those rollers would force any powder, such as anthrax, from the envelope into the air, where it can now be detected early, Bruns said. A separate system is dedicated to containing the mail if an alert is sounded.

“This was all developed in 2001 to prevent or contain anthrax spores,” Bruns said.

Anthrax made national news when several letters were mailed to Washington, D.C., and New York City, causing the deaths of postal workers. One Washington-area mail center shut down and sent all of its mail to Lima, where it was irradiated by a sterilization process at Titan Scan Technologies, on Fourth Street.

At the time, Titan Scan sold eight $40 million machines to the government for use directly at post offices, but the technology provided by Titan and other companies proved too expensive and dangerous, said Postal Inspector Bruce Conner.

“We found that was not practical, and it was even dangerous,” Conner said. A scanner from another company actually ignited some 200 pieces of mail, he said. “The practical side of that was terrible, it was expensive, and it was dangerous to employees.”

Instead, the entire national system was installed for $48 million, he said.

Some 125 truckloads of mail were treated in Lima, but few remain at the little plant that handled them. The Lima facility was bought by Beam One earlier this year.

The new process doesn’t have any adverse effect on the mail, and it can be tweaked to detect up to nine other substances, Conner said.

“We have our guardian at the gate, so to speak,” he said.

The system only works on envelopes; larger packages would be damaged by the types of rollers used, Conner said. The Lima system will only be used on mail generated locally; mail coming in from the outside will be checked at its original distribution center.

When I was a cub investigative reporter chasing the anthrax investigation story several years ago, I remember being confused about one aspect of the coverage of that still unsolved case. At one point in the winter/spring of 2002, it was becoming evident that the FBI was shifting its focus of investigation from foreign sources as the likely perpetrators of the anthrax attacks that killed five people in the fall of 2001, to US domestic sources, in particular those with a connection to the US government biodefense program (for a variety of reasons I won't go into here). But the NYT's Judith Miller, who was perhaps the country's leading journalistic authority on bioweapons, and who had recently won a Pulitzer prize for her book Germs, and who had established close ties with several members of the US government bioweapons and biodefense community for research for her book, simply wouldn't report out what was really happening with the investigation, e.g. that players in the highly secretive and compartmentalized US government biodefense program were becoming a main focus of the investigation. It was hard at the time to not wonder if her close relationship to her sources in the US government program hadn't steered her away from what the rest of us were finding and reporting.

As it happens, the story isn't as neat as that, because now the FBI is reportedly being interviewed by lawyers for a person who accuses former Attorney General John Ashcroft and the FBI of outing him as a "person of interest" in the anthrax investigation to the media. And strangely enough, who is one journalist who the FBI agents are reportedly being interviewed