There was a biodefense meeting last week that presented scientific analyses of various aspects of the Amerithrax attacks. Not surprisingly, one thing that came out of the meeting is that the FBI’s story is not airtight. Not ruled out, of course, but not the slam-dunk they claimed after Ivins’ suicide.
A chemical analysis is not conclusive:
The chemical mismatch doesn’t necessarily mean that deadly spores used in the attacks did not originate from Ivins’ RMR-1029 flask, says Jason Bannan, a microbiologist and forensic examiner at the FBI’s Chemical Biological Sciences Unit in Quantico, Virginia. The RMR-1029 culture was created in 1997, and the mailed spores could have been taken out of that flask and grown under different conditions, resulting in varying chemical contents.
And the famed genetic match is not much better:
The FBI then used that arsenal of tests to pin down the origins of the anthrax letters, matching the mix of genetic variants in the mailed spores to Ivins’ RMR-1029 flask. “It has the genetic signatures that identify it as the most likely source of the growth,” says Bannan.
See my column from last summer on the uncertainty in the number of possible sources and, therefore, suspects. One thing that I have since learned is that 7 of the 8 flasks were actually at USAMRIID (early reports sounded like only 1 flask was from USAMRIID).
9:38 am on March 2, 2009
