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The Strange Case of the Missing Silica

It continues to bemuse us here at anthrax2001 blogspot why so many people see so many different things when they claim to have been shown the electron micrographs of the Daschle anthrax spores. At anthrax2001 we tend to believe that the actual scientists with first hand access to the samples and who are controlling the Scanning Electron Micrograph (SEM) and X-Ray analysis tools know what they are talking about. That’s why when the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology report that they found silica on the surface of the Daschle anthrax we have no reason to believe they are making this up.

Also, we have no reason to believe that Drs. Tom Geisbert and Peter Jahrling of Fort Detrick are being anything other than totally professional and honest when they relay their story of finding this silica to author Richard Preston in his book “Demon in the Freezer”

The passage below is an exerpt from “Demon in the Freezer”:

10/25/01 Geisbert tests a sterilized sample of the Daschle anthrax. X-rays, and other tests show two materials present: silica and oxygen...glass.

“The silicon was powdered so finely that under Geisbert’s electron microscope it had looked like fried-egg gunk dripping off the spores.” Geisbert calls his boss, Peter Jahrling on a secure STU phone and says: “Pete ! There’s glass in the anthrax.”

...superfine powdered glass,known as silica nanopowder,which has industrial uses.The grains of this type of glass are very small.If an anthrax spore was an orange,then these particles of glass would be grains of sand clinging to the orange.The glass was slippery and smooth,and it might have been treated so that it would repel water.It caused the spores to crumble apart,to pass more easily through the holes in the envelopes and fly everywhere, filling the Hart Senate office building and the Brentwood and Hamilton mail-sorting facilities like a gas.”

On the other hand, certain other inividuals, whose motives remain fuzzy and unclear, seem to like to make mischief by pretending that there was no silica present on the Daschle anthrax.

It seems Professor Meselson and Dr Alibek are desperate to tell any newsman or camera that points in their direction just the complete opposite. Let’s have some fun by looking at some direct quotes from these two bioweapons “experts”.

Dateline June 1 2002:
Meselson concurs that the anthrax evinces no sign of special coating or processing. “There is no evidence that I know of,” he told me, “that it was treated in any special way.”

Dateline March 31 2003:
Ken Alibek: To talk about silica, when I’ve looked at micrographs, I haven’t seen any silica in the samples. We shouldn’t forget that silica could be contained in an outer shell of an anthrax spore. Based on this information its hard to see if it is foreign or domestic. What you can see is that there was a lot of incorrect info published in the media. This anthrax wasn’t sophisticated, didn’t have coatings, had electric charge and many other things.

Dateline November 5 2002:

Both of us have examined electron micrographs of the material in the anthrax letter sent to Sen. Tom Daschle, but we saw no evidence of such balls or strands. In July 1980, the Journal of Bacteriology reported an “unexpectedly high concentration of silicon” to be naturally present in the outer spore coat of bacillus cereus, a close relative of bacillus anthracis. Is it possible that the unnamed sources misinterpreted silicon naturally concentrated in spore coats as something that was artificially added?

Can anyone understand why Professor Meselson and Dr Alibek would go to such extraordinary lengths to deny the official position of the US government? Of course we all know that the anthrax investigation is packed with misinformation, innuendo and politics. Professor Meselson already has a meaningful reputation when it comes to denying hard facts about anthrax bioweapons and if you read Tom Mangold and Jeff Goldberg’s Plague Wars you’ll see what we mean.
But what about Dr Ken Alibek, the Soviet defector? What motivation could he have to deny that the anthrax used in the 2001 attacks was bioweapons grade material?