Bob Stevens died in Florida on October 5, 2001, it was late on Friday afternoon. We were all still reeling from 9-11-01.
October 6 and 7 was the weekend and there was a small article in USA Today but it was the weekend edition and few get that.
October 8 it was in USA today and Iowa State then attempted to get permission to destroy their collection of anthrax.
Go ahead, call the FBI and see who you get and what they say. It is a bureau of layered authority and they never got a direct answer just like anyone else who calls them. So on October 10, 11 and 12, the professors who had been there for many years then destroyed ONE OF THE TWO collections of anthrax on the campus.
What they destroyed was the historical collection that was kept at the veterinary school. It was just that....a collection close to 100 vials with very old stuff in them.
But if you understand the pathogen you will know that it can be teased to life with a little time and effort.
Why would this institution quickly destroy what they knew the feds would eventually figure out that they needed to look at who had what?????
What did they know and when did they know it?
You can fill in the blanks by reading Lew Weinstein’s blog under “Marcia's Story”.
Beyond that, here is another nugget.
From the beginning of time anthrax has been named for the black coal-like lesion that it always was. It was a dry sore that did NOT HURT and did not drip.
The sores from the mailings were runny, dripped a lot and still DID NOT HURT. It was just a little different.
If you read the scientific papers there is evidence that there is some variation in the mailed samples....i.e....two kinds. One with a fluted edge and one without.
A fluted edge is created when excess water runs down the sides of the colony after being turned over in the counting process. This kind would make a running sore.
Why would this institution quickly destroy what they knew the feds would eventually figure out that they needed to look at who had what?????
Come on...you know that administrators would be wanting to get rid of the stuff before 9/11 if they were more aware. And after 9/11, do you think anyone could have stood up to the push? Whose budget was going to absorb the security requirements and liability, all for the sake of having that excellent record? Sorry, but universities are businesses...science might get done there, but it doesn't drive the place.
I don't follow your latter points, but let me ask...are you suggesting that al-Qaeda terrorists launched an anthrax attack and then went out of their way to reduce casualties?
The only people who thought ISU had the strain are misinformed people in the media.
I've researched the entire ISU fiasco, and it appears that some reporter at NBC made a mistake. It appears that the reporter contacted USAMRIID to find out where the Ames strain came from, and USAMRIID told them it came from the USDA in Ames, Iowa. The reporter probably called the USDA and the USDA told them they never heard of the Ames strain.
There's no way to be sure exactly what happened next, but on Wednesday, October 10, 2001, Tom Brokaw reported on NBC's Nightly News that the Ames strain came from The Department of Energy's lab in Ames, Iowa. Not the USDA's lab, the DOE's lab.
The DOE's lab is run by Iowa State University. And that same evening and the next day (October 11), hundreds of reporters descended upon and called people at ISU to learn more about the source of the Ames strain.
The people at ISU didn't know anything about any Ames strain, but since so many reporters seemed to believe it came from ISU, people started speculating that it may have been something from the 1950's. And, it all just became more preposterous from there.
My research is available on my web site by clicking HERE.
ISU never had the Ames strain. ISU was just a victim of a screwball mistake by the media.