Possible anthrax match found: Fatal strain may be tied to source from 1950s

Miami Herald Online ^ | Wednesday, October 10, 2001 | BY DAVID KIDWELL, MANNY GARCIA AND LARRY LEBOWITZ

[Keith in Iowa]

About the only places I can think of that might have had a strain on file is the USDA's National Animal Disease Lab in Ames, and perhaps the vet school at Iowa State University...

[Ada Coddington]

So if correct we forget about foreign terrorists because its a domestic strain.

[John W]

On another thread someone commented they thought Iraq bought its original anthrax from a US source,so maybe not.

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks JH2, sometimes I worry you don't sleep enough, although I appreciate your vigilance in getting us the news.

[crypt2k]

Manmade vectors for anthrax spore dust are many and varied. One possible vector begins at the printing presses of newpapers and magazines. Dust trapped between pages could infect the unspecting subscriber or supermarket checkout line browser.

[crypt2k]

The anthrax could be many generations removed from the original source and still retain key genetic characteristics.

[Ada Coddington]

About the only places I can think of that might have had a strain on file is the USDA's National Animal Disease Lab in Ames, and perhaps the vet school at Iowa State University...

I doubt the hijackers had access to that supply, or at least direct access.

[Ada Coddington]

On another thread someone commented they thought Iraq bought its original anthrax from a US source,so maybe not.

Odd, if so, because there should be sufficient natural anthrax in the Iraqi herd.

[Ada Coddington]

On another thread someone commented they thought Iraq bought its original anthrax from a US source,so maybe not.

Odd, if so, because there should be sufficient natural anthrax in the Iraqi herd.

[EuroFrog]

Just because it might be a domestic strain doesnt mean it couldnt have been spread by terrorist personnel. How many of these people could be students or employees at Iowa State or other Bio-holding area? I wouldnt put it past these people to raise brainwashed children in America and put them God only knows where just to call them up for something like this.

[LurkingSince'98]

The anthrax could have been disseminated worldwide, just through one researchers request from Bulgaria, Syria, Iraq, etc. and it could have happened ten years ago.

Lurking'

[VA Advogado]

Federal investigators believe they have traced ``unique characteristics'' of the anthrax that killed a Lantana man to a strain harvested at an Iowa facility in the 1950s, according to law enforcement sources.

Interesting. One of the arrests relating to 9/11 was of an Arab guy in Iowa. Iowa Connection?

[DWSUWF]

"...Manmade vectors for anthrax spore dust are many and varied. One possible vector begins at the printing presses of newpapers and magazines. Dust trapped between pages could infect the unspecting subscriber or supermarket checkout line browser..."

Many specialized newspapers don’t do their own printing, and many of those who do so do it at a different physical location than the one where their newsroom staff is employed. Modern digital transmission capabilities even allow for the press and camera rooms to be located in separate locations. (although generally they will be located together)

Add to this the physical nature of modern offset printing (ultra high-speed passage of fresh, very tightly rolled paper through the press) and concerns about "Dust trapped between pages" can be largely dismissed.

Which is not to say that a newspaper can't be used as a delivery vector for anthrax spores, a determined group could do this. But it would almost certainly require the compromise of the print shop, with terrorists hand-sifting the spores into the finished newspapers pages after the printing and folding processes have been completed.

[VA Advogado]

From that linked story:

"Investigators don't know why Hmimssa, who was arrested last Friday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, bought the computer equipment or whether he had any connection to any suspected terrorist activity."

[Lorraine]

A Health Department official said of the roughly 300 employees, 70 still had not reported for testing. The department is contacting those employees.

Where the heck are these 70 people?

[alieno nomine]

Bump

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

P.M. Blair is said to be undertaking to "explain America to the Moslem World." Perhaps Mr. Blair could explain that although in the beginning the historically unusual prosperity of the common person in America started on the basis of plentiful farmland, that was merely opportunity. "America" is the idea of individual people identifying ways of fulfilling other peoples' needs and accomplishing what needs doing. Aggressive cooperation is our national culture, and we aggressively tolerate whatever opinions do not threaten cooperation.

Somebody must also explain to the Moslems that after you've ordered suicide attacks which even the desperate Japanese were troubled at doing, after you've launched those attacks in civilian clothes from inside the targeted country, and after you have launched the attacks anonymously without so much as an immediate explanation even afterward, there is only one threshold left to cross, and that threshold is CBN attack.

If that threshold is well and truly crossed by an attack causing thousands of casualties in America, and if moslems are still dancing in the streets or even smiling about it, the question of what good all those nukes in our arsenal are will be asked in earnest. And that beforehand is the time to have an answer ready--something a little more substantive than, "the check is in the mail."

[DAGO]

Los Alamos??????????Aint that where all that stuff happened with the Nuclear files and china?Now maybe Anthrax.When does the Clinton DEBOCLE END?

[Politically Correct]

Bump to you.....I was unaware of the Arizona group but figured that someone was DNA fingerprinting these organisms.