Posted on 10/10/2001 8:46:45 PM PDT by Keith in Iowa
Vilsack's order comes as federal agents try to pinpoint the source of the bacteria that infected two men and a woman in Florida. Authorities say the probe is now a criminal investigation.
Vilsack, however, denied national media reports that the anthrax in Florida was stolen from an Ames facility.
"There was no confirmation of any connection between Iowa and the activities in Florida," he said.
Vilsack would not say how many facilities in Iowa have anthrax, citing security reasons.
"These are precautionary measures, and we are taking them to ensure Iowans we are being sensitive to their concerns about their security and safety," he said. "We don't believe there is any real concern . . . this is a cautionary step."
Any link between a Florida anthrax death and an Iowa lab is probably old and tenuous, an Iowa State University expert said Wednesday.
The anthrax bacteria found in Florida last week might turn out to be a type first discovered in Iowa, said Jim Roth, a professor of veterinary immunology and virology. But the spores that infected two men and a woman could have come from anywhere in the world, he said. empasis added
Roth said the "Ames strain" of anthrax was isolated by veterinary researchers in Ames about 50 years ago. The scientists were trying to understand the disease and develop vaccines to protect animals against it, he said.
Roth said the strain is one of three major types, and it was shared with other researchers across the country. "Who knows where it went since then?" he said.
ISU officials were inundated with calls Wednesday after the Miami Herald quoted an anonymous federal law-enforcement source who said the anthrax detected in Florida might be traced to an unnamed Iowa lab.
Gov. Tim Vilsack late Wednesday ordered extra security at labs in Iowa where anthrax might exist. He would not disclose details, however, of the "location or locations" state police and National Guard troops will be stationed.
Roth was skeptical that investigators would find much of a connection to Iowa. "It's historically interesting, but it isn't like the strain was isolated in Ames and went straight to Florida," he said.
Robert Dappen, a retired veterinarian living in Story City, discovered the Ames strain in 1953. Dappen, who practiced in Manning from 1950 to 1980, said he was awakened one morning by a farmer with a sick cow. By the time he arrived at the man's farm, the animal had died. The autopsy revealed a highly enlarged spleen, a sign of anthrax infection.
"When you cut into it it had a bright red color, just like an Iowa cherry," Dappen said.
Dappen sent a sample to Allen Packer, head of the microbiology laboratory at Iowa State Veterinary College. Packer sent samples to the federal government, which identified the new strain. Dappen said Packer used the samples for lab demonstrations for about a decade. ISU officials said they no longer have samples of anthrax bacteria.
U.S. Department of Agriculture officials said they keep small samples for testing purposes at a lab in Ames. Department spokeswoman Beth Jones said the National Veterinary Service Lab doesn't have the Ames strain, however.
State Health Department Director Stephen Gleason said federal officials hadn't determined whether the bacteria used in Florida were the Ames strain or another type.
In recent years, anthrax bacteria have been kept under tight federal control because of concerns that they could be used to make biological weapons.
"But since this was isolated in the ’50s, I don't know what kind of controls were in place then," Roth said. "I suspect they weren't as good as they are now."
The bacteria can cause deadly illnesses, especially in livestock such as cattle, sheep and goats. They rarely infect people. Dappen said anthrax infections used to be fairly common around the Missouri River from Sioux City to Omaha. Manning is 55 miles from the river.
"The one we found was completely out of sync with what it ought to be," Dappen said. "We thought that was rare as hell."
Federal officials later traced the infection to bone meal feed from Africa that was improperly cooked.
One would think that someone would know. It ain't like just anybody can walk in, pick up a pinch and pay with cash, is it?
Vilsack seems to be in a bit of a pickle.
C'mon people! Listen to the fools in the media. How to make this strain of anthrax was published in all sorts of journals, etc. This strain was made somewhere else.
The anthrax was NOT MADE IN IOWA and then stolen, for goodness sake! The information on how to make it was used to make the stuff. The media, including Fox, is not making these facts clear and that is wrong!
One does not make the strain. They get a sample and grow it. Yes, they could have got it off the shelf at the Ames campus, or any other microbiological lab that has these things.
From FR- Jan. 2000
Excerpt, "The rest would be spent to upgrade the U.S. Agriculture Department's 30-year-old research facility in Ames, Iowa.
Currently, some research in Ames, including studies of anthrax and madcow disease, is done in rented space in strip malls, officials said."
'The Journal of Applied Microbiology 87, 215217, found here has an article by Paul Keim that discusses the Ames strain. Though called a strain, it is more like a sub-group, one of six of type A anthrax. The other is type B. It is wild in origin, not from the lab although the lab versions are 'attenuated' or weakened. The Sterne strain is a weakened strain of the Ames group. This is from the U of Guelph in Ontario, a posting to their internet group known as FS.net, about research being done in Australia:
The Australian epidemic strain fell into a group known as "Sterne-Ames" ... the Ames series we find are characteristically from western Asia (India, Pakistan, Turkey, and probably Central Russia/Asia). It differed markedly from other isolates we have had recently from India, Indonesia, Thailand, and South Korea.
It looks to be native to the Middle East, which of course includes Iraq, via Africa, the believed origin of anthrax.
The Ames strain has recently become a standard for testing vaccines because of it's virulence. It has in fact been genetically mapped because of it's use in the lab. This is from the DOD paper Information About the Anthrax Vaccine and the Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program (AVIP):
There have also been animal studies assessing the efficacy of anthrax vaccine against geographically diverse strains of Bacillus anthracis. Older studies in guinea pigs suggested there were some strains, including Ames, that were more difficult to protect against than others after anthrax vaccination [Auerbach & Wright. J. Immunol. 75:129 (1955); Little & Knudson. Infect. & Immun. 52:509 (1986); Turnbull et al. Infect. & Immun. 52:356 (1986)]. This led to the use of the term "vaccine-resistant" strains. But this is a relative term. In the most definitive study reported, using defined challenge doses and larger numbers of animals per group to provide better statistical power, the overall survival rate after varying doses of an intramuscular challenge of immunized guinea pigs with a "vaccine-sensitive" strain was 89%, compared to 63% for the "vaccine-resistant" Ames strain (Ivins et al. Vaccine 1994;12:872. Obviously, vaccines were substantially protective in both tests.
In the non-human primate aerosol-challenge model, vaccination has been shown to protect against two strains, including the so-called "vaccine-resistant" Ames strain. Ongoing experiments are testing the effectiveness of anthrax vaccine against a geographically diverse collection of anthrax strains. In the guinea pig intramuscular-challenge model, vaccination protected against 8 of 32 such strains to the same degree as did the Ames strain [Fellows et al. Presented at 3rd International Conference on Anthrax, 1998]. Six of these strains were then used to challenge vaccinated rabbits by aerosol. Anthrax vaccination gave 90% to 100% protection against an aerosol challenge in the rabbit with these six strains that were most virulent in the guinea pig. Thus, anthrax vaccine protects the rabbit against a lethal aerosol challenge with all strains tested to date.
Even though used as a standard for virulent anthrax, it is not the worst obviously because it is wild. Logically genetically modified ones would add on to the existing virulence. Nass makes it clear in her testimony before Congress that Ames indeed isn't the worst:
D.O.D. spokespersons claimed that the guinea pig and mouse data should be ignored because the data from monkeys indicates very high survival rates, approaching 95-100%. The question remains, however, whether monkeys do parallel the human response, and how monkeys will respond to more highly virulent anthrax strains, since the monkey experiments cited by D.O.D. used only the Ames strain of anthrax.
This is from a paper from a French study:
All strains used here are part of the collection maintained by the Centre d'Etudes du Bouchet (CEB). They originate either from the CIP (Collection Institut Pasteur, http://www.pasteur.fr/) or from AFSSA (Agence Française de Sécurité Sanitaire des Aliments, http://www.afssa.fr/, Dr Josée Vaissaire). DNA from each isolate was obtained by large-batch procedures or by the simplified procedure as described in [2]. In addition, 15 g of DNA from the B. anthracis Ames strain were kindly provided by Dr Mats Forsman, FOA, Sweden.
It seems to be a standard test strain world over, so it looks to be widely available as well. Even if it wasn't, it could be gotten from the wild.'
'Isolated' might be a better word. It was isolated from tissues taken from a calf that died of it on farm in Iowa, and a sample kept on file in the lab. That sample has been apparently multiplied and distributed for research across the world. It is a strain that's part of the Ames group of Type A anthrax, and a wild strain, not genetically modified or 'manmade'.
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