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?
In any lab situation there is an authority that licenses the work. Both state and federal authorities work on similar principles.
The lab can only operate and charge a fee if all of the guide lines are met. One is a pathogen free environment. If there is a contaminant, then the contaminant cannot be ruled out.
Our lab was state controlled and we were tested every 6 months. You could fail one test, but not two out of 5 or two consecutive tests.
It is my belief that ISU destroyed their collection because they had failed two consecutive tests. The two tests were 6 months apart and only a year after 1990. In order to keep operating, a lab must file a “problem solving solution”. It has another name that escapes me tonight. So on April 15, 1992 ISU requested the use of paraformaldehyde “to decontaminate a high containment area” for a pathogen “ a dreaded disease of both livestock and man”.
When I remembered some of what had happened in 1990, I contacted the EPA and was told that the Section 18 which was granted on June 15, 1992, 60 days after the application, was still in effect. And that they had used over 110 pounds of the stuff that is supposed to be reported in grams. They had tried to wipe it out.
But!!! this stuff is to weak to wipe it out. The next step up is chlorine gas which requires evacuation of adjacent areas. Too much.
My belief is that ISU knew or thought that had been compromised, but weren't sure. They had discovered a problem of contamination but had no idea who or when.
I often wondered why they destroyed all of the samples and not just what had been stolen, but they may not have known what was stolen, maybe multiples. Easier to get rid of it all.