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.
He said that was about as close to the truth that was published.
Also the researcher at USAMRIID who received the sample had kept the wrapping label in the filing cabinet. It had an Ames, Iowa return address label and an Ames, Iowa postmark.
It is true, however, that USAMRIID, thought that the sample had originated in Ames or at least in Iowa. That was mistakenly reported down through the ages and that is why it is called Ames. When in reality I think it is genotype 62 according to Keim. There were other things inappropriately called Ames thought the years because Ames Iowa had a facility to test anthrax. That was the purpose of the whole building that I used to drive me on my way home. The truth is that the original sample came from Texas out of a Beefmaster heifer that died under the windmill. It was sent to College Station Texas diagnostic lab and from there was sent to Ames, Iowa. Now the question was, why did College Station send it to Ames, Iowa? It had already been diagnosed as anthrax and in those days anthrax was just anthrax. I am assuming here that the people who work on anthrax all sort of know each other and it was professional courtesy to give them a samplel of a new isolate for their COLLECTION.