Anthrax Preparation Indicates Home-Grown Origin

29 October 01
Anthrax preparation indicates home-grown origin
Debora MacKenzie

As anthrax continues to turn up in US postal facilities, and postal workers, evidence is emerging that it is an American product.

Not only are the bacteria genetically close to the strain the US used in its own anthrax weapons in the 1960s, but New Scientist can reveal that the spores also seem to have been prepared according to the secret US "weaponisation" recipe.

This is troubling, say bioterrorism specialists. While the terrorists behind the anthrax-laced mail US might have got hold of the strain of anthrax in several laboratories around the world, the method the US developed for turning a wet bacterial culture into a dangerous, dry powder is a closely-guarded secret.

Its apparent use in the current spate of attacks could mean the secret is out. An alternative is that someone is using anthrax produced by the old US biological weapons programme that ended in 1969 - in which case the scope for further attacks could be limited. Experiments to determine which is true are underway now in the US.

Analysis of the physical form of the anthrax powder used in the attacks has lagged behind the genetic analysis. Bacteria from patients or contaminated surfaces can be multiplied up to provide enough DNA for analysis. But a physical examination requires a sample of the actual powder, and so far, only two are known. One is from the letter opened in Senator Tom Daschle's office in Washington on 15 October, the other from a letter sent to the New York Post.

Last week, US Senator Bill Frist announced that the powder in the Daschle letter was in particles 1.5 to 3.0 microns wide, a very narrow size range. The results of the physical analysis of the New York Post letter are not yet known.

The actual bacterial spore is ovoid and around half a micron wide. The whole trick to making anthrax weapons, says Ken Alibek, the former deputy head of the Soviet Union's bioweapons programme, is to turn wet cultures of bacteria into dry clumps of spores that are each between one and five microns wide, the optimal size to penetrate a human lung and stay there.

But dried spores tend to form larger particles, with a static electric charge that makes them cling doggedly to surfaces rather than floating through the air where they can be inhaled.

The Soviet Union got around this by grinding dried cultures along with chemicals that cause the particles to remain separate. Iraq is the only other state known to have tried making such a weapon, and it dried anthrax cultures along with bentonite, a clay used as a fluidising agent in powders.

But last week the White House said there was no bentonite in the Daschle letter.

For its weapon, say informed sources, the US added various molecules, including surfactants, to the wet spores so that when they were dried, they broke up into fine particles within a very narrow size range of a few microns. There was no need to grind the powder further. Chemical tests are now being conducted to see if any traces of the US additives are present.

Grinding was considered the most likely way for terrorists to create anthrax powders, as the milling machinery is not hard to obtain. But it results in a wider range of particle sizes. Large particles can be filtered out, but smaller ones remain. The Daschle anthrax, say sources, looks instead like it was made according to the US recipe.

The question is, when? At its peak, the US bioweapons programme made 900 kilograms of dry anthrax powder per year at a plant in Arkansas. That stockpile was destroyed when the US renounced bioweapons in 1969. But small samples might have been saved without being noticed.

Experiments are now underway in the US to determine how many bacterial generations separate the anthrax being used in the attacks from the most closely related strains in a reference collection of anthrax, which includes the US weapons strain.

If the number is very small, and the anthrax closely resembles the weapons strain genetically, it could be a leftover from weapons production before 1969.

If, however, the bacteria have gone through many cell divisions since the most closely related strain was frozen, they might have been produced more recently. That would mean someone has obtained not only a virulent strain of anthrax, but the know-how to turn it into what was probably the most sophisticated anthrax weapon ever produced.

I see a major flaws in the conclusion reached by this article.

The statement "New Scientist can reveal that the spores also seem to have been prepared according to the secret US 'weaponisation' recipe" over reaches by trying to claim more than what it can at this time. This over reaching is even demonstrated by a sentence later in the same article:

"Chemical tests are now being conducted to see if any traces of the US additives are present." This means the results of the chemical tests are not yet known.

The article emphasizes spore size distribution as the link it tries to make with US anthrax that has been weaponized:

"...so that when they were dried, they broke up into fine particles within a very narrow size range of a few microns."

First of all, the article admits that the Russian, US and Iraqi methods can give the right size distribution.:

"The Soviet Union got around this by grinding dried cultures along with chemicals that cause the particles to remain separate. Iraq is the only other state known to have tried making such a weapon, and it dried anthrax cultures along with bentonite, a clay used as a fluidising agent in powders. " But the article tries to rule out the Iraqi connection by claiming bentonite was not found on the spores. Yet,it has not been ruled out yet whether or not ANY type of clay besides just bentonite was on the spores which would still give the spores an Iraqi signature since the Iraqis also used OTHER CLAYS in addition to bentonite. The Iraqi process relied on CLAYS in general, not just bentonite.

Additionally, since chemical tests are still being conducted how is it that the article totally rules out Russian methods which use chemicals since the chemical tests results are not in yet? The Russians may have learned not to have to grind their spores. The article tries to rule out the Russians by claiming that grinding would not give the size distribution found in the Dascle sample that they claim is close to the US method size distribution-that claim is not shown or proven in this article and the Russians still can be a candidate in my opinion.

This article, by saying that the size distribution is close to the distribution produced by US methods, does not make a case at all that the sample is home grown because it is possible to achieve the same distribution with Russian and Iraqi methods. Use of Clays have not been ruled out yet and the results of chemical tests are not in which could show the spores were produced by the Russian or the US chemical methods IF the right chemicals are even found.

This article is NOT good science- it is purely political which makes it suspect because the article source name is a scientific name. And the source is also known to be a left leaning magazine with less than reliable agendas.

THe Russians and Iraqi's would have a strong motive to have this article written with misdirection to deflect attention away from them. The Russian mob could easily have provided Anthrax to BIn Laden and there are numerous articles reporting that Bin Laden did in fact purchase some anthrax from the Russian mob and/or satellite states. The Iraqis could easily have provided anthrax to hijacker pilot Atta during many meetings he has had with Iraqi officials over the past year as has been widely reported. Sadam Hussein would like to keep his stockpiles of anthrax and other weapons of mass destruction from being targeted should Iraq be identified as the source.

What is to say that the Iraqis or Russians were not able to achieve the right size distribution using clays and or chemicals or both similar to what the US used-the US secrets may not be secret plus the Russians and Iraqis could have made their own discoveries of methods to yield the right size distribution.

THe right size distribution has not been a secret in the world to anyone and many nations could have done experiments to achieve the right size distribution. More than one method can achieve the same size distribution.

It will take an analysis and testing of a combination of factors (clays, strains, chemicals, particle size distribution, etc) ultimately to tie down the source of the anthrax production.

Why Drudge feels the need to CONSTANTLY link to this crap, I'll never know. It ain't news. It's the same know-nothing sources, spewing the same propeganda, all to serve the same purpose: blame the right, even if it means ignoring the left's long, illustrious history of domestic terrorism (Unibomber, RUCKUS, EarthFIRST!, PETA, the Mumia movement, Manson, NARAL, etc. etc, etc...)

Hey Matt, I know you lurk here. What's the deal? The singular aim of all of these stories is pin this on Pro-Lifers. 120 hoax letters show up at Planned Parenthood in two days? Give me a break. It's so obviously fake it's insulting. Why are you giving these people the credibility of linking their bogus conspiracies on your site?

And why in God's name would hold John "This War is a Fraud" Pilger up as the voice of the British press (as you did on Sunday)? Slow newsday? A quick Google search of Mr. Pilger turns up about a dozen essays by a devout socialist who has condemned every military action in this nation's history. There was an interview with Noam Chomsky in there, too. The man and his headline represent nothing... nothing that we didn't already know. Socialist hate us. Big f**king deal.

Your lust for attention-grabbing headlines is turning you inside-out, Matt.

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