Free Republic

Pakistan government spokesman says anthrax sent to prime minister's office last year.

Teen Pilot Kept to Himself By PAT LEISNER Associated Press Writer January 6, 2002, 12:10 AM EST PALM HARBOR, Fla. -- The high school freshman who stole a small airplane and crashed it into a high-rise building Saturday was a quiet boy who kept to himself and bartered for his flight lessons by cleaning airplanes. Flight school officials said Charles J. Bishop, 15, was well versed in the operations at National Aviation Academy, where he had been taking lessons since March 2001. Bishop was presumed dead in the crash, authorities said Saturday night. He was a year shy of being ...

What do you get when you mix Democratic fat-cat donations, Big Labor favors, pharmaceutical lobbying and Beltway business as usual? Answer: another toxic half-billion-dollar Barack Obama-approved crony deal. Move over, Solyndra. Here comes Siga-Gate. This latest Chicago-style payoff on your dime involves a dubious smallpox drug backed by a liberal billionaire investor, along with a former union boss who was one of the White House's most frequent visitors. They're the "1 percent" with 100 percent immunity from the selectively outraged Occupier mobs that purport to oppose partisan government bailouts and handouts to privileged corporations. Ronald Perelman is the New York...

An advisory board to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services this afternoon urged the U.S. government to launch a controversial trial of the anthrax vaccine in children. The 12-1 vote backs a September recommendation from a working group that spent about 3 months weighing the pros and cons of such a study and came out in favor of it. Today's recommendation, by the National Biodefense Science Board (NBSB), isn't binding, and even if a study goes forward it will have to jump through many hoops before it can get up and running. That's because a trial like this...

WASHINGTON, OCT25 (UPI)-The Obama Administration is mulling whether an anthrax vaccine meant to protect against bioterrorism attack should be tested on U.S. children, officials say...

"...Washington, Oct.25 (UPI)- The Obama administration is mulling whether an anthrax vaccine meant to protect against bioterrorism attack should be tested on U.S. children, officials say..."

The Obama administration is wrestling with the thorny question of whether scientists should inject healthy children with the anthrax vaccine to see whether the shots would safely protect them against a bioterrorism attack. The other option is to wait until an attack happens and then try to gather data from children whose parents agree to inoculate them in the face of an actual threat. (more at link)

Ten years after a mail-borne anthrax attack killed five in the worst bio-terror attack on U.S. soil, there are new questions about the strength of the FBI’s case against the only suspect, as a leading expert on bio-terror attacks warned that budget deficits are likely to hinder the nation’s ability to respond in the future. Sen. Susan Collins, the committee's ranking Republican, said the new head of al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had the right background to wage a biological attack in the coming years.

A decade after wisps of anthrax sent through the mail killed 5 people, sickened 17 others and terrorized the nation, biologists and chemists still disagree on whether federal investigators got the right man and whether the F.B.I.’s long inquiry brushed aside important clues. Now, three scientists argue that distinctive chemicals found in the dried anthrax spores — including the unexpected presence of tin — point to a high degree of manufacturing skill, contrary to federal reassurances that the attack germs were unsophisticated. The scientists make their case in a coming issue of the Journal of Bioterrorism & Biodefense. F.B.I. documents...

http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-ed-anthrax-mystery-1005-20111005,0,982875.story

There are times when government agencies exhibit sheer idiocy and ineptness. That happened this summer when Justice filed papers that, if true, undermines the entire FBI case against Fort Detrick scientist Bruce Ivins in order to win a lawsuit brought by the family of Bob Stevens, the first anthrax victim following 9/11. Bob Stephens was the photo editor of The Sun, a subsidiary of American Media (AMI) located in Boca Raton, Florida. He died after inhaling spores from a letter mailed to AMI containing powdered anthrax. The family is suing the government claiming negligence in the way anthrax was handled...

A senior Republican senator has asked the Justice Department to explain why its civil lawyers filed court papers questioning prosecutors’ conclusions that an Army researcher mailed the anthrax-laced letters that killed five people in 2001. In a letter this week to Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller [3], Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa said the department’s decision to quickly retract the contradictory filings “has produced a new set of questions regarding this unsolved crime.”Grassley, who's among several members of Congress who've been outspoken skeptics about the FBI’s conclusion, homed in on a development first reported collaboratively in...

He roamed the University of Cincinnati campus with a loaded gun. When his rage overflowed, the brainy microbiology major would open fire inside empty buildings, visualizing a wall clock or other object as a person who had done him wrong. By the mid-1970s, Bruce Ivins had earned his doctorate and was a promising researcher at the University of North Carolina. By outward appearances, he was a charming eccentric, odd but disarming. Inside, he still smoldered with resentment, and he saw a new outlet for it. Several years earlier, a Cincinnati student had turned him down for a date. He had...

Buried in FBI laboratory reports about the anthrax mail attacks that killed five people in 2001 is data suggesting that a chemical may have been added to try to heighten the powder's potency, a move that some experts say exceeded the expertise of the presumed killer. The lab data, contained in more than 9,000 pages of files that emerged a year after the Justice Department closed its inquiry and condemned the late Army microbiologist Bruce Ivins as the perpetrator, shows unusual levels of silicon and tin in anthrax powder from two of the five letters. Those elements are found in...

Obama Administration Seeks to Test Anthrax Vaccine in Children Friday, 06 May 2011 Whose children will be sacrificed in an illegal and unethical experiment in the name of Biodefense Preparedness? According to BioPrepWatch.com , the Obama administration is seeking to obtain a green light to conduct an anthrax vaccine safety experiment  on US children.  The stated rationale for such a trial, articulated by Dr. Nicole Lurie, US Dept. of Health and Human Services,  is that there are no data about the safety of exposing children to the anthrax vaccine. And if an emergency arises, a trial "would present an...

In the fall of 2001, a nation reeling from the horror of 9/11 was rocked by a series of deadly anthrax attacks. As the pressure to find a culprit mounted, the FBI, abetted by the media, found one. The wrong one. This is the story of how federal authorities blew the biggest anti-terror investigation of the past decade—and nearly destroyed an innocent man. Here, for the first time, the falsely accused, Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, speaks out about his ordeal.

Washington (CNN) -- Old mental health records for the chief suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks suggest Bruce Ivins should have been prevented from holding a job at a U.S. Army research facility in Maryland, according to a report from a panel of behavioral experts commissioned by the Department of Justice. "The psychiatric records were quite eye-opening," said Gregory Saathoff, the lead author of the report. "The criminal behaviors involved a strong component of revenge," he added, "that he claimed he had engaged in as well as planned to engage in" in documented interviews with psychiatrists dating back to the...

Institute for Genome Sciences led pioneering investigation in new field of microbial forensicsResearchers at the Institute for Genome Sciences at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and collaborators at the FBI, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and Northern Arizona University have published the first scientific paper based on their investigation into the anthrax attacks of 2001. The case was groundbreaking in its use of genomics and microbiology in a criminal investigation. More than 20 people contracted anthrax from Bacillus anthracis spores mailed through the U.S. Postal Service in 2001, and five people died as a...

A scientific review released Tuesday cast doubt on the US government's conclusion that scientist Bruce Ivins, who killed himself in 2008, was to blame in the 2001 case of deadly anthrax mailings.

A panel of prominent scientists is casting new doubt on scientific evidence that was a key part of the FBI's case against Bruce E. Ivins, the deceased Army scientist accused of carrying out the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks. The National Research Council, in a report issued Tuesday, questioned the link between a flask of anthrax bacteria in Ivins's lab at Fort Detrick, Md., and the anthrax-infested letters that killed five people and sickened 17 others.

SNIPPET: "Midway through the trial, two jurors were excused after they told the judge that a man in the visitor's gallery made a hand motion as if he were firing a gun at them and mouthed an obscenity. One of the jurors told the judge he was "really freaked out" by the incident and another said he could not remain impartial "anything anyone makes what I view as a death threat." The guilty verdict on all counts means that at sentencing the judge could order Siddiqui spend the rest of her life in a federal prison."

WASHINGTON -- The FBI may have closed its Amerithax case against Fort Detrick scientist Bruce Ivins nine months ago, but some experts are not willing to let the issue die quite so easily. A group of about 25 scientists, professors, writers, terrorism experts and more convened Monday afternoon to discuss the particulars of the investigation and to debate who the real perpetrator may have been.

Arabic satellite channel Al Jazeera has broadcast a tape that appears to show one of the 11 September hijackers reading his last will and testament. The channel also aired a brief clip of wanted Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden, who is shown kneeling beside his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, as al-Zawahri praises the actions of the bombers. The channel identifies the hijacker as Ahmad al-Haznawi al-Ghamdi, a name which closely resembles that of Ahmed al-Ghamdi, who was on Flight 175 that crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. Al-Jazeera said the footage - which it says it checked...

At least six schools in Houston ISD received suspicious envelopes today with a white powdery substance that initial inspectors have determined is cornstarch. The Houston Independent School District has sent the substance to the city health department for follow-up testing to make sure it is the basic cooking material and is not, in fact, hazardous, according to HISD spokeswoman Sarah Greer Osborne. The schools that got the envelopes were Alcott, Anderson, Alemeda, Browning, Bastian, Barrick and possibly Blackshear, she said.

The Government Accountability Office has launched an investigation into the scientific methods used by the FBI to determine that Fort Detrick researcher Bruce Ivins was the sole perpetrator of the 2001 anthrax attacks. U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, who represents the New Jersey district from which the letters were mailed, requested GAO's involvement as early as 2007, but renewed his efforts after the FBI announced it had closed its Amerithrax investigation last February. Holt and four other lawmakers originally proposed a list of 10 questions for GAO to help answer, including how the anthrax spores used in the attacks compared to...

Baghdad leaders reveal that coup plot duped MI6 Julie Flint explains how rumours of Saddam's overthrow caused British intelligence to miss vital information about Iraq's weapons programme British intelligence took its eyes off Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes because it had been duped into believing a military coup would leave Sunni Muslims in power in Iraq. Sources in the country say what they missed was a push to convert chemical and biological organisms into dry agents that could be hidden until pressure on the regime was lifted. 'From the second half of 2000, the focus of the British was not on...

Scientist found with suspicious item at airport did prison time for plague sample flap -- A world-renowned Texas scientist specializing in infectious diseases who was once charged with smuggling dangerous samples of plague bacteria into the U.S. was questioned by authorities after a suspicious item found in his luggage caused a massive evacuation at Miami International Airport Thursday night. Dr. Thomas C. Butler, 70, was questioned by agents with the FBI and Miami-Dade police Friday after a suspicious item was found in his checked luggage by a MIA baggage screener Thursday night, sources told NBC Miami.... Friday, it was learned...

KAMPALA: Anthrax has killed at least 30 hippopotamuses in a popular Ugandan game park that saw a similar outbreak six years ago, officials said Wednesday. Tom Okello, conservation area manager at Queen Elizabeth National Park, a much-visited safari destination, said 10 of the hulking semi-aquatic animals were found dead over one half-day period alone. "This was something that we had seen before, so I knew immediately that we had to get the blood samples tested," he said, recalling a 2004 outbreak that claimed around 300 hippos around a small lake in the park. "When anthrax is involved, the blood doesn't...

An official flushed a white powder from a plastic bag labeled “Anthrax” down a toilet at the Capitol while hundreds of tourists milled around nearby. Capitol Police, who heard about Saturday's incident at the Capitol Visitor Center (CVC) only later that day, said that instead of breaching security in this way, the tour guide supervisor who handled the powder should have left it alone and informed security.

A transient is scheduled to be arraigned this week on a 10-count indictment charging him with anthrax hoaxes, threatening communications, making a threat against the president and failing to register as a sex offender. A federal grand jury returned a 10-count indictment charging Timothy Cloud, a transient generally from Roseville and San Francisco, with four counts of hoax mailings, four counts of mailing threatening communications, one count of threatening the President and one count of crossing state lines after failing to register as a sex offender. In a statement written by Cloud last month for two federal agents, he admitted...

Note: The following text is a quote: Grand Jury Indicts Two Men for Mailing Hoax Anthrax Letters BIRMINGHAM—A federal grand jury today indicted two men in connection with a series of hoax anthrax letters that were mailed in Alabama this month and in March, U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance, U.S. Postal Inspector Frank Dyer and Federal Protective Service Threat Management Branch Chief Curtis Huston announced. The first 15 counts of the 24-count indictment charge CLIFTON LAMAR “CLIFF” DODD, 38, of Lincoln, with mailing 15 hoax letters between March 6 and April 5 that contained a threat in the form of...

It is absolutely impossible that Bruce Ivins, accused of mailing anthrax and killing five people in 2001, could have created and cleaned up anthrax spores in the timeline and manner the FBI alleges, Ivins' former co-worker said Thursday. The National Academy of Sciences brought in former USAMRIID microbacteriologist Henry Heine to explain spore preparation to the panel, which is tasked with investigating the science the FBI used to accuse Ivins, also a former microbacteriologist for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. And though Heine discussed only scientific methods and technologies before the panel, he said afterward he...

A former Army microbiologist who worked for years with Bruce E. Ivins, whom the F.B.I. has blamed for the anthrax letter attacks that killed five people in 2001, told a National Academy of Sciences panel on Thursday that he believed it was impossible that the deadly spores had been produced undetected in Dr. Ivins’s laboratory, as the F.B.I. asserts. Asked by reporters after his testimony whether he believed that there was any chance that Dr. Ivins, who committed suicide in 2008, had carried out the attacks, the microbiologist, Henry S. Heine, replied, “Absolutely not.” At the Army’s biodefense laboratory in...

HELSINKI, Finland, April 22 (UPI) -- In the weeks following the airliner attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, the United States was subjected to a biological weapons attack. Two sets of letters containing dried, powdered anthrax spores were mailed to journalists and politicians, eventually killing five people and infecting dozens of others. The FBI investigation, which would become known as "Amerithrax," initially focused on foreign terrorists as the source of the attack. Later, after the anthrax in the letters was identified as a strain originating in the United States the focus of the...

Andrew Sullivan rightly recommends this new Atlantic article by David Freed, which details how the FBI and a mindless, stenographic American media combined to destroy the life of Steven Hatfill. Hatfill is the former U.S. Government scientist who for years was publicly depicted as the anthrax attacker and subjected to Government investigations so invasive and relentless that they forced him into almost total seclusion, paralysis and mental instability, only to have the Government years later (in 2008) acknowledge that he had nothing to do with those attacks and to pay him $5.8 million to settle the lawsuit he brought. There...

In the fall of 2001, a nation reeling from the horror of 9/11 was rocked by a series of deadly anthrax attacks. As the pressure to find a culprit mounted, the FBI, abetted by the media, found one. The wrong one. This is the story of how federal authorities blew the biggest anti-terror investigation of the past decade—and nearly destroyed an innocent man. Here, for the first time, the falsely accused, Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, speaks out about his ordeal.

It has been nine years since the 2001 anthrax attacks sickened twenty-three people and killed five. Since that time, the U.S. government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in remediation and billions in their search for a disinfectant that can reliably kill anthrax spores and other pathogens that might be used as weapons. The search is over. sBioMed®, a self funded biotechnology firm located in Orem, Utah, has been recently awarded Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approval of STERIPLEX® Ultra for anthrax spore decontamination, the world's most deadly biological agent. Astoundingly, STERIPLEX® Ultra achieves rapid kill against anthrax spores while...

The man falsely accused by the FBI of sending letters laced with deadly anthrax spores has received a big settlement from the government, but never an apology for destroying his life. What’s more, Dr. Steven J. Hatfill told TODAY’s Matt Lauer during his first interview since the September 2001 attacks, neither the Justice Department nor the FBI has been held accountable for breaking the law and lying in their pursuit of him. “I love my country,” Hatfill, 56, told Lauer. But, he added, “I learned a couple things. The government can do to you whatever they want. They can break...

SNIPPET: "Harare, March 30, 2010: The United States government officially handed over a new, upgraded bio-safety level 2+ laboratory to the Minister of Health, Dr. Henry Madzorera. The facility will enhance the capacity of the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare to offer clinical and diagnostic testing as well as research on indigenous/exotic agents which may cause serious disease after inhalation, such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB),typhoid (Salmonella Typhi),anthrax (Bacillus anthracis) and the H1N1 virus. Speaking after a tour of the facilities with the Minister of Health and Child Welfare, U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Charles Ray described the cooperation between the...

Despite bipartisan congressional support for examining the FBI's gross mishandling of the post-9/11 anthrax attacks, President Barack Obama is telling Congress that he doesn't want the agency to be scrutinized and held accountable. Dr. Steven Hatfill, one of the innocent victims of the FBI investigation, is preparing to go public with his account of how the Department of Justice (DOJ) violated his rights and tried to ruin his career and reputation. He will be the subject of a forthcoming Atlantic magazine article and will be sitting down for an interview by the NBC "Today Show's" Matt Lauer. The DOJ paid...

Dar Al-Hijrah Hosts Fundraiser For “Virginia Jihad” Cell Member; U.S. Muslim Brotherhood Leader Featured Speaker(This Islamic Center in Falls Church, VA is a well-known hub for Jihadis both here in the US as well as those from abroad. Spiritual home of the Fort Hood shooter and his "Spiritual Advisor, Anwar al-Awlaki, now head of Al Qaeda in Yemen.)Dar Al-Hijrah is tightly tied to the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. According to the Dar Al-Hijra web site, four of the nine board members must include the current Secretary General of Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the current President of Muslim Arab...

Just weeks before government scientist Bruce Ivins' suicide, a grand jury was convening on the third floor of the federal courthouse, near the U.S. Capitol, looking into the 2001 anthrax murders. Things weren't looking good for Ivins, the only suspect in the case. It was July 2008. His attorney, Paul F. Kemp, according to court documents reviewed by AOL News, had just filed court papers to become a death-penalty-certified attorney in the case -- a little-known fact. And the chief U.S. District judge in Washington, Royce C. Lamberth, had approved the request. "I thought this was a precaution to take....

Just weeks before government scientist Bruce Ivins' suicide, a grand jury was convening on the third floor of the federal courthouse, near the U.S. Capitol, looking into the 2001 anthrax murders. Things weren't looking good for Ivins, the only suspect in the case. It was July 2008. His attorney, Paul F. Kemp, according to court documents reviewed by AOL News, had just filed court papers to become a death-penalty-certified attorney in the case -- a little-known fact. And the chief U.S. District judge in Washington, Royce C. Lamberth, had approved the request. "I thought this was a precaution to take....

TRENTON (AP) — A New Jersey congressman is calling for a congressional investigation into the government's handling of a major anthrax investigation, which was closed last week. U.S. Rep. Rush Holt believes the FBI botched the case from 2001, when anthrax-laced letters were sent from a mailbox in Princeton. He also says the Postal Service and other agencies may not have learned the proper lessons from the attacks, which killed five people and sickened 17. The FBI last month closed its investigation after concluding Army scientist Bruce Ivins was responsible for the attacks. Ivins killed himself in 2008.

LONDON - British health authorities repeated a warning to drug users on Monday that a batch of heroin contaminated with anthrax was probably circulating in Europe, posing a potentially serious health threat. The Health Protection Agency said a second case of anthrax had been confirmed in an injecting heroin user in London, adding to two previous cases in England, 24 in Scotland and one in Germany. A total of 12 people have died in Europe of anthrax infection since the first cases emerged in Scotland in December.

MARCH 1--After the Department of Justice last month formally closed its probe of the 2001 anthrax attacks, the FBI released the first batch of documents detailing the years-long investigation that ended with officials concluding that Bruce Ivins, a government scientist who committed suicide in July 2008, was responsible for the mailings that killed five victims. The records, released pursuant to Freedom of Information Act requests, portray Ivins as becoming increasingly unhinged as it became clear that he was the principal target of the FBI's "Amerithrax" probe.

Ivins was bondage and sorority obsessed cross dressing yankee hater. March 1- After the Department of Justice last month formally closed its probe of the 2001 Anthrax attacks, the FBI released the years-long investigation that ended with officials concluding that Bruce Ivins, a government scientist who committed suicide in July 2008, was responsible for the mailings that killed five victims. ...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI has decided with finality that a government researcher acted alone in the deadly 2001 anthrax mailings and is closing its long-running investigation, a person familiar with the case said Friday. The anthrax letters were sent to lawmakers and news organizations as the nation reeled in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The person informed of the decision to close the case was not authorized to speak about it before an official announcement expected later Friday, and therefore spoke on condition of anonymity.

WASHINGTON – The FBI sought to close the book on its long, frustrating hunt for the killer behind the 2001 anthrax letters Friday, formally ending its investigation and concluding a mentally unhinged scientist was responsible for killing five people and unnerving Americans nationwide. After years of false leads, no arrests and public criticism, the FBI and Justice Department said Dr. Bruce Ivins, a government researcher, acted alone. Ivins killed himself in 2008 as prosecutors prepared to indict him for the attacks. He had denied involvement, and his family and some friends have continued to insist he was innocent. Investigators had...

The FBI has concluded that a former Army researcher was solely responsible for the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks, ending a nearly nine-year investigation, NPR has learned from sources familiar with the case. Officials planned to release new evidence Friday proving that Dr. Bruce Ivins, 62, mailed poison-laced letters to a handful of politicians and newspaper outlets — a finding the bureau advanced during its preliminary investigation more than a year ago. Five people died and 17 were sickened by the attacks. Government investigators were still several major legal steps away from indicting Ivins when he killed himself in 2008. The...