Researcher: Innocuous Anthrax from Colorado Used in 1993 Cult Attack in Tokyo

AP ^ | February 18, 2003

[Shermy]

DENVER - A Japanese cult attacked Tokyo in 1993 with an innocuous, readily available strain of anthrax sold by a Colorado animal vaccine company, an Arizona researcher said.

The anthrax was used by the Aum Shinri Kyo doomsday cult that in 1995 used sarin nerve gas to kill 12 people in an attack on a Tokyo subway station.

Paul Keim, an anthrax expert at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, told colleagues about the 1993 anthrax attack at Sunday's session of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (news - web sites) convention in Denver.

Using DNA, researchers at the university traced the microbe to the Sterne strain produced by Denver-based Colorado Serum Co. The company makes a vaccine used by farmers worldwide to prevent anthrax in livestock.

The Sterne strain lacks a fragment of DNA necessary for the bacteria to cause disease.

"The cult was using a vaccine strain, which wasn't virulent," Keim said.

Colorado Serum officials did not return an after-hours phone call on Monday.

The same technique of genetic fingerprinting was used to unravel the source of the anthrax that killed five in the United States in 2001. Keim said he could not talk about the U.S. attack because he has a nondisclosure agreement with the FBI (news - web sites).

In 1993, Japanese public health authorities had been tipped off about an eight-story building the Aum Shinri Kyo cult owned in Kameido, a suburb of Tokyo. Neighbors lodged 160 complaints about a terrible stench coming from the building, Keim said.

Public health investigators took photos of smoke rising from the building's roof and scraped slime samples from its walls.

Their concern was that the cult and its leader Shoko Asahara were boiling the bodies of assassinated victims.

It turned out the cult was growing anthrax in the basement in a vat and was pumping it from the building's roof. The cult was also using a white utility van with special vents to spew anthrax-tinged gas through neighborhood streets.

"If authorities at the time had recognized this as a bioterrorist attack, perhaps the sarin gas attack would have never occurred," Keim said.

Instead, the anthrax plot wasn't discovered until cult members released nerve gas in one of Tokyo's most congested subway stations during rush hour in 1995. After their arrests for that incident, cult members mentioned the earlier anthrax attacks.

Four of five vials containing the slime had been analyzed by Japanese scientists looking for proteins that would have confirmed rumors the cult processed human remains at the building. One dusty vial remained in a public health refrigerator.

Keim cultured the sample in a petri dish filled with sheep blood. The sample blossomed with the telltale shape of anthrax blooms. Of the 4,000 activated spores that crowded the petri dish, the lab ran DNA fingerprints for 48, matching them to the Sterne strain.

While some said the cult was incompetent, Keim believes its leader Asahara had such a hold on his followers, who included graduate level microbiologists, that some may have been afraid to tell him they did not have deadly material.

Hiroshi Takahashi of Japan's National Institute of Infectious Diseases has said no one reported symptoms after the attack, which lasted 24 hours.

[Shermy]

Ping.

[Grampa Dave]

These guys sound about as sharp as the Islamokazis!

[SandfleaCSC]

The US was the subject of an anthrax attack in 1915. It did no discernable damage then either.

[Lion's Cub]

Thanks for the ping.

The cult was also using a white utility van with special vents to spew anthrax-tinged gas through neighborhood streets

This is especially relevant after the Japanese man was detained in Miani today. Should this cult have compared notes with an Islamic group, then A-Q knows exactly how these vents were modified--and that they were successfully tested.

The same technique of genetic fingerprinting was used to unravel the source of the anthrax that killed five in the United States in 2001. Keim said he could not talk about the U.S. attack because he has a nondisclosure agreement with the FBI

So they've finally admitted that they have the answer. I expect we'll soon be hearing all about it officially.

[Grampa Dave]

Who attacked us in 1915 with anthrax and where? Thanks!

[Grampa Dave]

You cracked the code with this two sentence reply:

The same technique of genetic fingerprinting was used to unravel the source of the anthrax that killed five in the United States in 2001. Keim said he could not talk about the U.S. attack because he has a nondisclosure agreement with the FBI

Your reply: So they've finally admitted that they have the answer. I expect we'll soon be hearing all about it officially.

[Redcloak]

There are reports that German agents attempted to infect draft animals at US ports during WWI. The purpose was to disrupt shipments of war materials to the British prior to our entry into the war.

[Lion's Cub]

I want to see Daschle scramble for talking points to justify his position when this info finally comes out :)

Come to think of it, people like Eleanor Clift, Ellen Rattner, and Hildabeast might be more fun to watch as they try to justify why we shouldn't protect Daschle :)

[SandfleaCSC]

Just to add to what Redcloak said:

The attack was perpetrated by German agents with the help of New York Port Authority workers. Anthrax and botulin toxins were added to the feed of mules and oxen waiting to be shipped to Britain for the war effort. No damage has ever been reported from the attack, to people or animals. Remember that during this time, motorized vehicles were few and far between and an attack on pack animals would have been a juicy target.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks, that is an absolutely scary report. There is book on sale on the Oregon coast that tells about the Japanese attacks on the West Coast during WWII (I don't remember the name of the book, but it is quite thick.).

My wife and I looked at this book at the little museum in Gold Beach connected with Jerry's Jet Boats. She is a nurse and commented with a question, "How many of those attacks tried to spread some biological agent?"

[Grampa Dave]

I thank both of you for enabling me to learn a scary chapter of our history that most of us knew nothing about.

This is what makes FR so great!

[Grampa Dave]

I think that their defense will be that it wasn't a nuclear weapon. Then they will claim that the Clintoon's firing of about 400 cruise missiles in 1998/99 into Iraq stopped this research and accumulation of Anthrax as a WMD by Saddam.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[Nogbad]

Ping

[Balata]

The same technique of genetic fingerprinting was used to unravel the source of the anthrax that killed five in the United States in 2001. Keim said he could not talk about the U.S. attack because he has a nondisclosure agreement with the FBI (news - web sites).

Have you seen this?

[The Great Satan]

Interesting. There's lots of stuff the government is not telling us about, including: the weaponization signature of the anthrax, what the folks at AMI remember of the two anthrax letters that were opened there after 9-11, what is the status of the al-Ani-Atta meeting in Prague, what they know about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (the author of 9-11), and what is the deal wih Dr. Hatfill. It's actually more informative to look out for what it is they must know but aren't telling than it is to listen to the pablum that gets reported in the press.

BTW, my internet access is limited for a few days, so excuse me if I don't respond to every ping.

[Fred Mertz]

Shermy, thanks for the informative posting.

[Shermy]

Don't know if you ever saw this one...