Reasonable Rascal
04-09-02, 00:12
‘A Sophisticated Strain of Anthrax’
Newsweek/MSNBC April 15, 2002
Mark Hosenball, John Barry and Daniel Klaidman
http://www.msnbc.com/news/735231.asp#investigations
“Last fall FBI profilers announced that the person who sent deadly anthrax-laced letters to news organizations and Capitol Hill was
probably a grudge-bearing, sociopathic male laboratory nerd with knowledge of the geography of Trenton, N.J. But a new scientific analysis sent to top government officials suggests the anthrax attacker
may be a scientific whiz so smart that he succeeded in making a ‘weaponized’ form of the bacterium more sophisticated than any
previously known. Government sources tell NEWSWEEK that the secret new analysis shows anthrax found in a letter addressed to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy was ground to a microscopic fineness not achieved by U.S. biological-weapons experts…. The combination of the intense milling of the bacteria and the unusual coating produced an
anthrax powder so fine and fluffy that individually coated anthrax spores were found in the Leahy envelope, something that U.S. bioweapons experts had never seen.”
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The fact that someone of apparently a criminal intent has this capability, has deomonstrated willingness to use it, and remains yet at large, bodes ill for public health concerns in the future.
JMHO
RR
Newsweek/MSNBC April 15, 2002
Mark Hosenball, John Barry and Daniel Klaidman
http://www.msnbc.com/news/735231.asp#investigations
“Last fall FBI profilers announced that the person who sent deadly anthrax-laced letters to news organizations and Capitol Hill was
probably a grudge-bearing, sociopathic male laboratory nerd with knowledge of the geography of Trenton, N.J. But a new scientific analysis sent to top government officials suggests the anthrax attacker
may be a scientific whiz so smart that he succeeded in making a ‘weaponized’ form of the bacterium more sophisticated than any
previously known. Government sources tell NEWSWEEK that the secret new analysis shows anthrax found in a letter addressed to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy was ground to a microscopic fineness not achieved by U.S. biological-weapons experts…. The combination of the intense milling of the bacteria and the unusual coating produced an
anthrax powder so fine and fluffy that individually coated anthrax spores were found in the Leahy envelope, something that U.S. bioweapons experts had never seen.”
---------------------------------------------
The fact that someone of apparently a criminal intent has this capability, has deomonstrated willingness to use it, and remains yet at large, bodes ill for public health concerns in the future.
JMHO
RR