Bruce Ivins Responsible for the Anthrax Attacks? What do we know?

[Stephanie]

Who is he? Why would he do it? Why did the investigation take so long?

An enlarged copy of an envelope addressed to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., that contained anthrax, is shown during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington in this Saturday, Nov. 17, 2001 file photo. A top U.S. biodefense researcher, Bruce E. Ivins, 62, apparently committed suicide just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailings that traumatized the nation in the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Los Angeles Times reported in their Friday Aug. 1, 2008 editions.
(AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, FILE)

]

[zanne]

1. Exactly.

I know the administration wanted this problem gone, but now we'll never know the real reason behind it.

[Prefer]

2. yawn, just another apparent suicide

glad that case is solved.

[zanne]

4. Soon BinLaden will be discovered with a a shot gun underneath him...

And a hole in his head from a self-inflicted shotgun wound.

[sellitman]

3. Nice and tidy.

Our crime family sure knows how to cover its tracks.

[Ian David]

5. Dr. Bruce Ivins... Whistle-blower?

2 quick facts about Bruce Ivins:
Also, Bruce Ivins had ABSOLUTELY NO CREDENTIALS as a vaccine developer or immunologist when he was working on a vaccine for anthrax...
Source: :: View topic - Squalene is a no, no {forums.perseusbooksgroup.com}
http://forums.perseusbooksgroup.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=8&sid=5a2d3c238ed3ec34dba3c0df3e3dc046


Bruce Ivins was troubled by the dust, dirt and clutter on his officemate's desk, and not just because it looked messy...
Source: www.usatoday.com... {www.usatoday.com}
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-10-13-anthrax-labs_x.htm


Related web page for Bruce Ivins:
Web Extracted Biography - Zoominfo
Bruce Ivins, Ivins Design Group P.C...
http://www.zoominfo.com/Search/PersonDetail.aspx?PersonID=925993755

More:
http://pipl.com/directory/people/Bruce/Ivins




See also:




<snip>


The Emperor's New Clothes

When scientists at Fort Detrick, following Joe Jemski's 1992 talk, reviewed the existing literature on the Wright vaccine, it didn't look good. Even with 6 shots, the vaccine did not protect very well. Guinea pigs vaccinated with the licensed human vaccine died when exposed to certain strains of anthrax. In 1986 the bad news got worse. In discovering that the licensed vaccine protected against the Army's old weapons strain, Vollum - from which the vaccine had been derived - Stephen Little and Gregory Knudson also discovered 8 more anthrax strains for which the PA vaccine did not work. Among them was the now notorious Ames strain that was mailed in 2001 anthrax letter attacks. Like the Army's previous research, the data confirmed that a live spore vaccine provided better protection against more strains. "The fact that the spore vaccine provided protection against all isolates tested suggests that other antigens may play a role in active immunity," they concluded. Which would argue for a live anthrax vaccine, but Fort Detrick's scientists expressed an age old concern about problem with living vaccines that could be traced all the way back to Pasteur: "Since this vaccine is a live immunogen," they warned, "safety factors must be considered before its use." Little and Knudson did not rule out the possibility of resorting to a live spore vaccine, but that is not what they then chose to pursue.

When they, along with Fort Detrick scientists Bruce Ivins and Sue Welkos, began working on a new anthrax vaccine, they chose a design that was all the rage at the NIH—subunit plus adjuvant. "Subunit" refers to small fragments of a germ. For safety, NIH scientists were using subunits of lethal viruses like HIV to be the chief component of their new generation of genetically engineered vaccines. These ultra-pure vaccines, which reduced an immunization to mere molecules from a microbe, were safe, but at a price. They were weak. In some cases, they afforded no detectable level of protection at all. This is why the NIH wanted an adjuvant more robust than alum for its new vaccines.

The subunit that Little, Knudson, Ivins and Welkos chose for the Army's new anthrax vaccine was a little surprising. It was protective antigen—the same main ingredient in the vaccine they were trying to replace. Although all the data from both U.S. and British military experiments from the 60's forward indicated that more components of the anthrax microbe needed to be in any effective anthrax vaccine—a fact that even Little and Knudson acknowledge in their 1986 paper—Fort Detrick's newest generation of anthrax investigators did just the opposite. In fact, they did one better. With recombinant DNA technology, their new vaccine would eliminate every extra molecule of anthrax unrelated to protective antigen. It would be purest PA formulation ever made, and would hence be the weakest anthrax vaccine ever made. Remember, in immunology, purity equals weakness.

Yet when Fort Detrick's scientists traveled to England in 1989 to report on their new vaccine to the International Workshop on Anthrax, they had some startling results to announce: Fort Detrick had found what everyone had been looking for: a single-shot anthrax vaccine. In guinea pigs, the new anthrax vaccine produced complete protection against the Ames strain with just one dose.

More:
http://www.vaccine-a.com/excerpt.html




See also:

What went wrong
By Alison Walker
News-Post Staff
[e-mail]

<snip>

Concern about anthrax spores in supposedly clean areas began months before the April 2002 breach, during late 2001. That fall, anthrax-laced letters were mailed to Sens. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), as well as media outlets in New York and Florida.

In December 2001, a USAMRIID technician told Dr. Bruce Ivins, a microbiologist in USAMRIID’s Division of Bacteriology, that she was concerned she was exposed to anthrax spores when handling an anthrax-contaminated letter.

USAMRIID was in the midst of processing tens of thousands of items and environmental samples to rule out anthrax contamination, including the letters mailed to Sens. Daschle and Leahy.

Dr. Ivins, who still works in the bacteriology division but declined to comment for this story, tested the technician’s desk area that December and found growth that had the earmarks of anthrax.

He decontaminated her desk, computer, keypad and monitor, but didn’t notify his superiors.

In the USAMRMC report, Dr. Ivins told Army investigators he did the unauthorized testing because he was concerned the powder in the anthrax letters and other samples might not be adequately contained.

He again became suspicious of contamination April 8, 2002, when two researchers reported potential exposures to anthrax after noticing flasks they were working with had leaked anthrax, crusting the outside of the glass tubes.

USAMRIID officials found anthrax spores in several rooms within a containment suite near the potential exposure.

Nasal swabs from one scientist involved in the incident tested positive. The scientist had been previously vaccinated and did not contract the disease.

When the contamination was discovered, Dr. Ivins performed an unauthorized sampling of areas outside containment April 15, according to the USAMRMC report.

He found anthrax spores in his office area; a passbox, which uses UV radiation to allow personnel to safely transfer materials from labs to outside areas such as hallways; and an area where scientists and technicians change from civilian clothing into laboratory garb.

Dr. Ivins found heavy growth of Ames-strain anthrax, a pathogenic or disease-causing form of the agent, on rubber molding surrounding the noncontainment side of a passbox.

His office area tested positive for Ames anthrax spores. The men’s change room tested positive for Ames spores and a few colonies of Vollum 1B, another pathogenic form.

The anthrax found in these areas was a different strain from that in the potential anthrax exposure April 8, suggesting at least two incidents of contamination. USAMRIID works with three anthrax strains: pathogenic strains Ames and Vollum 1B and Sterne, a nonpathogenic vaccine strain.

More:
http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/special_sections/detrick/day1.htm




Was Dr. Ivins actually a whistle-blower who needed to be silenced?

[gratuitous]

6. And who foisted the fake "bentonite" angle on ABC?

Almost from the get-go, there was an attempt to say that the analysis of the anthrax yielded information that the anthrax was laced with bentonite. Like Condi Rice's famously discredited aluminum tubes allegation and the discredited yellowcake from Niger story, the anthrax laced with bentonite angle was played up to make it look like Iraq had something to do with the 9/11 attacks and the anthrax murders. Glenn Greenwald at Salon pulls the fine threads together:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/index.html

It's extremely possible -- one could say highly likely -- that the same people responsible for perpetrating the attacks were the ones who fed the false reports to the public, through ABC News, that Saddam was behind them. What we know for certain -- as a result of the letters accompanying the anthrax -- is that whoever perpetrated the attacks wanted the public to believe they were sent by foreign Muslims. Feeding claims to ABC designed to link Saddam to those attacks would, for obvious reasons, promote the goal of the anthrax attacker(s).

Seven years later, it's difficult for many people to recall, but, as I've amply documented, those ABC News reports linking Saddam and anthrax penetrated very deeply -- by design -- into our public discourse and into the public consciousness.

___________________________

As the saying goes, read the whole thing. ABC has never revealed its source for its false reports, and never retracted its false reporting that the anthrax used was laced with bentonite.

This is a very tangled web, indeed.

[gratuitous]

7. Minor

Kick for the Greenwald column link.

But still, a genuine gratuitous-brand kick. Accept no substitutes.