Government's anthrax case: compelling but not airtight

Thu Aug 7, 12:22 AM ET

October: Anthrax is mailed to lawmakers on Capitol Hill and members of the news media in New York and Florida. By November, five people are dead.

2002

January: Senate office building where anthrax-tainted letters were sent reopens after fumigation. August: Law enforcement officials call biowarfare expert Steven Hatfill a “person of interest.”

2003

August: Hatfill sues then-attorney general John Ashcroft and other officials, accusing them of making him a scapegoat.
December: Postal workers begin moving back into a decontaminated postal facility in Washington almost two years after anthrax-laced letters killed two employees.

2004

July: Fumigation begins on the former headquarters of the Sun, a Florida supermarket tabloid targeted in the anthrax attacks.

2008

June 27: The federal government awards Hatfill $5.85 million to settle his violation-of-privacy lawsuit against the Justice Department.
July 29: Army scientist Bruce Ivins, 62, dies of an apparent suicide at a hospital in Frederick, Md.
Aug. 6: The Justice Department says Ivins was responsible for the anthrax attacks and acted alone.

Experts Question FBI's Genetic Test in Anthrax Case (Update2)

By James Rowley and Avram Goldstein

Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Scientists and legal experts questioned the reliability of novel genetic tests that the FBI says link deadly anthrax letters to an Army bioweapons scientist who authorities allege carried out the 2001 killings by himself.

Because the FBI has never offered such tests in criminal cases, it's uncertain the results would have been admitted in court as evidence against Bruce E. Ivins, who committed suicide last week, experts said.

``Microbial forensics is still a nascent field, and, as far as I know, no one has ever been convicted in a U.S. court on the basis of microbial forensic evidence,'' said Peter Hotez, a microbiologist at George Washington University. ``It's untested. In all likelihood he's the guy, but you can't say it's beyond a reasonable doubt.''

Gene sequencing that linked the highly refined anthrax spores used in the anthrax letters to a flask in Ivins's laboratory was a key piece of evidence cited by the Justice Department yesterday as proof Ivins acted alone.

The government said it will close the case soon. Before he died, Ivins, a researcher at the Army's bioweapons lab at Fort Detrick, Maryland, told people he expected to be charged with the five anthrax killings, court papers said.

The uncertainty about whether a trial judge would admit the test results into evidence may explain why the FBI didn't move faster to arrest Ivins after learning he had been hospitalized for exhibiting homicidal and suicidal tendencies, said one former federal prosecutor. Instead, Ivins was placed under 24- hour surveillance after his release from a mental hospital.

`Wanted Him to Confess'

``They never arrested him because they wanted him to confess,'' said Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. He said the FBI used a tactic designed to pressure a suspect into confessing because prosecutors knew ``there would have been all sorts of problems on the reliability of the scientific analysis.''

Ivins died July 29 after taking an overdose of Tylenol. He had been scheduled to meet last week with prosecutors, who planned to ``lay our cards on the table'' and tell him ``here's what we have,'' Jeffrey Taylor, the U.S. attorney in Washington, told reporters yesterday.

Taylor would not explain why the government chose not to arrest Ivins after learning he had been released from the mental hospital. ``Our job in law enforcement is to pursue our criminal investigation,'' he said.

Bulletproof Vest

In a court document released today, investigators said they seized a bulletproof vest, homemade body armor and ammunition during a July 12 search of his house, office and cars.

A federal judge today signed a warrant authorizing FBI agents to search computer terminals at a Frederick public library that Ivins was seen using while under surveillance. The FBI said it was seeking ``any indication'' of ``writings identifying a plan to kill witnesses or names of intended victims'' or ``suicide letters.''

The reliability of the evidence against Ivins would have been ``a major, contested battle'' if the case had gone to court, said Paul Giannelli, who teaches scientific evidence at Case Western Reserve University's law school in Cleveland.

``The government would have to establish the reliability of its methodology,'' Giannelli said. The FBI may have used ``traditional scientific methods, but their application would probably be new.''

Close the Book

Giannelli said the hurdle is not insurmountable for prosecutors, adding, ``I wouldn't say it couldn't come in'' as evidence.

Others said it's premature to close the book on the case and that investigators should share more evidence with the scientific community.

``I heard first a solid claim from the FBI that they are absolutely sure the genetic analysis pinpointed it, and then later on I heard some weasel wording that made it a little less crystal clear,'' said Philip K. Russell, a biodefense expert who directed emergency preparedness for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services after the attacks.

``The proof is going to be in an independent scientific analysis of that data,'' said Russell, chairman of the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington. ``It's pretty complex stuff and will take some experts in bacterial genetics and bacterial molecular epidemiology to opine with confidence on it.''

Lab Reports

Ivins's lawyer, Paul F. Kemp, said the government never showed him the laboratory reports that officials said link the letters to the anthrax handled by his client.

``If they're so proud of these reports, why didn't they release those yesterday?'' Kemp said.

At yesterday's briefing, Taylor said the ``key breakthrough'' in the investigation came in 2005 when the FBI developed a test that linked spores found in the envelopes to the flask.

Investigators ``then focused their attention laser-like onto that flask, and the person who had control of that flask,'' Taylor said. He said it took another two years to exclude as suspects others at Fort Detrick who had access to the flask.

DiGenova said it was ``telling'' that Attorney General Michael Mukasey and FBI Director Robert Mueller allowed lower- ranking officials to announce the government had solved ``as big a case as everybody says it is.'' Mueller conducted private briefings yesterday for victims and members of Congress on the investigation's findings.

Their absence at the public announcement ``underscores the department's arms-length view of the facts,'' diGenova said. ``I don't think the attorney general or the director wanted to be facially associated with the conclusions reached in the case.''

In a statement, Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said Mukasey and Mueller ``were well aware of the conclusions reached in this investigation and fully support them.'' Boyd said it was decided that officials who were most familiar with the ``detailed and vast'' facts of the investigation should respond to media questions.

To contact the reporters on this story: James Rowley at jarowley@bloomberg.net; Avram Goldstein at agoldstein1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: August 7, 2008 18:07 EDT
White House memo exposes Rove knew of problems with anthrax vaccine
Allen McDuffee
Published: Thursday August 7, 2008

Rove said Gulf War Syndrome, vaccine political stumbling block

The Department of Defense continued its controversial mandatory anthrax vaccinations program despite high ranking Bush administration officials acknowledging there were problems with the vaccine within months of the Bush administration taking office—well before the 9/11 attacks and the October 2001 anthrax letters.

A 2001 memorandum from former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove to then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz indicates that the White House knew of problems relating to the Gulf War Syndrome and the military's controversial anthrax vaccine.

Obtained by RAW STORY earlier this year from a senior military official and referenced in today's New York Daily News, Rove wrote, "I do think we need to examine the issues of both Gulf War Syndrome and the Anthrax vaccine and how they can be dealt with. They are political problems for us."

RAW STORY had held off printing the memorandum (which appears below) in an effort to validate its authenticity. Along with the memo, Rove noted that he had attached "material on the Anthrax vaccine problem," which had been forwarded to him by H. Ross Perot. He titled it "GULF WAR SYNDROME AND ANTHRAX."

"It didn't bother me that Rove referred to it as a political problem at the time because it meant that it would be properly dealt with, finally," the military official who leaked the memo said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "The political problem became a problem to me when they dropped the ball and allowed the program to continue. It was politics that motivated them to investigate and it was politics that motivated them to allow the program to continue. Now the political nature bothers me."

The Apr. 25, 2001 memo indicates how long and how far up in the administration the anthrax vaccine—and Gulf War Syndrome—have been considered problematic.

The Pentagon's anthrax vaccine is manufactured by a single contractor, Emergent BioSolutions. It has been plagued with complaints from soldiers and soldiers' advocates, who assert that the vaccine causes myriad debilitating ailments.

The Defense Department was forced to halt mandatory injections in 2004 after a judge ruled that the FDA had not approved the vaccine for its intended use. In 2006, the military resumed mandatory vaccinations after FDA approval, citing letters laced with anthrax in late 2001 as a reason.

Questions about the mailings containing anthrax have re-emerged in the wake of a suicide by a biodefense researcher. At the time of his death, Bruce Ivins, 62, was under federal investigation for the 2001 anthrax attacks that left five people dead and more than a dozen sickened. In a Wednesday joint FBI and Department of Justice press conference, while not officially closing the case, Assistant Director in Charge Joseph Persichini of the FBI Washington Field Office said, "Bruce Ivins was responsible for the death, sickness, and fear brought to our country by the 2001 anthrax mailings."

The leaked memo also comes on the heels of an announcement by the Department of Homeland Security, which has proposed giving the city where Emergent BioSolutions is located $946,520 to protect the company's facilities. The grant, according to an article in the Lansing State Journal, would "purchase, install and deploy the eligible Homeland Security equipment and manage related law enforcement protective actions."

A New York Times article following Ivins' death highlighted a number of tensions between public safety and biodefense research, centering around the question: "Has the unprecedented boom in biodefense research made the country less secure?"

Pentagon maintains vaccine is safe, requires injections

Despite repeatedly maintaining it is safe, documents obtained by Raw Story last year showed that the Pentagon and medical military personnel have known since at least 1998 that there are genetic triggers between illnesses and some required immunizations. They also revealed the military knew and did not implement routine pre-screening which could help reduce vaccine-related illnesses.

A flyer posted by the Vaccine Healthcare Center in 2007 showed that Walter Reed solicited servicemembers who have suffered as a result of the vaccine, asserting that “adverse effects may include redness or swelling where the shot was given (larger than the bottom of a soda can) and/or more than 24 hours of headaches, muscle/joint pains, and/or fatigue (tiredness) that interfered with your daily activities.”

Texas billionaire and onetime presidential candidate H. Ross Perot testified to a Congressional committee in 2002 regarding issues with the vaccine and its manufacturer.

"BioPort is a mess," Perot said, referring to the Pentagon contractor, which has since changed its name to Emergent BioSolutions. "BioPort should not be able to keep that contract. For years they never met any goals or objectives...For years they got bonuses that equaled or exceeded their salaries and didn't accomplish their goals."

"The damage that was done to our Tigers in the Armed Forces is incredible," he added. "Hundreds of pilots have left the Air Force rather than take the shot. $6 million to train one pilot. That's a high price to pay, right?"

Ivins had worked on producing an anthrax vaccine. Documents presented by federal prosecutors paint a portrait of a paranoid man who suffered delusions. Their evidence against him, however, has been questioned. Sources who spoke to the press said that the Justice Department was close to charging Ivins when he took his own life, but that they still had more investigating to do. The Department asserts that Ivins acted alone.

Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), has called for a "full-blown accounting" of the probe, which cost taxpayers $15 million and took seven years, according to the Washington Post. Democratic Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-NJ), who represents the region the deadly letters were mailed from from, says hearings should be held as to "why investigators are so certain that Ivins acted alone."

The memo is available in PDF format here.

This article was edited by Raw Story Managing Editor Larisa Alexandrovna, and paid for by reader donations to Raw Story Investigates. You can contribute by clicking here, allowing us to conduct more investigative reporting.