Anthrax Attacks and the System That Perpetrated Them

[Peter Lemkin]

Coen and Nadler’s Anthrax War Documentary: A must see

Source: TrTeam59’s | Youtube Channel & Anthrax-War| By Eric Nadler and Bob Coen| Transformer Films

About the Documentary:

For filmmaker Bob Coen, who was raised in Zimbabwe where the former white regime has been accused of unleashing anthrax against the black population, biological weapons have a deep personal meaning. He embarks on a journey that raises troubling questions about the FBI’s investigation of the 21st century’s first act of biological terrorism.

Coen’s investigation takes him from the U.S. to the U.K. and from the edge of Siberia to the tip of Africa. In a rare interview, Coen confronts “Doctor Death” Wouter Basson, who headed Project Coast, the South African apartheid-era bio-warfare program. Project Coast used germ warfare against select targets within the country’s black population.

Anthrax War also investigates the mysterious deaths of some of the world’s leading anthrax scientists, including Dr. David Kelly, the UK’s top military microbiologist, the Soviet defector Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, and Dr. Bruce Ivins. The FBI claims – despite the doubts of highly ranked U.S. officials – that Ivins was the only person behind the U.S. anthrax murders.

In tracing the 2001 bio-terror attacks in the U.S. to the heart of the U.S. bio-defense program, this film raises an alarm. These attacks that helped prepare a country for war have also spawned a multi-billion dollar bio-defense boom. The line between bio-offense and bio-defense is becoming extremely thin. Biological weapons research is now being conducted by corporations and private labs without effective government oversight. The international treaty prohibiting the development of offensive bio-weapons may no longer be sufficient to keep the world from drifting towards the unthinkable biological warfare.

One aspect of this film hits home; right here in North Carolina, thanks to Richard Burr (R-NC) who as Chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness crafted legislation dubbed Project Bioshield aka Bio-Shield, BARDA and others. Pay close attention to what is disclosed about the legislation in the film and then think about the H1N1 vaccine.

One last thing, everyone who was involved in stopping the National Bio and Agro Defense Facility (NBAF) from coming to Butner should find the contents of this film chilling. Furthermore, you deserve a pat on the back (insert pat here), the prospects of a post-NBAF town to me is unimaginable, especially after watching this film.

Here is Anthrax War, presented in 6 parts. [Watch 'em all!]
http://butnerblogspot.wordpress.com/2009...-must-see/

[Magda Hassan]

Slightly off topic as this is in regards to the Israeli military but in many ways still applies.

Discharged soldiers sue for millions over Anthrax experiment

Dozens of soldiers who took part in experiment in early 1990s aimed at determining efficacy of Anthrax vaccine demand $80,000 each in damages. 'Physical harm was passed down to our children,' plaintiff says Vered Luvitch Published: 03.28.10, 20:34 / Israel News

P{margin:0;} UL{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;margin-right: 16; padding-right:0;} OL{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;margin-right: 32; padding-right:0;} H3.pHeader {margin-bottom:3px;COLOR: #192862;font-size: 16px;font-weight: bold;margin-top:0px;} P.pHeader {margin-bottom:3px;COLOR: #192862;font-size: 16px;font-weight: bold;} Sixty-four former IDF soldiers are suing the Defense Ministry for NIS 18 million ($4.8 million) over what they claim is damage caused to them during Anthrax vaccine experiments in the early 1990s.

The experiments, which were meant to determine the efficacy of an Anthrax vaccine, were carried out in light of what was then defined at the time as the "strategic threat of a surprise biological attack facing Israel."
Nicknamed "Omer 2," the experiments included 716 IDF soldiers picked out of a pool of 4,000.
The lawsuit, filed with the Petah Tikva District Court, is based on the principle according to which anyone who decides to take part in an experiment must do so willingly and after considering the risks involved.
As part of the lawsuit the soldiers are demanding that the state reveal the ingredients of the serum that was given to them, in addition to NIS 300,000 (about $80,000) in damages to each plaintiff for mental anguish and emotional distress resulting from the involuntary use of one's body and medical negligence.
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs cited an Israel Medical Association (IMA) report according to which the experiments were unjustifiable.
The report revealed that even while the experiment was taking place Israel already had a stock of vaccines. "An accelerated effort to produce large quantities of the vaccine was underway a year prior to the experiment, and by the time the experiments were launched, Israel had enough vaccines to cover the civilian concerns," the report said.
"No scientific justification was found for the experiment, scientific background was lacking, the experiment's design and execution did not suit its goals, and no result would have justified those goals. Also, conventional guidelines were not followed, risks and possible side effects were not thoroughly investigated, and a follow-up mechanism to keep track of participating soldiers was not set up," it said.

Dorit Tahan, one of the plaintiffs, said, "In light of the security establishment's lack of respect for human life, we have no choice but to turn to the court in order to teach the IDF a lesson in responsibility."
"We now know that the physical harm caused to the soldiers was also passed down to their children," she said.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Slightly off topic as this is in regards to the Israeli military but in many ways still applies.

Discharged soldiers sue for millions over Anthrax experiment

Dozens of soldiers who took part in experiment in early 1990s aimed at determining efficacy of Anthrax vaccine demand $80,000 each in damages. 'Physical harm was passed down to our children,' plaintiff says

This has direct relevance for at least some cases of what became known as "Gulf War Syndrome".

[James Lewis]

One of the surest signs that 9/11 was an inside job was the anthrax attacks. If you remember, the envelopes were ONLY mailed to those Democratic senators/congressmen who were opposed to the Patriot Act. Also, remember this...the Bush cabinet and White House staff were all vacinnated for anthrax...the week BEFORE the anthrax attacks.

[Peter Lemkin]

One of the surest signs that 9/11 was an inside job was the anthrax attacks. If you remember, the envelopes were ONLY mailed to those Democratic senators/congressmen who were opposed to the Patriot Act. Also, remember this...the Bush cabinet and White House staff were all vacinnated for anthrax...the week BEFORE the anthrax attacks.

Some people just don't see 'coincidences', when they are so obvious! :dancing2:
:captain:

[James Lewis]

One of the surest signs that 9/11 was an inside job was the anthrax attacks. If you remember, the envelopes were ONLY mailed to those Democratic senators/congressmen who were opposed to the Patriot Act. Also, remember this...the Bush cabinet and White House staff were all vacinnated for anthrax...the week BEFORE the anthrax attacks.

Some people just don't see 'coincidences', when they are so obvious! :dancing2:
:captain:

Coincidence only happens when people are too lazy/dumb to look for the truth. Of course, the one thing Americans fear more than anything else is waking up one morning and finding that EVERYTHING THEY KNOW IS WRONG!! :dancing:

[Ed Jewett]

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/05/...t-show-28/
Professor Francis Boyle discusses the October 2001 anthrax attack, the technology behind the letter to Senator Daschle, and assesses the case based on his years of expertise with America’s bio-weapons programs, and as an expert who was responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, which was passed unanimously by both houses of Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. He discusses possible motivations behind the anthrax attacks, including those held by criminal elements within the US government to foment a police state, and the investigation that never was. Professor Boyle talks about Israel war crimes as crimes against humanity, and more.


Francis Boyle is a human rights lawyer and professor of law at the University of Illinois. As an internationally recognized expert, Professor Boyle serves as counsel to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to the Provisional Government of the State of Palestine. He is the author of several books, including The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence published by Clarity Press.

http://www.911blogger.com/blog/161

[Peter Lemkin]

Obit.: William C. Patrick III, Ft. Detrick Biowarfare Scientist
7th October 2010

One of world’s top experts on biological warfare

By T. Rees Shapiro
Washington Post | October 5, 2010

William C. Patrick III, 84, one of the chief scientists at the Army Biological Warfare Laboratories at Fort Detrick and who was responsible for overseeing the military’s top-secret weaponization of some of the world’s deadliest diseases, including anthrax and tularemia, died of bladder cancer Oct. 1 at Citizens Nursing Home in Frederick.

Mr. Patrick held five classified U.S. patents for the process of weaponizing anthrax. He was chief of the development program at Fort Detrick in Frederick for much of the Cold War.

In the 1960s, Mr. Patrick led the highly classified weaponization of tularemia, a disease he considered superior to anthrax as a biological agent because of its potency.

Under Mr. Patrick’s direction, scientists at Fort Detrick developed a tularemia agent that, if disseminated by airplane, could cause casualties and sickness over thousands of square miles, according to tests carried out by the U.S. government.

Some experts believed that the research showed biological weapons could be as devastating as a nuclear blast. In a 10,000-square-mile range, the biological weapon had a 90 percent casualty rate and 50 percent fatality rate, capable of killing its hosts within hours of infection.

The Fort Detrick biowarfare program was started in the early 1940s under President Franklin D. Roosevelt after the Allies received intelligence reports that the Germans and Japanese were pursuing biological weapons.
His staff also devoted attention to anthrax because of its speed in poisoning its host. … His business card was adorned with a skull and crossbones. …

Mr. Patrick joined the effort in 1951 and became chief of the development program in 1965. His team explored the world’s deadliest diseases, including Q fever, plague and Venezuelan equine encephalitis. His staff also devoted attention to anthrax because of its speed in poisoning its host.

In interviews over the years, Mr. Patrick said his development program tested more than 20 anthrax strains to discern the most lethal variety. The deadly spores engineered at Fort Detrick were capable of wafting more than a mile through the air – rendering concrete barriers and other modern military defenses useless against attack.

To disseminate the biological agents, the Fort Detrick scientists hid them in aerosol spray systems inside fountain pens, walking sticks, light bulbs and even in the exhaust pipes of a 1953 Mercury.

They conducted mock attacks in places bustling with people, including the New York subway system and Washington National Airport, in the latter case releasing anthrax simulants hidden in suitcases.

Fort Detrick’s biological offensive program ended in 1969, when President Richard M. Nixon renounced biological weapons, most of which were later destroyed. In 1972, the United States signed an international treaty outlawing biological weapons.

Afterward, Mr. Patrick focused on defense against biological weapons, helping to find ways to neutralize the agents he once produced.

William Capers Patrick III was born July 24, 1926, in Ridgeland, S.C., and grew up in Furman, S.C.

He served in the Army during World War II and became fascinated with penicillin, a newly produced drug given to soldiers to prevent infection. This led to a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of South Carolina in 1948 and a master’s degree in microbiology from the University of Tennessee in 1949.

After working for an Indiana company that produced antibiotics, Mr. Patrick was recruited to the Army’s biowarfare efforts by a former professor at Tennessee.

Mr. Patrick’s first marriage, to the former Sara McCoy Ayer, ended in divorce. Survivors include his second wife, Virginia Howsare Patrick of Frederick, whom he married in 1972; two sons from his first marriage, William T. Patrick and Mark E. Patrick, both of Rockville; and two stepchildren, Theresa Bedoya of Baltimore and Martin Lynch of Nashville.

After retiring in 1986, Mr. Patrick remained one of the world’s foremost experts on biological warfare and defense and served as a consultant to the CIA, FBI and U.S. military. His business card was adorned with a skull and crossbones.

In the early 1990s, Mr. Patrick led the debriefing of Soviet defector Ken Alibek, who as Kanatjan Alibekov was the deputy chief of the Soviet biowarfare program.

In the mid-2000s, the FBI sought Mr. Patrick’s biological weapons expertise for the investigation of the anthrax attacks along the East Coast. A few years earlier, he had been commissioned to write a report on the effectiveness of an anthrax attack spread through the mail system. In the report, Mr. Patrick described how an envelope laced with 2.5 grams of anthrax could do significant harm by direct and indirect contact.

The anthrax attacker – who authorities claimed might have studied Mr. Patrick’s report as a “blueprint” – used about the same amount to kill five people and sicken 13 others.

Mr. Patrick was often called on to provide testimony for hearings involving bioterrorism, and was known to participate with zeal. In a 1999 appearance before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, he pulled out a small plastic bottle filled with 7.5 grams of an inert anthrax simulant.

“I’ve been through all the major airports and the security systems of the State Department, the Pentagon, even the CIA, and nobody has stopped me,” Mr. Patrick said, noting that if his simulant had been real anthrax, it could “take care of the Rayburn building and all the people in it.”

As one of fewer than 100 Americans with operational knowledge of biological agent production, Mr. Patrick was sent to Iraq in 1994 as a U.N. weapons inspector to look into Saddam Hussein’s alleged covert germ laboratories.

Despite the macabre nature of his work at Fort Detrick, Mr. Patrick spoke about how vital his profession was to national security.

“We did not sit around talking about the moral implications of what we were doing,” he told the Baltimore Sun in 2004. “We were problem-solving.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...670_2.html

[Carsten Wiethoff]

http://911blogger.com/news/2010-12-08/br...i-left-out

As part of his comments, Ezzell spoke in detail about how to turn wet anthrax samples, such as the kind Ivins worked with, into the dry powder used in the attack letters. He said the wet anthrax would first have to be put in a centrifuge, which turns the spores into a pellet that is dark brown on the bottom, tan in the middle and white on top.
"The upper part, which is white, is almost pure spores," Ezzell said. "So when you're purifying spores out of a material like (Ivins'), you use the centrifuge, you only remove the upper portion of that, and then you wash it and discard the bottom two colors."
From there, Ezzell said a scientist would have to carefully dry the spores with a lyophillizer or a speed vacuum. The tough part about that process is that either method will cause the pellet to blow apart. Ezzell said that, based on his knowledge of anthrax production and the specifics of the anthrax used in the attacks, he believes the spores were under high centrifugation while being dried with a speed vacuum, the combination of which would dry the anthrax while keeping it in pellet form. From there, a razor blade could chop up the pellet into the form it was found in in the first two letters, which were of poorer quality than the more uniformly colored and textured anthrax in the second two letters.
'Snow white' or pepper-like?
Ezzell surprised the crowd Monday when he said the anthrax in the first two letters, addressed to TV newsman Tom Brokaw and the New York Post, resembled pepper more than the white fluffy powder everyone imagined. The anthrax in the second group of letters, sent to Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, were of noticeably better quality but still not nearly as pure as what Ezzell was producing in his lab.
"The spores that were prepared in my lab were snow white, whereas the spores in the Daschle and Leahy letters were tan, and the material that went to Tom Brokaw's office and the New York Post were very granular and multicolored," Ezzell said. Whoever produced the anthrax in the first two letters likely chopped up the entire anthrax pellet instead of just the white section with pure anthrax spores.
"The material in the Daschle and Leahy letters, I don't think that was quite as pure as people think it is," Ezzell said, adding he disagreed with the FBI's assertion that those samples resembled the spores he produced.

Also about his death by overdose of sleeping pills:

Ivins overdosed on Tylenol PM on July 26, 2008, and died on July 29. But Nass said, medically speaking, the outcome of his overdose should have been different. Ivins was brought to Frederick Memorial Hospital by an ambulance early on the morning of July 27. He was under constant surveillance, and Nass said the FBI agents watching him could have, but didn't, inform the doctors that he had purchased two bottles of Tylenol PM a few days earlier.
Nass said there is no evidence that the FBI agents helped get Ivins medical attention quicker or let anyone know about the Tylenol purchase.
"It takes from two to several days for liver failure to occur after ingesting a large dose of Tylenol," according to a document Nass handed out at the seminar. She said there is an effective antidote, called N-acetyl cysteine, that helps the body detoxify the substance created as the liver metabolizes the Tylenol. Nass said death rates from a Tylenol overdose is "extremely rare when this safe, easily available treatment is given in a timely manner."

[Peter Lemkin]

:listen:
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: December 9, 2010

WASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation has requested a last-minute delay in the release of a report on the bureau’s anthrax investigation by the National Academy of Sciences, prompting a congressman to say that the bureau “may be seeking to try to steer or otherwise pressure” the academy’s scientific panel “to reach a conclusion desired by the bureau.”
Related
Times Topics: Bruce E. Ivins | Anthrax

Representative Rush D. Holt, a Democrat of New Jersey and a physicist who has often been critical of the investigation, made the remarks in a letter Thursday to the F.B.I.’s director, Robert S. Mueller III, saying that he found the bureau’s request for a delay “disturbing.” The F.B.I. has told the committee that it wants to turn over an additional 500 pages of investigative documents not provided previously despite the committee’s request for all relevant material when it began the review in April 2009.

“If these new documents were relevant to the N.A.S.’s review why were they previously undisclosed and withheld?” Mr. Holt wrote. The anthrax-laced letters that killed five people in 2001 were sent from a mailbox in Princeton in his district.

Michael Kortan, an F.B.I. spokesman, declined to respond to Mr. Holt’s remarks. But he said, using the bureau’s name for the investigation, that the F.B.I. “continues to work with the National Academy of Sciences to support their ongoing review of the scientific approaches employed in the Amerithrax investigation.”

The seven-year inquiry, by some measures the largest and most complex in F.B.I. history, concluded that Bruce E. Ivins, a microbiologist at the Army’s bio-defense research center in Maryland, prepared the deadly powder and mailed it to two senators and several media organizations. The F.B.I. has made public its circumstantial case against Dr. Ivins, including genetic fingerprinting linking the mailed anthrax to a supply in his laboratory and his late hours in the lab in the days before the two mailings.

Dr. Ivins killed himself in 2008 and was never criminally charged. Some of his colleagues at the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases say they do not believe he was guilty. The F.B.I. had already paid another former Army scientist, Steven J. Hatfill, a settlement worth $4.6 million to drop a lawsuit saying the bureau had falsely accused him of being the anthrax mailer.

E. William Colglazier, the academy’s executive officer, said the F.B.I.’s request was a surprise and came after the bureau saw the panel’s peer-reviewed final report, which was scheduled for release in November. He said that the committee’s 15 members, top scientists who serve as volunteers, were “exhausted,” but that the panel had agreed to extend the study and consider revising the report in return for an additional fee, probably about $50,000, beyond the $879,550 the F.B.I. has already paid for the study.

Dr. Colglazier declined to say if the report was critical of the F.B.I.’s work but said it was “very direct.” The report sticks to science and does not offer an opinion on whether Dr. Ivins carried out the anthrax attacks, he said.

In September, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, agreed to conduct its own review of the F.B.I.’s anthrax investigation, with a broader approach that also covers security measures at biolabs.