Reply #69: ..

[FogerRox]

The Washington Post reported yesterday that the spores in the Daschle letter had been treated with a chemical additive using technology so sophisticated that it almost certainly came from the United States, Iraq or the former Soviet Union. A government official with direct knowledge of the investigation has said that the totality of the evidence so far suggests it is unlikely the spores were originally produced in the former Soviet Union or Iraq.

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/Bioter/anthraxinmailames.html

But the larger implication was somewhat puzzling. If the anthrax sent to Daschle came from one of three state-sponsored bioweapons programs, and if the former Soviet Union and Iraq are discounted as suspects, that leaves the biowarfare program of the United States, which officially ended its biological weapons program in 1969.

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/Bioter/theamesstrain.html

Capitol Hill Anthrax Matches Army's Stocks 5 Labs Can Trace Spores to Ft. Detrick

By Rick Weiss and Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 16, 2001; Page A01

Genetic fingerprinting studies indicate that the anthrax spores mailed to Capitol Hill are identical to stocks of the deadly bacteria maintained by the U.S. Army since 1980, according to scientists familiar with the most recent tests.

Although many laboratories possess the Ames strain of anthrax involved in this fall's bioterrorist attacks, only five laboratories so far have been found to have spores with perfect genetic matches to those in the Senate letters, the scientists said. And all those labs can trace back their samples to a single U.S. military source: the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Md.

http://www.mapcruzin.com/news/war121601a.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36408-2001Nov29