Anthrax

Source: original.antiwar.com --- 15 minutes ago
Half a dozen dead is mass destruction? asks Alan Reynolds ...

Source: www.freerepublic.com --- 6 hours ago
Just weeks before government scientist Bruce Ivins' suicide, a grand jury was convening on the third floor of the federal courthouse, near the U.S. Capitol, looking into the 2001 Anthrax murders. Things weren't looking good for Ivins, the only suspect in the case. It was July 2008. His attorney, Paul F. Kemp, according to court documents reviewed by AOL News, had just filed court papers to become a death-penalty-certified attorney in the case -- a little-known fact. And the chief U.S. District judge in Washington, Royce C. Lamberth, had approved the request. "I thought this was a precaution to take.... ...

Source: patriotroom.com --- 8 hours ago
Report date: February 19, 2010. Here's the quick overview. The 96-page report is Scribd below. Enjoy! This Investigative Summary sets forth much of the evidence that was developed in the Amerithrax investigation.1 In the fall of 2001, the Anthrax letter attacks killed five people and sickened 17 others. Upon the death of the first victim of that attack, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) and the United States Postal Inspection Service (“USPIS”) immediately formed a Task Force and spent seven years investigating the crime. The Amerithrax investigation is described below. In its early stages, despite the enormous amount of evidence gathered through traditional law enforcement techniques, limitations on scientific methods prevented law enforcement from determining who was responsible for the attacks. Eventually, traditional law enforcement techniques were combined with groundbreaking scientific analysis that was developed specifically for the case to trace the Anthrax used in the attacks to a particular flask of material. By 2007, investigators conclusively determined that a single spore-batch created and maintained by Dr. Bruce E. Ivins at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (“USAMRIID”) was the parent material for the letter spores. An intensive investigation of individuals with access to that material ensued. Evidence developed from that investigation established that Dr. Ivi ...

Source: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov --- 16 hours ago
Related Articles Natural Exposure to Cutaneous Anthrax Gives Long-Lasting T Cell Immunity Encompassing Infection-Specific Epitopes. J Immunol. 2010 Mar 5; Authors: Ingram RJ, Metan G, Maillere B, Doganay M, Ozkul Y, Kim LU, Baillie L, Dyson H, Williamson ED, Chu KK, Ascough S, Moore S, Huwar TB, Robinson JH, Sriskandan S, Altmann DM There has been a long history of defining T cell epitopes to track viral immunity and to design rational vaccines, yet few data of this type exist for bacterial infections. Bacillus anthracis, the causative agent of Anthrax, is both an endemic pathogen in many regions and a potential biological warfare threat. T cell immunity in naturally infected Anthrax patients has not previously been characterized, which is surprising given concern about the ability of Anthrax toxins to subvert or ablate adaptive immunity. We investigated CD4 T cell responses in patients from the Kayseri region of Turkey who were previously infected with cutaneous Anthrax. Responses to B. anthracis protective Ag and lethal factor (LF) were investigated at the protein, domain, and epitope level. Several years after antibiotic-treated Anthrax infection, strong T cell memory was detectable, with no evidence of the expected impairment in specific immunity. Although serological responses to existing Anthrax vaccines focus primarily on protective Ag, the major target of T cell immunity in infected individuals and Anthrax-vaccinated donors ...

Source: labvirus.wordpress.com --- 22 hours ago
Anthrax as a biological weapon http://chealth.canoe.ca/channel_section_details.asp?text_id=1484&channel_id=1020&relation_id=71020 Of the numerous biological agents that may be used as weapons, the Working Group on Civilian Biodefense, comprised of 21 representatives from academic medical, research, government, military and public health institutions, has identified a limited number of organisms that could cause disease and deaths in sufficient numbers to cripple a city [...] ...

Source: twitter.com --- 1 day ago
notifyneal: @screenrant ok; so i'll keep the Anthrax letter for a rainy day. ...

Source: twitter.com --- 2 days ago
arijuliano: RT @JakartaConcerts: JAVA ROCKIN'LAND 2010! band apa yg kalian mau? tell us! << Metallica, Anthrax, Obituary, Slayer, Napalm Death, Kreator ...

Source: oldatlanticlighthouse.wordpress.com --- 3 days ago
Bruce Ivins et al applied for a patent in 2000 which was granted in 2002. This patent describes in detail the actual growing of Anthrax by Bruce Ivins using the New Brunswick Bio-Flo 3000 that the FBI 302 report indicated was the fermentor at Ft. Detrick. The patent also describes use of the speed-vac. The patent gives a table with the yield in mg of anthracis using the 5 Liter fermentor after growth of several days. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6387665.html “Fermentation conditions: The fermentations described here were carried out using a New Brunswick Bio-Flo 3000 equipped with a 5.0 liter working volume glass vessel and stainless steel headplate and hemispherical bottom cooling dish.” “EXAMPLE 1 B. Anthracis ΔSterne-1(pPA102)CR4 was compared with its parent spore-forming strain B. anthracis ΔSterne-1(pPA102). Both organisms were plated onto sheep blood agar (a preferred medium for promoting bacterial spore production) and grown at 37° C. for 1 day, after which the temperature was lowered to 25° C. for 4 days. The two strains were also grown in liquid Leighton-Doi medium, which is designed to promote spore production, for 1 day at 37° C. followed by 4 days growth at 25° C. Growth from both agar and broth cultures were examined under phase contrast microscopy for the presence of spores. Growth from all four cultures were then resuspended in phosphate buffered saline to a concentration of about 10 9 colony-forming units (CFU) p ...

Source: anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com --- 3 days ago
In terms of the strength of the FBI’s case against Ivins, I would break down an analysis in the following way: 1. To prove that a person committed a crime, they must be shown to have all three of the following: means, motive and opportunity. Has the FBI proven that Ivins had all three? a) Means: Retired colleagues have said he did not have the equipment to make Daschle-quality Anthrax in the amounts required using equipment available to him at Fort Detrick. Anonymous colleagues at Fort Detrick claim he could. FBI has failed to clarify this major issue. FBI has not been able to “reverse engineer” the Anthrax and therefore does not know what equipment was needed to produce it. FBI has made a series of changing claims over time about silicon found in the spore preparation. b) FBI has not identified the Bacillus strain contaminant (found in the first letters) in the Fort Detrick lab, suggesting the spore material was made elsewhere. c) Motive: The FBI has alleged a variety of motives at different times, but none of them seem to make any sense. The latest report has errors of fact in its discussion of motive. d) Opportunity: Could Ivins have made it to the Trenton/Princeton area to mail letters and returned to Frederick in time to meet his other obligations? The FBI’s first reported (2008) scenario of how this may have occurred was incorrect. I have not read a convincing scenario since. 2. What is the evidence amassed by the FBI for and ...

Source: www.postchronicle.com --- 3 days ago
The FBI blames "the late Dr. Bruce Ivins" and claims that he "acted alone in planning and executing these attacks." But the "evidence" is unconvincing... ...

Source: www.moreover.com --- 3 days ago
Deseret Morning News Mar 7 2010 9:02AM GMT ...

Source: thewesterner.blogspot.com --- 3 days ago
“The federal government is supposed to protect us from terrorism.” This may have been a plausible theory at one time, but now, after a decade of goofs and lapses, it sounds more like the opening line of a late-night comedy routine. The latest revelation about government’s anti-terrorism programs makes for rather dark comedy indeed. The Department of Justice has just released a comprehensive, final report on the Anthrax attacks that occurred in the United States in the fall of 2001. As the reader may recall, envelopes containing weapons-grade Anthrax spores were mailed to media organizations and U. S. senators, resulting in the deaths of five people, and leading to the hospitalization of 17 others, and causing expensive cleanup efforts. Since the poisoned letters contained notes scrawled with “Allah is Great” and “Death to Israel,” these slogans suggested the perpetrator was a radical Muslim. Well, he wasn’t. After an exhaustive FBI investigation, the Justice department has concluded that the spores came from a U. S. Army medical research facility, and that the person responsible was a scientist, Bruce Ivins, who worked there. So “the worst act of bioterrorism in U. S. history,” (as the Washington Post described it), proved to be the work of a U. S. government employee: a nightmare version of “I’m from government and I’m here to help you.”... read more ...

Source: antivirus.about.com --- 3 days ago
As if real Anthrax virus scare wasn't enough, antivirus vendors issue warnings about another type of Anthrax. ...

Source: ac360.blogs.cnn.com --- 5 days ago
Joe Johns and Justine Redman AC360° Jean Duley was an addiction counselor. She describes one of her clients as a slight, mousey, yet charming man, with a vodka and Valium habit. That wasn't his biggest problem though. By the time he started seeing Duley, Dr. Bruce Ivins was under suspicion by the FBI for launching America's age of bioterrorism by mailing letters laced with deadly Anthrax to two senators and a number of news organizations in 2001, killing five people. The investigation had been going on for seven years. Ivins was a microbiologist who worked with Anthrax at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, at Fort Detrick in Maryland. At times during their hunt for the killer, the FBI had consulted Ivins for his scientific expertise, and he'd been a willing adviser. Ivins told Duley he didn't do it, and said he believed one of his colleagues was the Anthrax killer, but, in July 2008, authorities were closing in on Ivins as their prime suspect. He walked into Duley's counseling office almost out of control. "I'd never seen him that way before," Jean Duley recalled to CNN in an exclusive interview. She'd been seeing him twice a week for about six months, during which time he was hospitalized for what she called a suicide attempt. "He was extremely angry and nasty in his demeanor. The receptionist actually came back to me and said there's something wrong, you need to go deal with it. There's something wron ...

Source: www.antimusic.com --- 5 days ago
More European fans will be able to witness the legendary "Big Four" of thrash share the stage this summer as Metallica announced two more Sonisphere dates that will include them along with Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax. ...

Source: www.metalunderground.com --- 5 days ago
Video footage has been posted online of Anthrax performing in Brisbane, Australia for the Soundwave Festival. The video clip, which can be viewed below, is of the band performing a cover of the Public Enemy song "Bring The Noise." Read More/Discuss on Metal Underground.com ...

Source: www.disinfo.com --- 5 days ago
There has been a lot of skepticism about the FBI’s closure of the 2001 Anthrax terror scare, led perhaps by Bob Coen & Eric Nadler, authors of Dead Silence: Fear and Terror on the Anthrax Trail . Now CNN is running a video questioning the state of Dr. Bruce Ivins’ mind, suggesting strongly that it was definitely Ivins who was behind the Anthrax attacks. Is this is a case of the major media helping out the government? ...