FBI Is Casting A Wider Net in Anthrax Attacks - washingtonpost.com

FBI Is Casting A Wider Net in Anthrax Attacks - washingtonpost.com:

"Specifically, law enforcement authorities have refuted the widely reported claim that the anthrax spores had been 'weaponized' -- specially treated or processed to allow them to disperse more easily. They also have rejected reports that the powder was milled, or ground, to create finer particles that can penetrate deeply into the lungs. Such processing or additives might have suggested that the maker had access to the recipes of biological weapons made by the United States in the 1950s and 1960s.

In fact, the anthrax powder used in the 2001 attacks had no additives, writes Douglas J. Beecher, a scientist in the FBI laboratory's Hazardous Materials Response Unit, in an article in the science journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

'A widely circulated misconception is that the spores were produced using additives and sophisticated engineering supposedly akin to military weapons production,' Beecher writes in the journal's August edition, in what is believed to be the most expansive public comment on the nature of the powder by any FBI official. 'The idea is usually the basis for implying that the powders were inordinately dangerous compared to spores alone.'

The FBI would not allow Beecher to be interviewed about his article. But other scientists familiar with the forensic investigation echoed his description. Whoever made the powder produced a deadly project of exceptional purity and quality -- up to a trillion spores per gram -- but used none of the tricks known to military bioweapons scientists to increase the lethality of the product. Officials stressed that the terrorist would have had to have considerable skills in microbiology and access to equipment.

'It wasn't weaponized. It was just nicely cleaned up,' said one knowledgeable scientist who spoke on the condition he not be identified by name because the investigation is continuing. 'Whoever did it was proud of their biology. They grew the spores, spun them down, cleaned up the debris. But there were no additives.'"