May 13, 2002

THE ANTHRAX LETTERS: MORE DISINFORMATION?

WHY? WERE THE LETTERS AN OFFICIALLY APPROVED WAKE-UP CALL TO THE BIOWARFARE THREAT?

By Meryl Nass, MD

Are you picking up on all the weird press on anthrax lately?

First, we were told there was only a trace of spores in the Wallingford, Connecticut post office, after Ottalie Lundgren’s demise. Then we hear that three million spores were found initially, but there are only traces now, found on the ceiling, no less: far from staff and customers.

Then we are treated to the story that the spore preparation sent in the letters last October became more highly purified with each letter. Today some bright light comes up with the idea that the letter sorters were milling machines, and caused the clustered spores to shake apart from each other, improving their offensive capability.

Does that mean that as time went on, the anthrax letters were put through more and more sorting machines? This theory makes little sense. Worse, these claims are very easy to either prove or dispute, but no one is disputing them or verifying them. Anthrax spores are easily visible with a light microscope, as is the debris that would accompany a crude milling process. All one need do is look to figure out the amount of debris, and whether the spore size ranges changed. Many other simple techniques should have been used months ago that would have identified a change in the spore preparation: why wasn’t this reported then?

Now more anthrax spores are found in the Federal Reserve. I’ve been told that spores keep turning up at other postal facilities.

Debora MacKenzie of New Scientist used open information to puzzle out the fact that the anthrax which so far is the best match to that isolated from Bob Stevens in Florida came from USAMRIID at Fort Detrick, Maryland. However, since it took months for the FBI to subpoena anthrax samples from those labs working with the Ames strain, there is no reason to think that the spores being tested are as pristine as they should be. For instance, there was plenty of time to treat an anthrax preparation with substances that induce mutations, and then give it to the FBI, assured that it would have significant differences from the parent strain.

What is going on?

The first thing that jumps out at you is that nearly all the important statements made about the anthrax investigation lack attribution. That means that although reporters got the information from official sources, the sources asked not to be named. This is a clue to disinformation.

Why might disinformation be used? For one thing, a few people may develop anthrax after inhaling a small number of spores; at least, that is how the deaths of Mrs. Lundgren and Mrs. Nguyen have been explained. Yet, given the history of anthrax spores in factories, gross contamination rarely leads to inhalation anthrax. The thinking probably goes that once spores get into the environment and begin sticking to things, they are much less likely to cause illness. This is probably what the authorities are counting on.

Since there have been no new inhalation cases in nearly 6 months, and the cost of clean-ups can exceed the cost of a new building, those in authority may be gambling that there will be no more, or extremely rare, cases in future. So the sampling being done is mostly not being reported, or problems minimized, to avoid fear of contaminated post offices.

Remember that many potentially affected buildings have not been tested for spores, so we really don’t know the extent of spore contamination. Imagine the cost of cleaning up every building where spores have been reported, let alone every single contaminated building. You could easily be looking at billions of dollars. That is no doubt why the revelations about the Federal Reserve were followed within hours by claims that the finding is probably due to lab error or dead, irradiated spores.

The question is, what is the methodology used to detect the spores? That piece of information is never provided, because if it was, you could extrapolate to find out how bad the contamination really was. For instance, when you hear there were 3 million spores found in Wallingford, does that mean three million spores grew colonies on petri dishes? Or does it mean that the test used does not identify spores unless there are at least 10,000 spores per milliliter of material, and that 300 samples tested positive?

If they found 10,000 spores per milliliter, that is 50,000 in a teaspoon, and you are looking at some extremely heavy contamination. Anyway, this is just an illustration of the need to be explicit about methodology to know how bad-or good--things really are.

If 3 million spores were found in Wallingford, they would not have been due to cross contamination, but rather to one or more letters that leaked passing through the post office. No such letter(s) have been found. I suspect that multiple letters were either not found, or not reported, last fall.

Similarly, I continue to hear of probable human anthrax cases that were also not reported, possibly because they did not meet the CDC’s case definition, or to avoid panic. (One of my patient’s sisters treated a case, and one of my cousins treated another with the classic rash, both postal workers in the NY metropolitan area. And several NYC postal workers died of unknown causes at the same time. Seems suspicious for at least a few more cases.)

Another reason the authorities are saying the contamination (if it exists) is old, is because the public will rightly fear that the anthrax perpetrator, not yet arrested, may be sending more letters. I doubt the FBI wants us taking that possibility seriously.

Something else may be going on. The letters last October may have been part of some deep dark officially-sanctioned plot (to save us from ourselves by forcing Americans to wake up to the biowarfare threat?) and the perpetrator(s) was never meant to be found. Instead, new letters might be going out now to leave evidence implicating a "fall guy" for both the new and the old letters.

We’ll probably never get to the bottom of this puzzle…but next time you see an anthrax "scoop" attached to an unidentified official, call the reporter who wrote the story and demand that in future stories, only sources who are willing to go on record with their names should be used. That will clear up at least some of the murkiness surrounding this investigation.