US army scientist was behind 2001 anthrax attacks, not Islamic terrorists
After the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, numerous countries, starting with the United States but including New Zealand, experienced multiple panics when “white powder” was found in letters, bags and other places. The fear was that the powder was anthrax, as in the few weeks after September 11, a very small number of letters containing anthrax spores were posted in New Jersey to media organisations in New York and Florida and to members of the US Congress. Five people actually died and 17 fell ill.
The letters contained anti-US and anti-Israel messages and the media assumption was they were the work of Osama bin Laden or other Islamic terrorists. The panic engendered by the September 11 attacks was thus further aggravated by the newfound fear of white powder, which in every case after the original genuine anthrax letters, turned out to be talcum powder or something similarly harmless. We still have such incidents in New Zealand on a regular basis. There was one at ACC in Molesworth St as recently as May 20.
Thus can fear of something fearful – often fuelled by the news media – become widespread. Think of other media fearmongering that was far worse than reality, such as the Y2K Bug, SARS, bird flu and the like. Seven years later, even here in New Zealand we call out all the emergency services when someone finds some leaking talcum powder, and the fire, police and ambulance officers arrive, with full decontamination equipment. This is not taking precautions against a real threat. It is being scared of shadows, a hoaxer’s, even a terrorist’s, dream.
Well, it has now emerged that a lone US Army scientist, Dr Bruce Ivins, who was in possession of a flask of anthrax spores for a vaccine programme he was part of, was responsible for all the genuine anthrax letters of September and October 2001. He committed suicide last week just as he was about to be arrested, and today the US Justice Department released the files and made public the evidence that would have been used at his trial.
“Painstaking investigation led us to the conclusion that Dr Bruce E Ivins was responsible for the death, sickness and fear brought to our country by the 2001 anthrax mailing and that it appears based on the evidence that he was acting alone,” said FBI chief investigator Joseph Persichini.
US attorney Jeffrey Taylor added that Ivins was both the creator and controller of what was “effectively the murder weapon”, a flask containing the batch of anthrax used in the mailings.
Released documents allege Ivins had sole custody of highly purified anthrax spores with “certain genetic mutations” identical to that used in the letters.
Investigators also said they had traced the pre-franked envelopes used to send the deadly spores through the mail to a post office where Ivins had a PO box. They also noted he had a history of sending correspondence to congressional offices and the media, some of it with similar language to that used in the anthrax letters, such as an email to a friend saying bin Laden would launch an anthrax attack against Americans and Jews.
While Ivins’s lawyers maintain he was innocent, the documents, and his suicide on the eve of his arrest, suggest a strong case against him.
My point in recounting all this is to suggest we should be slow to assign blame, or assume the worst, when something fearful, calamitous or just plain bad happens, or is predicted to happen. The media and public perception at the time of those letters was that they had been sent by Islamic terrorists, when it is now clear no Muslim was involved at all. A single American army scientist, working on an anthrax vaccine programme he thought was going to be halted, spread fear around the world and loathing against innocents, with the apparent motive of keeping his own research programme attracting funds. Oh the banality.
As Julius Caesar allegedly said: “Nihil nobis metuendum est, praeter metum ipsum.”
15 Comments
August 7, 2008 at 7:08 pm
“Think of other media fearmongering that was far worse than reality, such as the Y2K Bug[...]”
I’ll leave it to someone else to have a whinge about your insistence that Y2K was a media beat-up about nothing.
August 7, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I’ll leave it to someone else to have a whinge about your insistence that Y2K was a media beat-up about nothing.
Um, nothing happened at Y2K. The media predicted international disaster that would destroy civilisation as we knew it. It did not happen. Not a single plane fell out of the sky. Not a single computer failed. Not even an ATM, anywhere on Earth. The media, internationally, was so humiliated and embarrassed that not a single mention was made of their baseless predictions after January 2 2000.
August 7, 2008 at 9:27 pm
In late 2001, ABC News in the US was used by “sources” who claimed the anthrax attack was connected to Iraq. Either they were lying or Bruce Ivins is being scape-goated by someone. Most likely, they were lying and using the anthrax attack as a pretext for building a case against Iraq. ABC News is now under pressre to out these sources if they lied about the anthrax / Iraq link…..which was a big story at the time, in the wake of 9/11. Sveral US blogs have covered this well and I have links to some in a post on my own blog.
August 8, 2008 at 8:24 am
Two quick points as I have to rush off:
1. See also http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/ It seems that they might have gotten to the bottom of the USA antrax cases quite a long earlier.
2. I’ve told you before on your blog that lumping bird flu (avian influenza) in with the “other” scares is an (extremely) bad idea. And I’ll keep repeating this point if you keep putting it forward. It is still out there, stills kill people (with a high fatility rate), still mutates and still has a lot of potential. Its just out of the public eye. Many scientists still consider it is a case of “when” rather than “if”. So, in regards to “scares”: Y2K, certainly, SAR possibly (but for detailed biological reasons, not media reasons), but avian influenza, no (also for good biological reasons).
Just to be clear (re: “bird flu” )
In the sense of did the media whip it up, yes. Because mainstream media tries to make everything “instant”, “will happen tomorrow“, etc. In the sense of “it’ll never happen now”, we can forget about it and have a laugh, not really.
In the former sense, the media certainly played on people’s fears, and in that sense you’re right. But I don’t like you lining it up alongside the others as they are “over” in a way the avian influenza isn’t. The avian influenza isn’t the same kind of issue.
August 8, 2008 at 9:06 am
Heraclides,
I lived in a country with bird flu that did have fatalities and there was nowhere near the hysteria there was in New Zealand. My parents called me early one morning to tell me to come home because they heard reports New Zealand was going to close its borders.
Though I have no training, I would hazard a guess that bird flu is much like the other diseases (TB, measles, pneumonia) that kill thousands every day, a scourge of those living in poverty. Through malnutrition their bodies are already vulnerable but lack of access of modern medicine is what makes it so fatal.
August 8, 2008 at 11:25 am
I think you are over-simplifying the concept of “media and public perception”, poneke. I am new to reading this blog, so perhaps you have analysed these issues in more details elsewhere. I’ll set aside the concept of media perception, which seems somewhat problematic to me, and just look at public perception. In New Zealand, there are 4 million (roughly) members of the public. We have different perceptions. I have not polled the NZ public on these things (and I suspect you have not either) but:
I don’t recall that the media predicted “international disaster that would destroy civilisation as we knew it” as a result of Y2K. If they did, I certainly didn’t believe them. I remember a few news reports about survivalists in the US who were preparing to take to the hills. I thought they were crazy. I think a few people did get a bit of extra cash out of the bank in case the ATMs failed on New Year’s Day. The end of civilisation as we knew it?
Unlike stef’s parents, I don’t recall any suggestion that the borders would be closed in the near future. I do recall hearing that the Government developed a plan to deal with avian flu *if* a worldwide outbreak looked likely, and this involved closing the borders is absolutely necessary. Good on them. I’d be disappointed if they hadn’t.
What I would agree is that the media do rather tend to make a fuss about things. Luckily not everyone believes what they read in the newspapers.
Oh, and by the way, Y2K has had some lasting effects. Our VCR clock has to be set to a date in the mid-1990s.
August 8, 2008 at 11:53 am
Mark…you have a VCR?
Kinda last century isn’t it?
August 8, 2008 at 12:30 pm
it certainly seems to think so enzer
August 8, 2008 at 1:04 pm
To be fair to Mr Ivins, he ought to be entitled to the presumption of innocence.
It was not that long ago that a certain Steven Hatfill was the one being accused of this crime. The FBI and New York Times were all over him. I guess that Mr Ivins’ defence might have been that the FBI had got it wrong once, why not again? Or maybe they would have tried to suggest that Hatfill was indeed the correct guy.
http://www.nationalreview.com/mowbray/mowbray082602.asp
August 8, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Many of these issues, Y2k, Bird Flu, etc….. are (or were) genuine issues of real and valid concern….. it is the “media beat up” that makes them out to be far worse than they really are….. it doesnt invent them out of nothing at all.
The REASON that ATMs and lots of other things didnt fall over at midnight was because precautionary measures WERE taken to stop it happening … machines were upgraded, new Bios roms were fitted, programs were patched, etc.
At least part of the impetus to get all the technology makers to do that came from widespread awareness, which was the result of the media….
Y2K was never going to be as bad as some of the more extreme predictions made out…… but the fact that it came to essentially nothing at all was at least partially down to the same media that “beat it up”.
disclosure: I was at the time a repair technician for NCR, a major supplier of ATMs… we burnt and fitted a lot of upgraded eproms in the 6-12 months leading up to 1999
August 8, 2008 at 2:52 pm
I had a fridge magnet produced by the NZ government’s Y2K Readiness Commission that consisted of a Y2K survival kit – water, food, radio, torch, etc.
When we got to December 31, 1999, the message wasn’t “All the bugs have been fixed. Nothing’s going to go wrong.” It was “We think most of the bugs have been fixed but, OMG, stuff still might go wrong!!!!!”
August 8, 2008 at 4:41 pm
And you were supposed to have your water, food, torch, etc. ready for those storms last week as well…. I didnt bother either time…..
But if the worst did happen, I couldnt say “you didnt tell me…” ie. they were covering their ass……
August 8, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Robin: “I had a fridge magnet produced by the NZ government’s Y2K Readiness Commission that consisted of a Y2K survival kit – water, food, radio, torch, etc.”
Yep, definitely the end of civilisation as we know it!
But I must admit I had forgotten that.
August 8, 2008 at 6:25 pm
poneke:Um, nothing happened at Y2K. The media predicted international disaster that would destroy civilisation as we knew it. It did not happen. Not a single plane fell out of the sky. Not a single computer failed.
Not true. There were a few problems and they were reported in the media. They were all minor and chances are there would probably have been quite a few more if no action had been taken. Part of the problem with the media beatup was that no-one was absolutely categorically certain that it was just going to be lots of minor problems that would be resolved quickly or whether there might be one or two more significant problems. Another part of the problem were the apocalyptic nutters – the survivalists and the fundies who think that the world will end in a year with zeroes on its end – who were happy to help sensationalise the story.
The Y2k problem was a lot like fire alarms or machine safety. Realistically most factories do not burn down and most people operate their machines safely. Nevertheless everyone so often a factory does burn down or someone loses an arm in a machine and most countries have policies accordingly – requiring buildings to have fire alarms and machines to have guards and other safety features to prevent those rare situations. The Y2k bug was the same. It should have been reported in the same sort of way as the annual remember-to-check-your-batteries-in-your-smoke-alarm stories.
Its also worth noting that there were probably some legal issues at stake with respect to insurance. If the door to your business gets the date wrong, opens on a sunday whens no one is there, and some kids get in and cause thousnads of dollars worth of damage will you be covered by insurance if it turns out that you had been forewarned of a possible problem and done nothing about it?
In the case of SARS and bird flu people died and, more importantly, we have had global viral pandemics in the past which killed millions. Contrast this with say the whole GE scare which is completely baseless or the A1 milk story which is BS or the MMR and autism story. The “media beat-up” accustaion is valid in all three cases.
August 11, 2008 at 4:27 pm
stef:
Firstly excuse my long post, but I’d like to take the chance to clear up a few things. (Besides my typing is fast enough… even if it is error-prone…!)
Just to be clear, my (main) point wasn’t that the (Western) mainstream media didn’t overdo it or not. I was trying to say-—badly, I guess-—that I think that placing avian influenza now alongside other things that have “ended” such as Y2K, isn’t such a good idea as it perpetuates this vague notion that avian influenza is not going to be an issue now. Avian influenza hasn’t ended, its just not getting media attention (or hype, if that’s your
line!).
I should add that I’m not a virologist, but specialise in an another area of biology; nonetheless I have some basic grounding in this so I think I can make some useful observations.
“Though I have no training, I would hazard a guess that bird flu is much like the other diseases (TB, measles, pneumonia) that kill thousands every day, a scourge of those living in poverty. Through malnutrition their bodies
are already vulnerable but lack of access of modern medicine is what makes it so fatal.”
Before I answer I this I should say that I’ve seen almost exactly this same line played by a number of so-called “anti-vaccine” or pro-”natural health” crowd about any number of diseases, so I’m afraid your paragraph rings a warning bell in my head. Nothing personal to you, its just I’ve seen this line used before.
While some diseases are associated with poverty, not all are and influenzas to the best of my knowledge are not classically diseases of poverty. If you are looking for an example of a disease that is associated with poverty, cholera
would be good example, as its associated with lack of cleanliness and poor infra-structures for water distribution and storage.
(Crowding is another factor in disease spread (not fatality or outcome), which isn’t itself “poverty”, but is often associated with poverty.)
So-called opportunistic parasites/infections are those that haven’t evolved to live in humans as a regular host, but if they infect humans “by chance” they can survive and cause disease. Usually with these sorts of things, they aren’t particularly good at infecting humans and succeed in infecting via an “easy way in”, an open cut, persistent close contact with a person, and so on. In broad terms this is what’s happening (so far) with avian influenza.
A point here, is that the link isn’t with poverty, but with close contact with the “usual” hosts (birds in this case). What is causing the association isn’t that these people are predominantly poor(er) itself, but that they are working with the birds. An easy way to see this is that there are plenty of poor people who are not at risk for avian influenza. I’m also of the impression that, while poor, these people aren’t in same level of poverty as, say, those from some of the “refugee nations”. For what its worth, avian zoonoses and the like are also “traditionally” associated with pigeon fanciers!
The problem with some viral “species” is that they mutate rather rapidly, so that they are a population of constantly changing variations on the parent virus. The large populations of the virus particles and their rapid mutation
means that in time a variation that is able to easily infect humans and/or pass between humans has a fair chance of eventually arising. A fortunate saving grace is that often the highly infectious form is less potent, but I’d think you’d agree it isn’t a terribly bright idea to rely on that alone!
Infectious influenzas (i.e. the human variety, which the avian isn’t (yet)) are passed on to pretty much everyone as they’re not tightly linked to public health or personal cleanliness in the same way that some bacterial diseases
are. That’s where the ‘flu vaccine helps!
Furthermore, one of the striking aspects of the Spanish flu was that the fit, young and healthy were quite vulnerable. In western countries, influenza currently has most impact on the elderly or those with other immune system
issues. On the other hand, if you look at the age distribution of confirmed cases of avian influenza, it predominantly affects children and adults born after about 1965. Leaving aside immunological (etc.) arguments as to why this might be, these are usually the healthiest portion of a population. (i.e. this runs against your suggestion that the “weak” are more vulnerable to it.)
Regards treatment, I’m under the impression that once identified as infected with, or likely to be infected with, avian influenza the patients get treated to what seems to me to be a higher standard than usual to where they live. Despite this fatality rate is still very high: roughly 50% of of those known to be infected die. (This strikingly high fatality rate won’t necessary occur in a variant with human-to-human transmission, but its not something to ignore.)