Papers of Record Unsatisfied

Washington Post and New York Times editorials today find the FBI’s revelations unconvincing, and call for an independent, scientific review of the evidence.

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  2. Dr. Nass, I belive your link to the Washington Post is not working.

    If the FBI wants us to wait up to 2 years to see this new science published, I’m wondering if they had been planning to wait 2 years those same two years to indict Dr. Ivins, especially if they were threatening him with the death penalty?

  3. How stupid does Majidi think we are?

    "It's like cooking a stew in your kitchen. It's
    impossible to get the exact same taste twice in a row simply because of
    the variations of the material you add," he said.

    I mean – does he believe the element silicon sometimes spontaneously
    appears out of nowhere in the spore broth – perhaps from some nuclear
    reaction (I should point out the obvious – elements can only be created
    in nuclear reactions)?? Every component in the standard Detrick spore
    growth can be assayed for silicon content – is there any silicon there,
    yes or no? If so, how much? Could any quantities detected explain the
    amounts in the attack powders? It's all just book-keeping – how many
    moles of silicon are there in the preparation materials – how many in
    the spore powder – analytical chemistry 101.

    This gets worse – this needs to be written about. Any analytical
    chemist would immediately recognize Majidi is casting a fairytale of
    breathtaking audacity.

    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93728829&ft=1&f=1003

    FBI Details Science Tying Ivins To Anthrax Mailings
    by David Kestenbaum

    Listen Now [3 min 56 sec] add to playlist

    In DepthAug. 8, 2008Ivins' Lawyer Rebuts DOJ Anthrax Allegations

    Morning Edition, August 19, 2008 ·
    Ever since its suspect in the anthrax attacks committed suicide, the
    FBI has been under pressure to convince the public and the scientific
    community that Army scientist Bruce Ivins really was behind the 2001
    attacks.
    The case against Ivins rests in part on a complex
    genetic technique. Scientists have been asking for more particulars so
    they can judge for themselves, and Monday, the FBI offered more details
    on the science it used.
    FBI scientists spent more than two hours
    with reporters, doing their best to explain how DNA had led them to a
    vial of anthrax spores in Ivins' lab. The story that emerged is this:
    Early on, investigators noticed something unusual about the spores sent
    through the mail — they were not all identical.
    "The spore
    preparations in the envelope had a specific phenotypic variation. That
    means spores that looked physically different than neighbors," said
    Vahid Majidi, assistant director of the FBI's weapons of mass
    destruction directorate.
    Tracing The Source
    Majidi
    said it was like a bowl of blue M&Ms that had mixed in it a few
    that were brown or green or red. The fact that those were in there was
    like a fingerprint — potentially a way to trace the anthrax in the
    letters back to its source.
    Investigators had collected more than
    1,000 samples from labs in the United States and abroad. When they
    tested them, eight had the genetic fingerprint. The other samples
    didn't match at all.
    "What genetics allowed us to do was to
    determine that there are eight samples out there that exactly match the
    letters," Majidi said. The investigations led them to RMR-1029, the
    name of a flask in Ivins' custody, Majidi said.
    The sample had
    been shared with other researchers, though, and investigators say at
    least one of the matching samples was at a different institution
    entirely. About 100 people had access to those spores, Majidi said.
    Ivins'
    lawyer said this shows the FBI's case is weak, that scores of people
    had access to the same mixture of spores. Majidi responded that the FBI
    looked at those 100 people and ruled out everybody but Ivins.
    'Like Cooking A Stew'
    Questions
    have also been raised about whether Ivins had the necessary tools in
    his lab to make the finely powdered spores found in some of the
    letters. Majidi says the answer is yes. Investigators were able to do
    it. The FBI says it would take one person working for three to seven
    days.
    The only thing they were not able to reproduce was a
    silicon compound that showed up inside the spores used in the attacks.
    But Majidi said that isn't surprising; it can be hard to duplicate
    someone's recipe.
    "It's like cooking a stew in your kitchen. It's
    impossible to get the exact same taste twice in a row simply because of
    the variations of the material you add," he said.
    Addressing Scientists' Questions
    Majidi
    said the FBI's case is "very strong." But when the FBI first began
    talking about the case, scientists had a lot of questions. One group
    even put out a list of points it wanted clarified.
    Thomas Inglesby is deputy director of that group — the Center for
    Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
    "I
    have a lot of confidence in the abilities of the FBI, and they are
    proceeding earnestly in disclosing information and should be commended
    for that," Inglesby said. "But given a case of this importance to the
    country, and given that this kind of science has never been used in a
    court of law before, it's going to be important to present this
    scientific evidence to an independent expert review."
    Inglesby
    was not at the briefing Monday. But he says it sounds like some of his
    questions have been answered. He says the FBI should publish its work
    in a scientific journal. The FBI says it has done some of that already
    and more papers are in the works.

  5. And why does it take ten peer reviewed papers? Can’t they prove their theory with one paper that spells out how the new technology nails Ivins?

  6. Maybe someone suggested the FBI look for these mutations? Not saying someone put them there and then said look for them, just asking.

  7. Re: “stew”

    I take back, partly, my comment on yesterday’s. I wrote the authorities spectrographically tested the attack anthrax but probably not the anthrax from the specific flask, though that would be expected to be done by most people.

    Looking at these new stories, and comments above, and the weasel words of the authorities, I now believe they probably did so test the flask anthrax and did NOT find silicon.

    Also, on the confusion about the no. of flasks. The reporter’s question was likely in the form of “How many flasks was THE anthrax in?”

    The better question is “how many discrete samples did Ivins submit the first time? The second? If one of the second samples didn’t match the first, did you check to see if the “correct” stuff was also in an mismarked, but submitted sample? And so on

  8. Cooking stew: I'm pretty much science impaired but will try to respond to Majidi's "blue M&Ms" theory in the next couple of days. It is insulting in the way people deliver insults when they believe there will be no consequences.

  9. Why don’t we demand that independent scientists (like Sperzel) be allowed to examine the anthrax actually sent in the Leahy and Daschle letters?

  10. I agree with George Washington but Spertzel wouldn’t be considered unbiased since he’s on the record as saying he doubts the anthrax was refined at Detrick.

    It’s up to congress and the senate to make the demands of the FBI. And a full hearing should include the testimonies of Dr. Ivins’s fellow scientists (who are currently under gag order for fear of criminal prosecution) testify.

  11. Elizabeth,

    The M & Ms analogy is silly because any child could find those differently colored ones in a matter of seconds.

    People today are familiar with DNA. The analogy, inadvertently, tended to make the Feds' work sound not that difficult at all.

    The add the candy to the "grassy knoll" snort, there is some heavy fear transpiring.

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