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>From: " Barbara Herskovitz " <bherk@...>

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> " Sick Buildings Information & Support " < >

>Subject: [] Army Lost Track of Anthrax Bacteria

>Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 11:56:19 -0500

>

>Army Lost Track of Anthrax Bacteria

>Specimens at Md.'s Fort Detrick May Have Been Misplaced or Stolen

>By Rick Weiss and Joby Warrick

>Washington Post Staff Writers

>Monday, January 21, 2002; Page A01

>The Army's premier biowarfare research facility at Fort Detrick, Md., lost

>track of more than two dozen potentially dangerous biological specimens

>around 1991, including some containing the microbe that causes anthrax,

>according to scientists who worked there at the time and documents from a

>1992 internal Army investigation that looked into the loss.

>Moreover, Army investigators were told in 1992 that a Fort Detrick

>biological warfare research laboratory apparently had been the site of

>unauthorized anthrax research during weekends and evenings earlier that

>year, according to the documents, filed as part of a pending lawsuit.

>And in contrast to recent assurances by Army officials that Detrick has not

>dealt with the dangerous, powdered form of anthrax spores in recent

>decades, such powders were, in fact, inadvertently produced in the lab

>during the 1990s, according to a scientist who worked there at the time and

>who has since filed a lawsuit, alleging discrimination, against the Army.

>The powders were produced while research on less dangerous, " wet " anthrax

>spores was being conducted, the scientist said.

>The spore-laden letters that were sent to members of Congress and media

>outlets last fall contained a form of dry anthrax spores similar to the

>Fort Detrick byproduct. Five people were killed and 13 others are known to

>have been sickened in the attacks.

>The unauthorized weekend work, which is not known to have involved the dry

>form of the bacteria, was accidentally uncovered when a worker noticed that

>someone had tampered with a device that would have revealed that the

>equipment had been used after hours, according to the Army investigation.

>The apparent improprieties occurred at a difficult time in the Army lab's

>history -- when there were hard feelings over personnel issues and even a

>degree of internecine warfare among some workers -- a fact that makes it

>difficult today to weigh conflicting explanations for the inventory

>disparities and the apparent tampering with equipment.

>It is possible that specimens may simply have been misplaced, according to

>one source who worked in the Fort Detrick lab and who spoke to The

>Washington Post yesterday on condition of anonymity.

>On the other hand, that source and others said, the emerging details are

>consistent with the increasingly popular hypothesis that last fall's

>bioterrorist attacks were the work of a current or former Fort Detrick

>scientist.

>At a minimum, according to several sources who worked there at the time,

>the personal rivalries and less than fully vigilant security practices

>offered adequate incentive and opportunity for an employee to make off with

>at least a few potentially deadly microbial samples.

>Officials with the Army and the FBI declined to comment on the revelations

>yesterday.

>Congress did not impose today's strict security measures for research on

>dangerous microbes until 1996. And at the time of the apparent breaches,

>several high-ranking people associated with the U.S. Army Medical Research

>Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), which oversaw the work at Fort

>Detrick, were facing allegations of racial discrimination.

>Details of the situation at Fort Detrick in the early 1990s, many of them

>first published yesterday by the Hartford Courant, are contained in papers

>filed as part of a 1998 discrimination lawsuit against the Army by an

>Egyptian American scientist, Ayaad Assaad, a veterinary physiologist who

>worked at Fort Detrick for nearly a decade before being let go in 1997,

>during a round of staff cuts.

>The United States is a signatory to a 1972 international convention that

>prohibits research on offensive biological weapons, and the Fort Detrick

>lab has been officially devoted to defensive research since 1969. The 1992

>Army investigation grew out of an internal audit conducted in February of

>that year that found 27 specimens missing from the lab -- including some

>containing the bacteria that cause anthrax. It is unclear whether any of

>the missing specimens belong to the Ames strain, the strain used in last

>fall's attacks. But Fort Detrick officials have acknowledged that the Ames

>strain was under study at the lab. The whereabouts of at least some of the

>27 specimens remain a mystery.

>It also remains unclear whether those specimens -- mostly tissues from

>animals that had been intentionally infected with the agents that cause

>anthrax, ebola and other diseases -- contained any viable microbes. The

>process of preparing them for study under a microscope typically requires

>subjecting them to toxic chemicals.

>But even if those specimens pose no danger, their disappearance suggests

>that other, dangerous samples may have been subject to removal without

>authorization, former Fort Detrick workers said.

>A woman who worked in the laboratory told Army investigators in February

>1992 that she had seen evidence of unauthorized activities in the lab. An

>odometer-like device that records the use of a high-powered microscope had

>apparently been tampered with in a way that had concealed its use during

>evenings or weekends, according to court papers.

>One Monday in early 1992, the worker found that the machine had apparently

>been used over the weekend and that the previous user had failed to close a

>computer file used to label microscope slides. The label name she saw on

>the computer screen was " Antrax [sic] 005, " according to court papers.

>Two former USAMRIID employees contacted by The Post yesterday described

>becoming aware of the missing bacteria either personally or through court

>records. Oldenburg, a former Fort Detrick lab technician who now works

>as a detective in Phoenix, recalled being detailed to help track down the

>specimens.

> " Some anthrax was missing, and there may have been other " types of

>microbes, Oldenburg said.

>Assaad learned of the search through USAMRIID documents turned over to him

>as part of his lawsuit, which alleges that the Army discriminated against

>him because of his Arab heritage.

>Assaad, who now works for the Environmental Protection Agency, described

>security at Fort Detrick in the early 1990s as " very lax, " compromised by

>weak policies and what he described as improper relationships between some

>managers and their subordinates. He said it would have been relatively easy

>for someone working at USAMRIID's labs to walk out with deadly pathogens.

>Assaad also asserted that a dry, powdered form of anthrax was present at

>Fort Detrick, contradicting repeated recent statements by Army officials

>that only a liquid form of anthrax was used at the Frederick, Md.,

>facility. Assaad said that during the process of creating a wet aerosol of

>anthrax for lab experiments, small amounts of anthrax spores would

>precipitate and cling to the sides of lab equipment. " It dried to a powder

>as fine as any you could make, " Assaad said. " You could collect some of it

>using a Kleenex or your finger. "

>The anthrax spores in the letters sent to Sens. A. Daschle (D-S.D.)

>and J. Leahy (D-Vt.) were in the form of a fine powder --

>particularly dangerous because the powdered form spreads more easily and

>penetrates the lung's deepest passages. Fort Detrick workers were not at

>risk of infection because they were vaccinated.

>Assaad was interviewed by FBI agents on Oct. 3, shortly before news of the

>first anthrax attacks broke, after an anonymous note accused him of being a

>bioterrorist. The FBI concluded the letter was a hoax, but the timing of

>the incident makes Assaad suspect that the writer had foreknowledge of the

>anthrax-laced letters sent to New York and Washington and the letter

>believed to have been sent to Florida.

> " After the attacks, I called the FBI to offer my assistance, but I never

>heard back from them, " Assaad said.

>© 2002 The Washington Post Company

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