Strange Doings at Army Lab

[Guest guest]

Newsday 1/21/2002

Strange Doings at Army Lab

Inquiry: Anthrax specimens lost

By Jack Dolan and Dave Altimari

THE HARTFORD COURANT. The Hartford Courant is a Tribune Co. newspaper.

January 21, 2002

Lab specimens of anthrax spores, Ebola virus and other pathogens disappeared

from the Army's biological warfare research facility in the early 1990s,

documents from an internal Army inquiry show.

The 1992 inquiry also found evidence that someone secretly was entering a

laboratory late at night to conduct unauthorized research, apparently

involving anthrax. A numerical counter on a piece of lab equipment had been

rolled back to hide work done by the mystery researcher, who left the

misspelled label " antrax " in the machine's electronic memory, according to

the documents obtained by The Hartford Courant.

Experts disagree on whether the lost specimens pose a danger. An Army

spokeswoman said they do not because they effectively would have been killed

by chemicals in preparation for microscopic study. A prominent molecular

biologist said, however, that resilient anthrax spores could be retrieved

from a treated specimen.

In addition, a scientist who once worked at the Army facility said that

because of poor inventory controls, it is possible some of the specimens went

missing while still viable, before being treated.

Not in dispute is what the incidents say about disorganization and lack of

security in some quarters of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of

Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., in the 1990s. Fort Detrick is

believed to be the original source of the Ames strain of anthrax used in the

mail attacks last fall.

It is unclear whether Ames was among the strains of anthrax in the 27 sets of

specimens reported missing at Fort Detrick after an inventory in 1992. One of

the 27 sets has been found and is in the lab; an Army official said it might

have been in use when the inventory was taken. The fate of the rest remains

unclear.

A former commander of the lab, Lt. Col. Langford, said in an

interview he did not believe any of the missing specimens were ever found.

The Army spokeswoman, Caree Vander-Linden, said last week that in addition to

the one complete specimen set, some samples from several others were located,

but she could not provide a fuller accounting because of incomplete records

regarding the disposal of specimens.

" In January of 2002, it's hard to say how many of those were missing in

February of 1991, " she said, adding that it's likely some were simply thrown

out with the trash.

The 27 specimens were reported missing in February 1992, after Langford took

command of what was viewed by Fort Detrick brass as a dysfunctional pathology

lab.

Langford, who no longer works at Fort Detrick, said he ordered an inventory

after he recognized there was " little or no organization " and " little or no

accountability " in the lab.

A factor in Langford's decision to order an inventory was his suspicion -

never proved - that someone in the lab had been tampering with records of

specimens to conceal unauthorized research. " It turned out that there was

quite a bit of stuff that was unaccounted for, " Langford told investigators,

according to a transcript of his April 1992 interview.

The analysis of Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a molecular biologist at the

State University of New York investigating the recent anthrax attacks for the

Federation of American Scientists, has been widely reported. It concludes

that the culprit is probably a government insider, possibly someone from Fort

Detrick.

More troubling to Langford than the missing specimens was what investigators

called " surreptitious " work being done in the pathology lab late at night and

on weekends.

Dr. Beth Downs told investigators that she had come to work several

times in January and February of 1992 to find that someone had been in the

lab at odd hours, clumsily using the sophisticated electron microscope to

conduct some kind of off-the-books research.

After one weekend that February, Downs discovered that someone had been in

the lab using the microscope to take photos of slides, and apparently had

forgotten to reset a feature on the microscope that imprints each photo with

a label. After taking a few pictures of her own slides that morning, Downs

was surprised to see " Antrax 005 " emblazoned on her negatives.

Downs also noted that an automatic counter on the camera, like an odometer on

a car, had been rolled back to hide the fact that pictures had been taken

over the weekend. It is unclear if the Army ever got to the bottom of the

incident, and some lab insiders believed concerns about it were overblown.

Documents from the inquiry show that one unauthorized person who was observed

entering the lab building at night was Langford's predecessor, Lt. Col.

Philip Zack, who at the time no longer worked at Fort Detrick. A surveillance

camera recorded Zack being let in at 8:40 p.m. on Jan. 23, 1992, apparently

by Dr. n Rippy, a lab pathologist, according to a report filed by a

security guard.

Zack could not be reached for comment. In an interview this week, Rippy said

that she doesn't remember letting Zack in, but that he occasionally stopped

by after he was transferred off the base. " I can tell you, there was no

suspicious stuff going on there with specimens. "

Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.