Letters to the Editor
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Uggggh...be very, very careful Glenn, thelastnametaken is right.
That the ABC/Ross reports are completely false is now beyond reasonable dispute. As Cernig noted several days ago, an FBI anthrax investigator, Douglas Beecher, published an August, 2006 article in Applied and Environmental Microbiology which expressly concluded that there were no additives found in the anthrax:
A widely circulated misconception is that the spores were produced using additives and sophisticated engineering supposedly akin to military weapon production. This idea is usually the basis for implying that the powders were inordinately dangerous compared to spores alone (3, 6, 12; J. Kelly, Washington Times, 21 October 2003; G. Gugliotta and G. Matsumoto, The Washington Post, 28 October 2002).
The persistent credence given to this impression fosters erroneous preconceptions, which may misguide research and preparedness efforts and generally detract from the magnitude of hazards posed by simple spore preparations.
That led The New York Times reporter covering the anthrax case, William Broad, to report as follows (full Times Select article here):
Seeking to clear up public confusion, an FBI official has reiterated the bureau's judgment that the anthrax in the letter attacks five years ago bore no special coatings to increase its deadliness and no hallmarks of a military weapon.
Sorry for the format of the quote, all your formatting disappears when copied.
thelastnametaken is right. Beecher's article is very oddly sourced, his reference to the scientists familiar with the sample who say it was just spores is to Gary Matsumoto's article in Science, which discusses the controversy, and pretty much sides with the pro-silica people.
It does so because government scientists from the Army who know how to weaponize anthrax to the state of the art were asked by the FBI to do so attempting to replicate a guy with lots of knowledge working in the basement, and failed -- because of clumping characteristics unlike the samples from the letters. Gary Matsumoto is double cited by Beecher in the part you quote, he is reference (6).
Beecher headed up a study on dispersion. What he really found was that non-weapons grade anthrax could contain enough small particles to allow a contaminating amount to become airborne, an argument for the danger of non-weapons grade anthrax. He enters the debate that Matsumoto talks about on the anti-silica side, but he never tested the specimens for silica, only for their dispersal rates. Someone else did those tests.
And you end up citing Broad's article in the NYT which has as its source Beecher. Broad thus cannot provide confirmation.
Bentonite is a source of the silica used to create the weapons grade version, so would be kaolin. The "lack of aluminum" cited for reasons for blaming Iraq is highly suspect, all bentonite contains aluminum. A really genuine question for the pro-bentonite group would be "Where did the bentonite come from?" since its composition varies. Bentonite from Wyoming would make an Iraqi connection pretty specious.
So Beecher is one side of a controversy, not a final source.
That is not to say ABC's coverage wasn't extremely strange, since the Iraq conclusion isn't clear WHATSOEVER even from the pro-silica side -- where would Iraq get Ames strain? If it required a weapons expert to make the stuff, wouldn't such an expert, who by the notes was trying to get Arab blame, know which clay to use to get it blamed on Arabs?
Anyone care to find the source of the sol-gel, the other ingredient needed? Could be homemade, but it is less commonly available than bentonite. Did the Iraqi's use it? Weapons guys from the "old days" didn't seem to know about it.
The whole thing stinks, and ABC was pretty far out of bounds.