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All: There has been some good discussion here on the presence or absence of additives. That is really the key thing that needs to be known. If these additves are present, then it is almost inconceivable that Ivins prepared the spores himself.
The answers to these questions should be easy to ascertain - it's just a question of reading the original lab reports. Either the spores were coated with silica or they were not. It is trivially easy to do this test with a combined SEM/EDX analyzer - it can be done within minutes. Not many people realize that Douglas Beecher's paper has been rebutted in the same journal it was published in (see below). Also, not many know that the editor of the journal himself later stated that the extra sentence he threw into the paper on no additves almost as an afterthought did not pass the standard - Beecher failed to provide any data. Beecher just sort of said "there's no additives - trust me" - kind of a big no-no for an academic publication. The orginal reviewer must be held responsible for this.
see good discussion here on the flip-flopping of addtives/ no additves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks
Controversy over coatings and additives
The August 2006 issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology contained an article written by Dr. Douglas Beecher of the FBI labs in Quantico, VA.[34] The article, titled "Forensic Application of Microbiological Culture Analysis to Identify Mail Intentionally Contaminated with Bacillus anthracis spores ," states "Individuals familiar with the compositions of the powders in the letters have indicated that they were comprised simply of spores purified to different extents." The article also specifically criticizes "a widely circulated misconception" "that the spores were produced using additives and sophisticated engineering supposedly akin to military weapon production." The harm done by this misconception is described this way: "This idea is usually the basis for implying that the powders were inordinately dangerous compared to spores alone. 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." However, after this article had appeared the editor of Applied and Environmental Microbiology, L. Nicholas Ornston, stated that he was uncomfortable with Beecher's statement in the article since it had no evidence to back it up and contained no citation.[35]
In August 2007 Dr. Kay Mereish, UN Chief, Biological Planning and Operations, published a letter in Applied and Environmental Microbiology titled "Unsupported Conclusions on the Bacillus anthracis Spores".[37] This letter, published in the same journal as FBI scientist Douglas Beecher (see paragraph above), points out that the statements made by Dr. Beecher in his article on the lack of additives were not backed up with any data. She suggested that Dr. Beecher publish a paper with analytical data showing the absence of silica or other additives. Such data would include SEM images of the pure spores as well as EDX spectra and EDX images showing the absence of any foreign additives such as silica or the elements silicon and oxygen. Dr. Mereish referenced a 2006 CBRN, Counter-Proliferation and Response meeting in Paris where a presenter announced that an additive was present in the attack anthrax that affected the spore's electrical charges.
