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All this hype over the lyophylizer is just more smoke and mirrors. Fifty years ago I was using a lyophylizer quite routinely for freeze-drying benign biological material. Jeebus, that's how they make instant coffee! The only difference in this case is that you could be dehydrating a virulent pathogen so you'd better be careful how and where you do it.
Apparently Ivins used the lyophylizer primarily to dry his vaccine samples using an accepted technique. Not sure I'd want to do it in my kitchen but it's certainly nothing to get their knickers in a twist over. And he signed out for it. Oh, but I forgot -- he sometimes worked late at night and on weekends. Dedicated scientists never do that kind of thing!
