The New York Times has a October 9, 2011, article by William Broad and Scott Shane titled "Scientists' Analysis Disputes F.B.I. Closing of Anthrax Case."
It repeats the old conspiracy theory that the element tin found in some samples of the attack anthrax could indicate a supersophisticated weaponization process that Bruce Ivins couldn't have accomplished all by himself.
At the very end of the article, it also says that tin is a very common meaningless contaminant in laboratories and that spores commonly pick up all kinds of contaminants. But, the reader is left with the idea that the tin could be very meaningful and change the entire case.
The question is: How much money should the government spend on resolving a question that will NEVER be resolved to the satisfaction of conspiracy theorists?
Ed
The government spent billions after 9/11 on bio research. This was supposed to give the government the ability to measure the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the attack anthrax or other pathogens.
ReplyDeleteThe money was not spent for the purpose of stimulus, it was spent so that the scientific community would have the ability to measure and replicate the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of attack anthrax.
The government has already spent billions on bio science for this purpose and the FBI took some of the money or other agencies did or let out grants for this purpose. If they can't measure and replicate the attack anthrax properties, then what are they measuring and replicating? Nothing it would appear. So the money is wasted if they can't even measure and replicate the attack anthrax that stimulated the billions in grants in bioscience.
The FBI in effect promised Congress to measure and replicate the physical, chemical and biological properties of the attack anthrax as part of getting its share of all the money spent after the anthrax attacks. They have committed fraud on Congress if they don't finish this work of replication.
It takes many attempts to post these comments. You might want to consider switching to Wordpress. It takes so many attempts to get through that many people may simply give up.
ReplyDeleteEven this second comment right after the first is making me repeat everything to select profile, etc. And quite often it doesn't take and you have to repeat it.
I have to go through multiple popup screens over and over to post. I don't think many people will put up with this.
Still trying. I went through some and then a preview and it didn't preview it just came back to the enter text screen. Now hitting preview again.
Still trying.
Old Atlantic Lighthouse wrote: "It takes many attempts to post these comments. You might want to consider switching to Wordpress."
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what you mean. I just click on "Post Comment" and it works. But, I typically click on "Preview" first to make sure that everything looks okay. If it doesn't, I click on "edit" and fix it.
As I recall, I didn't like the method used on Lew Weinstein's site because it didn't allow you to edit comments before posting them. I use italics and bold and embedded links. It's very difficult to do that without being able to check things before actually posting them.
I'll click on "Post Comment" now and see what happens. If I make no further response, it worked fine.
Ed
It worked fine, but I'm posting another message just to try to figure out what you are doing.
ReplyDeleteI don't have to do any "select profile" or go through any popups. But, that may be because it detects that I'm the "owner" of the blog.
Yeah, I can't figure out your problem. Dr. Nass uses blogspot, and people don't seem to have any problems there. This should be the same, unless I haven't properly set some switch.
ReplyDeleteIt is not the same at all as Nass's blog here.
ReplyDeleteStep 1, comment as select wordpress
step 2 have to type in oldatlanticlighthouse
step 3 click preview
step 3b click preview again, nothing happened first time. Cycles around does nothing.
step 3c click preview again.
Right away again, I still have to
ReplyDeleteselect wordpress
type in oldatlanticlighthouse
Okay, I'm going to use the name "Evidence Examiner" for this post.
ReplyDeleteI did as I do on Nass's site. I clicked on Name/URL in the "commment as" box and then just typed E and Firefox shows me the complete name "Evidence Examiner," and I click on it to use it. It's there from when I use Nass's site. That's the only place where I've ever used "Evidence Examiner" as my name.
And I have no idea why you have problems with "preview." I don't have those problems.
I click on "Preview," it immediately shows me the edited version of the comment. If I want to change the comment, I click on "edit." If not, I click on "Post Comment."
I never have to go back to "select wordpress" or anything like that.
I can't fix the problem if I don't know what the problem is. There are lots of options and switches and settings that I haven't experimented with. And, I'd probably have to go down to the library to use their computer to see how things work on computers other than mine.
I hope this helps.
This blog is just an "experiment" to see if it's worthwhile. And, so far you're to only other person to use it.
Ed
I just posted some comments to Nass's site. The only significant difference I see is that the comments are posted to a separate window. On this site the comments are posted just below the last posted comment.
ReplyDeleteAnd, of course, Nass's site is moderated. So, here everything appears immediately. On Nass's site you sometimes have to wait for a week to see your post --- if Nass decides to let it get posted.
ReplyDeleteEd
OldAtlanticLighthouse wrote: "If they can't measure and replicate the attack anthrax properties, then what are they measuring and replicating? Nothing it would appear. So the money is wasted if they can't even measure and replicate the attack anthrax that stimulated the billions in grants in bioscience."
ReplyDeleteThey were looking for evidence. They weren't really trying to "replicate" anything. Replicating things proves nothing that is useable in court, unless you can also prove that the technique used for the replication is the exact same technique the culprit used.
Replicating the tin or the silicon signature doesn't prove that it was replicated in the same way the culprit did it.
There doesn't appear to be any way to prove how the culprit did it, since there are multiple possible ways. So, the question is: Why spend the money?
There's no point in trying to convince the conspiracy theorists that it proves that Ivins could have created spores the same way. They'll just argue that it proves nothing, because it doesn't prove that Ivins knew the technique.
They did a whole lot of tests using techniques that Ivins was known to have known. None produced the tin and silicon signatures. So, Ivins used an unusual technique.
The facts indicate that the culprit used spores that he took from plates that had been sitting in autoclave bags for weeks. That is a VERY unusual thing to do. And there doesn't seem to be any way to prove that Ivins did things that way. In other words, you might find the technique, but you can't tie the technique to Ivins.
Ed
When a bioweapon is used on the Capitol Hill complex of the United States, then the government is supposed to finish the job of replicating how it was made.
ReplyDeleteIt also has to finish the job of tracing the DNA lineages to confirm the lineage starting at Dugway and back to the cow in Texas, probably on Perry's ranch, if they can.
Part of the reason for this is to send the message to other powers that the US will finish the job when our inner sanctum is attacked. Russia and China are likely trying to replicate the silicon and tin signature.
ReplyDeleteThe US must as well to avoid a Silicon Tin Replication Gap, STR Gap. We can not be soft on Silicon Tin Replication in anthrax. We can not have an STR Gap with Moscow and Beijing.
OldAtlanticLighthouse wrote: "When a bioweapon is used on the Capitol Hill complex of the United States, then the government is supposed to finish the job of replicating how it was made."
ReplyDeleteWhat if there could be a hundred different ways to create the same results and no possible way to determine exactly which of those ways Ivins used?
Ed
Start with one. Zero is not a solution. Are China and Russia going to not work on it because there might be more than one way?
ReplyDeleteThis tin and silicon "signature" is lab contamination. I seriously doubt that Russian and China are trying to repeat lab contamination.
ReplyDeleteThe attack spores were NOT weaponized. It doesn't make any difference how many conspiracy theorists think that the spores were weaponized, they still weren't.
Ed
When you say it is lab contamination you don't mean every reading of silicon in all the letters is lab contamination? Haven't you said that most of the spores contain some silicon? So you are talking about a single reading as lab contamination?
ReplyDeleteThe overall level of silicon even if you throw out the highest reading of silicon is still high in all the letters is my understanding.
OldAtlanticLighthouse wrote; "When you say it is lab contamination you don't mean every reading of silicon in all the letters is lab contamination?"
ReplyDeleteI was using the term "lab contamination" to refer to anything that came from the environment and was not an intended part of the end product.
There was no intent to add silicon or tin to the attack spores. The silicon (and probably the tin) were in the growth media. Ivins grew the spores under unusual conditions (primarily much lower temperatures than normal) and the slow growing conditions caused the bacteria to take in silicon (and probably tin) from the media.
If there's something in your end product that you didn't intend to be there, and it came from something in the lab, it's called "lab contamination."
"The overall level of silicon even if you throw out the highest reading of silicon is still high in all the letters is my understanding."
It's my understanding it's high because the normal lab practice is to grow spores at incubator temperatures. And that results in very low silicon content.
But, if you grow spores at room temperature, or under "natural" conditions, it's my understanding that the silicon readings will be very close or higher than what was found in the attack anthrax.
The problem is: There are no scientific reports which specifically address this question. So, there is nothing to cite to counter the arguments from the conspiracy theorists. It's just observations that scientists have made and have told me about. Anthrax expert Sergei Popov for example.
The FBI reports say over and over again that the spores were grown under unusual conditions -- they appear to have grown very slowly. Growing slowly indicates growing at lower temperatures.
Ed
Silicon is not considered to be an essential nutrient for Bacillus bacteria, so there are no studies on what causes or prevents anthrax bacteria from absorbing silicon.
ReplyDeletePrior to the attacks, no one cared about silicon in the spores. There were just a couple reports from 1980 where scientists mentioned finding silicon in Bacillus spores but had no idea how the silicon got there. Both reports suggested it came from "lab contamination." And that was the end of the issue. There was no "investigation."
Ed
This is just a test to see how some options I've chosen work.
ReplyDeleteGrowth lab contamination is where the silicon and tin is in the growth lab by happenstance, becomes embedded in or on the spore or in material sent with the spore and is in the letters while in transit.
ReplyDeleteTest lab contamination is where the silicon and tin are not in the letters while in transit but are added afterwards at the lab that measures or tests the properties of the material in the letters whether spores or other.
Your position is that there was growth lab contamination resulting in valid test lab measurements of silicon and tin in the letter contents?
What about the high silicon reading in NY Post? Was that test lab contamination such as a shard of glass or the reading, whatever caused it was material whether glass or not in the letters while in transit?
Hmm. I received an email indicating that OldAtlanticLighthouse (OAL) posted a message, but that message hasn't showed up here. But, I'll respond anyway, since I have the copy from the automatic email. (I have no idea why OAL has posting problems.)
ReplyDeleteOAL wrote: "Your position is that there was growth lab contamination resulting in valid test lab measurements of silicon and tin in the letter contents?"
Yes. Obviously. The FBI reports show the measurements.
"What about the high silicon reading in NY Post? Was that test lab contamination such as a shard of glass or the reading, whatever caused it was material whether glass or not in the letters while in transit?"
It could be. We have no explanation for the readings.
The key points, however, are:
(1) The unusual readings from the New York Post powder pertained to a crude powder that had not been refined and 90% of the powder consisted of dried slime.
(2) The New York Post powder was handled by other labs before it got to the FBI. It's my understanding that it was first handled by the New York Department of Health. They then sent it to the CDC. And the CDC sent it to USAMRIID. USAMRIID didn't have any capability to test for elements, so they would have used AFIP. But, in this case, they may have irradiated a sample and turned that sample over to the FBI labs. Lots of things can happen to a sample that has been handled that much.
(3) The refined powders in the Leahy and Daschle letters contained much smaller amounts of silicon and tin, and both elements appear to have come from the growth media. Silicon was found inside the coats of spores that were still inside the "mother germs," so it MUST have gotten there during the sporulation process, not after the spores were formed.
(4) There is no known "weaponization" process that involves putting silicon and tin inside a spore.
(5) There is no known "weaponization" benefit to having silicon and tin inside a spore.
Ed
I should have added: All known "weaponization" techniques involve silica particles on the OUTSIDE of spores. The primary purpose of the silica is to keep the spores dry and separated so that they don't stick together. If they stick together, they become large clumps that do not stick inside the lungs and do not do the damage that individual spores do.
ReplyDeleteEd
Ah! OldAtlanticLighthouse's posts were being detected by Google as SPAM. I checked the "SPAM inbox" and found OAL's message there. It asked me if it was SPAM or not. I clicked on NOT. And, the message immediately appeared in the thread.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if that means that his messages will no longer appear as SPAM or if I have to go to the SPAM inbox every time he posts.
Time will tell.
I'm not used to checking all the options and features. So, this is a learning experience for me. Sorry about that.
Ed
OldAtlanticLighthouse posted this message to Lew Weinstein's web site, even though almost no one ever answers questions there:
ReplyDelete"Supposition v ready to indict Ivins when he died. At the point of getting an indictment they should be ready to go to trial. That would include:
1) Being able to replicate the silicon and tin in the letter anthrax.
2) Show that the processing steps could be done in the BSL3 without detection in the times stated.
3) Account for all records of his activity in the lab during the times stated he was processing letter anthrax.
They were going to indict him without any of this being done?"
Answer: Yes an no.
(1) The DOJ lawyers probably wouldn't bother to replicate the silicon and tin signatures. They'd just refer to the scientific papers from 1980 which showed similar silicon "signatures" in spores, and they'd use other scientific papers to show that tin is a common contaminant when making spores.
(2) The time Ivins spent on creating the attack spores is open to debate. It's very likely that Ivins was accumulating spores for as much as a year before the attacks. But, I understand that the DOJ had at least a half dozen scientists lined up to state that they could duplicate the attack powders using the equipment Ivins had available and in a reasonable time frame.
(3) The records of Ivins' activities in his lab during the evenings and weekends in question would have been made available to his lawyers via subpoena. It would have been up to his lawyers to show that they somehow give Ivins an alibi. The DOJ would provide testimony from the FBI agents who heard Ivins' himself stated that he didn't have any explanation for being in the lab, and that he just went there to get away from his home life. The DOJ lawyers would state that the notebooks and other materials didn't explain what he was doing. It would be up to Ivins' lawyer to prove that they do explain what he was doing.
Ed