Sunday, March 18, 2012

Mar. 18 - Mar. 24, 2012 Discussions

The main comment I wrote on Sunday, March 18 was about my finally getting started on the second draft of my new book. I'm currently trying to figure out what to write about the "non-demotion" that Ivins seems to have been informed of in August 2001. Ivins seems to have been told that Patricia Worsham was going to be promoted to become his supervisor, effective in early 2002. I know Ivins knew of the change in September 2001, because he wrote a nasty letter related to the "non-demotion" on Sept. 27, 2001. But, I've only got an "impression" or just a "feeling" that he was informed of it in August. He was going to be working for a woman, which would be a real problem for Ivins. And, that woman was younger and less experienced than Ivins was. That would have been a real blow to Ivins' ego, and a bigger motivator than a lot of other concerns he had at the time.

However, another topic for discussion on this blog could be the comment I wrote on Saturday, when I mentioned how an Anthrax Truther on Lew Weinstein's web site "outed" another Truther's "suspect" and criticized a third Truther's theory at the same time. And he explained that the third Anthrax Truther's "suspect" is a fourth Anthrax Truther.

Publicly naming a Truther's "suspect" was a true breach of confidence, but the Truther on Weinstein's site has also made it a practice to repeatedly and publicly name a suspect I had back in 2001 (He got the name from newspaper articles, not from me). I had to delete a post on this blog when he tried to do it here.

I thought the posting on Lew's site was a good illustration of how the Truthers each has his own suspect, and each thinks all the others are totally wrong. The only thing they agree about is that the FBI must be wrong, because if the FBI is right, then every one of their own individual theories must be wrong. And none of them believes his own theory can be wrong.

73 comments:

  1. Of more interest to me today is from yesterday's comment section:
    --------------
    March 17, 2012 - I was amused when I noticed on Lew Weinstein's web site this morning that an Anthrax Truther described the upcoming panel discussion at the University of Virginia as a "circle jerk" at which David Willman is scheduled to be a panelist.
    ----------------------------------------------
    My thoughts:

    1)though as it was published Willman's book was condemned, as I remember it, en masse by the gang at Lew Weinstein's blog, I tried to take a broader view: look for what was GOOD about Willman's book.

    2)that approach has been very rewarding: not only is Willman a good narrator, but he was punctilious about the course of the investigation, and countless small details that give one a better feel for the case. Overall, I prefer going to Willman's book (MIRAGE MAN) over going to the AMERITHRAX INVESTIGATIVE SUMMARY, as I regard the latter as (mostly) PR stuff, whereas I sense that Willman is TRYING to be fair to both sides.
    (END PART I)

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  2. (Part II)
    3)the panel discussion includes

    The Amerithrax Expert Behavioral Analysis Panel participants who will speak at the Law School include:

    • Dr. Greg Saathoff, chairman, Amerithrax Expert Behavioral Analysis Panel; executive director, U.Va. Critical Incident Analysis Group; associate professor of research, U.Va. School of Medicine
    • Dr. Ronald Schouten, director, Law & Psychiatry Service, Harvard Medical School
    • Dr. Christopher Holstege, co-chairman, U.Va. Critical Incident Analysis Group; director, U.Va. Division of Medical Toxicology
    ----------------------------------------------
    Long-term this group will have discredited panels of this sort from weighing in on crimal matters in the future. (Saathoff in particular seems not to know what "conflict of interest" means).

    4)apparently no one on the panel opposes the Ivins-did-it hypothesis and that makes for a dull conformity, rather than a spirited disagreement.

    ReplyDelete
  3. And it's plenty clear that the panel (of psychiatrists) is a creature of Saathoff:
    http://pubrecord.org/nation/9141/psychologizing-bruce-ivins-exposing/

    Of particular interest from the above link is this:
    ---------------------------------
    Who are the Behavioral Experts?

    As an article at the Los Angeles Times points out, without further elaborating, they weren’t all behavioral experts:

    The behavioral panel was formed in late 2009 at the suggestion of Saathoff, people familiar with the matter said. Saathoff appointed the remaining panelists: five other psychiatrists, two officials from the American Red Cross and a physician-toxicologist.

    The addition of the Red Cross members is curious, especially since Ivins is accused of joining the Red Cross at the time of the anthrax mailings to gain self-importance as an anthrax expert, and to appear “as a prophet and as a defender of the nation” to a woman he was reportedly obsessed with. Indeed, the report has a nine-page appendix dedicated to Ivins and the Red Cross, which has not been published publicly.(continued)
    ----------------------------------------------

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  4. Richard Rowley wrote: "4)apparently no one on the panel opposes the Ivins-did-it hypothesis and that makes for a dull conformity, rather than a spirited disagreement."

    I think this forum and others have proved that there is no such thing as a "spirited disagreement" with people who do not believe Ivins did it. They have no facts to support their beliefs. They just don't believe the evidence. They want different evidence. They want the FBI to investigate the people who they think did it.

    That doesn't lead to "spirited disagreements." It leads to speech-making and pointless arguments which basically just say the same nonsense over and over

    "It's what the facts say."
    "I don't believe the facts."
    "But, it's what the facts say."
    "I don't believe the facts."
    "But, it's what the fact say."
    "I don't believe the facts."

    And, now you're saying that you don't believe the experts either, because you didn't pick the experts. You wanted experts who do not agree with the FBI.

    No intelligent argument or "spirited disagreement" can come from opinion versus opinion discussions OR facts versus opinion discussions. Intelligent arguments and "spirited disagreements" come from discussions of facts versus facts.

    Ed

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  5. Partial post by Mister Lake:
    ------------
    "It's what the facts say."
    "I don't believe the facts."
    "But, it's what the facts say."
    "I don't believe the facts."
    "But, it's what the fact say."
    "I don't believe the facts."
    =======================================================
    That's your caricature of what the discussion goes like. That's NOT what I see at this blog, at Meryl Nass's blog, at Lew Weistein's blog etc.

    It's clear that Mister Lake has a love/hate relationship with discussions: can't live without 'em, can't live with 'em.

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  6. Partial post by Mister Lake:
    --------------
    No intelligent argument or "spirited disagreement" can come from opinion versus opinion discussions[...]
    ========================================================
    How could even qualified psychiatrists who DON'T have a conflict of interest* give anything but an opinion about a 'patient' they have never examined? (And even when psychiatrists------and not just psychiatrists!-------DO examine a patient their 'diagnosis' is just an (educated) opinion. Hence the expression: seek a second opinion (diagnosis/prognosis).

    *And Saathoff DID have a conflict of interest: the panel which he appointed and headed was "reviewing" his own forensic psychiatry work in Amerithrax.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Richard Rowley wrote: "It's clear that Mister Lake has a love/hate relationship with discussions: can't live without 'em, can't live with 'em."

    That's about it. I have had many discussions where facts are discussed, and they are absolutely fascinating and educational. They can be Ah HA! moments that you remember forever.

    I've also had many discussions where it's opinion versus facts or opinion versus opinion, and they rarely accomplish much. They're generally very tedious. The mostly they can do is point out different views of things, which sometimes can lead to something worthwhile.

    The discussions on Meryl Nass's blog and Lew Weinstein's blog aren't really discussions. They're preachings. 99 percent of the time they're just DXer asking questions that no one bothers to try to answer because the questions seem pointless. The remaining 1 percent of the time it's someone else preaching a sermon or complimenting someone else's sermon.

    Actual discussions on those forums are very rare. I try to start a discussion from time to time, but Lew banned me from his site, and Dr. Nass doesn't like anything that disagrees with her beliefs, so things often wait for days before they show up.

    Ed

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  8. Richard Rowley wrote: "How could even qualified psychiatrists who DON'T have a conflict of interest* give anything but an opinion about a 'patient' they have never examined?"

    Yes, it's an opinion, but it's an EXPERT opinion. Expert opinions can be evidence in court. Ordinary opinions are not evidence.

    Expert opinions are about how an expert views something based upon his accepted expertise. Psychiatrists are experts on psychology, so they go into court to present information about the symptoms of mental diseases and how some individual does or does not show those symptoms.

    It's a presentation of facts. XXX is a symptom of YYY, and ZZZ had such symptoms.

    Since Bruce Ivins was already dead when Dr. Saathoff got involved, there was no way for him to actually examine Ivins. But he had the reports from Ivins' psychiatrists and counselors to work with. And, he had all the FBI interviews of Ivins to add to the analysis.

    The fact that Saathoff agrees with the FBI or was paid for his expert opinion doesn't mean he has a "conflict of interest." Experts are paid to state their opinions in court all the time. They have no other reason to do it. The defense can pay "experts" to give one expert opinion, and the prosecution can pay other "experts" to give contrary opinions. Neither has a "conflict of interest." They just have differing opinions.

    "And Saathoff DID have a conflict of interest: the panel which he appointed and headed was "reviewing" his own forensic psychiatry work in Amerithrax."

    That's NOT a conflict of interest. A conflict of interest means that Saathoff cannot be impartial. The fact that he did previous work on the subject has nothing to do with whether he would be partial or impartial. It just means he had the expertise he was paid to present.

    Ed

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  9. None of Ivins' own psychiatrists would have contradicted Dr. Saathoff. He used their analyses to create the panel's report.

    The only conflict I see is that Dr. Irwin believed that Ivins was a "sociopath," but Dr. Saathoff and his group couldn't find any evidence that Ivins showed sociopathic tendencies before his 15th birthday, and that was a requirement for an OFFICIAL diagnosis of sociopathy. As a result, the panel decided that Ivins suffered from a "Borderline Personality Disorder," a "Paranoid Personality Disorder," and a "Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, with Narcissistic and Antisocial Features."

    I doubt that any of Ivins actual psychiatrists would have challenged that finding, nor would any other expert witness. There isn't anything to challenge. Ivins obviously had those personality disorders. Arguing that he may have had ADDITIONAL problems wouldn't help either side in the case.

    Ed

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  10. Partial post by Mister Lake:
    -------------
    None of Ivins' own psychiatrists would have contradicted Dr. Saathoff.
    ---------------------------------------------------------
    You miss the point: Dr. Saathoff had no standing in the case. He WASN'T acting as a doctor. He examined no patient. "Forensic psychiatry", to the extent it is a valid venture, is a sideline of true clinical practitioners. Saathoff would have been within the precedents and traditions of forensic psychiatry if he told the investigators what TYPE (or types) of person to look for in the case(based on the peculiarities of the crime, precedents involving similar crimes etc)(the very famous precedent here is
    Dr. James Brussels who profiled the 'Mad Bomber' of New York back in the 1950s). Whether Saathoff actually did this in 2001 or 2002, I don't know. That's a FAR CRY from 1)sitting there
    as Ivins is being interrogated by the investigators (here ALL walls of separation between law enforcement and PUTATIVE 'forensic psychiatry' have come down: Saathoff became, in effect, another investigator, not a doctor)2) rubber-stamping the efforts of the investigators(ie rubber-stamping what are partially your own efforts), again based not on any recognizable aspect of clinical practice but on Saathoff's NON-medical opinion, an opinion whose weight would be greater than that of FBI agents because of the general authority USUALLY credited to psychiatrists. (END PART I)

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  11. (Part II)And lastly we come to the last rubber-stamping performed by Dr Saathoff:

    1)Dr Saathoff HIMSELF suggests in 2009 that a "behavioural panel" be set up.

    2) Dr Saathoff HIMSELF picks who is to be on this panel. And not all the members are behaviorists.

    3) Dr Saathoff HIMSELF appoints himself as the head of this panel.

    4) And this panel makes judgements about what Saathoff HIMSELF, along with the TASK FORCE members/US attorneys, claimed in the FINAL REPORT about Ivins.

    You have so MUCH conflict of interest there, it's like one of those tiny circus cars where midgets keep jumping out of every nook and cranny. Unbelievable.

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  12. Richard Rowley wrote: "You miss the point: Dr. Saathoff had no standing in the case. He WASN'T acting as a doctor."

    You miss the point. And, once again, you're creating your own rules for how the world should be run.

    The idea that Dr. Saathoff came up with was to have some experts study the Amerithrax records and Ivins' mental health records to see what lessons could be learned that would be useful in the future.

    They did that.

    Ivins was dead, so there wasn't any way to interview him. There was no conflict of interest. The panel's only interest was in looking for lessons to be used in the future.

    You suggest that instead of looking for lessons for the future, the panel should have decided to re-investigate the case and determine if Ivins was really guilty or not. You want the world to operate according to your wishes, just the way you want the rules of evidence to fit your wishes.

    The reality is that Saathoff came up with the idea of the panel, he got permission from a judge to go ahead, he formed the panel and the panel did what they set out to do.

    Their job was NOT - repeat NOT - to decide if Ivins was guilty or innocent. The FBI had already determined that Ivins was the anthrax mailer. The job of the panel was to look for lessons for the future.

    You may feel that the panel should have done things according to your wishes or done nothing at all. But, I've got news for you: The world does not operate according to YOUR wishes.

    So, unless you have some FACTS which say that the findings of the panel are WRONG, all you're doing is saying that the panel didn't do what you want them to do and didn't do things according to your wishes. Tsk tsk. Too bad. But, it's time you learned that you do not run the world.

    Ed

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  13. Partial post by Mister Lake:
    -----------
    The idea that Dr. Saathoff came up with was to have some experts study the Amerithrax records and Ivins' mental health records to see what lessons could be learned that would be useful in the future.
    --------------------------------------------------
    Not "some experts", rather 'experts' hand-picked by Dr Saathoff. AND headed by Dr Saathoff.(and 'lessons in the future' was only PART of what they did)

    Can't you see how absurd that is? If not then some analogous situations:

    1)David Willman writes MIRAGE MAN

    and then

    2)David Willman HIMSELF writes favorable reviews of MIRAGE MAN on Amazon and similar sites

    3)Willman THEN handpicks (from among his acquaintances)OTHER 'reviewers' (wink wink)who dutifully write rave reviews of MIRAGE MAN.

    There's no law against Willman doing that (as far as I know) but I would hardly call that: 1)ethical 2)'an outside [book] panel review'(in this case of MIRAGE MAN). There's NOTHING "outside" about Saathoff when it comes to the Amerithrax investigation, he was working side-by-side with the TASK FORCE/US attorneys for at least many months).

    And as I said there could be many MANY such analogies made: you cannot 'peer review' YOURSELF. And that's, in effect, what Saathoff was doing. TOTALLY unethical. Totally intellectually vacuous. Defeats the whole purpose of having a 'review'.

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  14. Partial post by Mister Lake:
    -----------
    Ivins was dead, so there wasn't any way to interview him. There was no conflict of interest.[..]
    ----------------------------------------------------
    Ivins' death has nothing to do with the conflict of interest: Saathoff didn't examine (not "interview', there's a big difference if we're talking psychiatry)Ivins when Ivins was alive.
    NONE of the panel members were acting as psychiatrists (who examine PATIENTS)on that panel. They weren't acting as forensic psychiatrists either (and the non-behaviorists weren't qualified to do so, even if the opportunity had presented itself)since forensic psychiatrists TYPICALLY tell law enforcement what TYPE of person LIKELY committed a crime, and DO NOT say 'Yeah, that's the guy!'. See:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/us/24anthrax.html

    If Saathoff or any other psychiatrist on the panel HAD examined Ivins while he was alive, they would have been bound by doctor-patient confidentiality.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Worthwhile in this regard (ie determining how disinterested the panel was) is this:
    http://my.firedoglake.com/valtin/2011/03/23/78203/

    ReplyDelete
  16. Partial post by Mister Lake:
    -----------
    Richard Rowley wrote: "How could even qualified psychiatrists who DON'T have a conflict of interest* give anything but an opinion about a 'patient' they have never examined?"

    Yes, it's an opinion, but it's an EXPERT opinion. Expert opinions can be evidence in court. Ordinary opinions are not evidence.
    =====================================================
    The "experts" in this situation are Ivins' OWN psychiatrists (you know, the psychiatrists who actually examined the patient!) whose files this outside-panel-which-ain't-outside-at-all was reading and filtering to the general public via their report. THOSE EXPERTS (Ivins' own psychiatrists) would have been forbidden by medical ethics from testifying against Ivins WITHOUT HIS CONSENT. So the government, still trying to combat justifiable scepticism in the case, decided to do an end-around the doctor-patient confidentiality taboo by setting up this bogus 'outside panel' which is full of FBI and intelligence agency consultants.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Partial post by Mister Lake:
    -=----------------
    So, unless you have some FACTS which say that the findings of the panel are WRONG, all you're doing is saying that the panel didn't do what you want them to do [...]
    ===================================================
    No. You're missing once again what I'm saying. An "outside panel" should indeed be OUTSIDE (ie not made up of FBI/DoJ consultants, not made up of FBI consultants who had ALREADY WORKED ON THE IVINS part of the Amerithrax investigation as panel-head Saathoff had, not made up of OTHER FBI/intelligence agency consultants as many of the other panel members were, NOT made up of people handpicked by Saathoff). Is THAT really so much to ask?!?!?!? OUTSIDE means OUTSIDE. It's not like we have a 'Great Psychiatrist Shortage' in the United States. What we got was a joke.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Partial post by Mister Lake:
    -------------
    "And Saathoff DID have a conflict of interest: the panel which he appointed and headed was "reviewing" his own forensic psychiatry work in Amerithrax."

    That's NOT a conflict of interest. A conflict of interest means that Saathoff cannot be impartial. The fact that he did previous work on the subject has nothing to do with whether he would be partial or impartial.[...]
    ============================================================
    The 'outside panel' was charged, among other things, with evaluating the psychological analysis of the FINAL REPORT. That psychological analysis was based in part on what Dr Saathoff told the Task Force about Ivins. Therefore 'panel head' Saathoff was evaluating what FBI consultant Saathoff did in the case. A clear conflict of interest. You CANNOT self-evaluate your own work and then call that an 'outside review'. It's an 'inside review'.

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  19. Richard Rowley wrote: "An "outside panel" should indeed be OUTSIDE (ie not made up of FBI/DoJ consultants, not made up of FBI consultants who had ALREADY WORKED ON THE IVINS part of the Amerithrax investigation as panel-head Saathoff had, not made up of OTHER FBI/intelligence agency consultants as many of the other panel members were, NOT made up of people handpicked by Saathoff). Is THAT really so much to ask?!?!?!?"

    You just continue to create rules that you think the world should follow.

    Dr. Saathoff thought that it would be worthwhile to look into Ivins' psychological history and into the FBI files to see if there was anything that could be learned that might help prevent future situations like the anthrax attacks.

    You say he shouldn't have done that. Someone else should have done it. Who? Who would pick the person? Why would the person be interested? Obviously, they wouldn't do it for fun, so they'd have to be paid. And then you'd complain that they were being paid by the government and therefore were biased in favor of the government.

    You create ridiculous rules that only make sense to you. You create rules where whatever the government does it must be wrong.

    Dr. Saathoff was familiar with the case, he assisted the FBI in the case. He thought it would be valuable to look for lessons that might be helpful in the future.

    Of course he didn't interview Ivins, because Ivins was dead. Instead, he and his team looked at the records from Ivins' psychiatrists and mental health counselors and used those records to make an evaluation. Their views did NOT disagree in any substantive way with the views of Ivins' psychiatrists.

    It wasn't an analysis of Ivins mental health. It was a search for ways that government agencies can detect dangerous people in their midst before they are put to work on dangerous projects.

    They also looked into what the FBI learned. The FBI had learned about Ivins' burglaries, his ruthless attempts to destroy the careers of people who did not do as he wanted, his fraudulent use of phony names, mail boxes, etc.

    The panel wanted to see what should have been detectable by Ivins' employers BEFORE Ivins sent the anthrax letters.

    They should have had some way to learn that Ivins was taking anti-psychotic drugs.

    They should have had some way to learn that Ivins was being treated for having homicidal thoughts.

    They should have had clues to Ivins mental problems from his annual evaluations, but Ivins' superiors obviously ignored the clues.

    They report says that Ivins' superiors had Ivins' permission to look into his records, but they never did so.

    The report says that that Ivins was talking about his mental problems with his associates, but none brought the matter to the attention of Ivins' superiors.

    The report says that Ivins was involved in security breaches and improper procedures that where never fully investigated, or they would have uncovered his mental problems.

    At the bottom of page 194 the panel's report says:

    "Over the course of more than 25 years — from the beginning of his employment with USAMRIID in 1980 until 2006 — Dr. Ivins gave authorities permission to obtain his medical records more than a dozen times. Had these records been obtained, they would have shown a longstanding pattern of disturbed thinking in response to stress"

    The panel was fully qualified to do that kind of evaluation and make those kinds of recommendations. Perhaps someone could have done it better, but no one else volunteered.

    So, your argument appears to be that nothing should have been done because the government cannot do anything that would conform to your personal rules.

    Ed

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  20. Richard Rowley wrote: "The 'outside panel' was charged, among other things, with evaluating the psychological analysis of the FINAL REPORT."

    Nonsense. The panel was charged with looking for things that Ivins' employers and others failed to notice about Ivins that should have been noticed and which might be helpful in future situations involving other people.

    There was no "psychological analysis" in the Final Report. There's a section on "Mental Health," but it's about things Ivins said about his own mental health in emails, and things the FBI learned about his obsessions, his burglaries, etc.

    There's nothing in the Summary Report that would disqualify Dr. Saathoff from heading a panel that would look for lessons to be learned for the future.

    The panel's report wasn't about the FBI investigation, it was about how management at USAMRIID and at Ft. Detrick did things and how they could have been done better in Ivin's situation and in future situations involving people with mental problems.

    Ed

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  21. Partial post by Mister Lake:
    -----------------
    Richard Rowley wrote: "An "outside panel" should indeed be OUTSIDE (ie not made up of FBI/DoJ consultants, not made up of FBI consultants who had ALREADY WORKED ON THE IVINS part of the Amerithrax investigation as panel-head Saathoff had, not made up of OTHER FBI/intelligence agency consultants as many of the other panel members were, NOT made up of people handpicked by Saathoff). Is THAT really so much to ask?!?!?!?"

    You just continue to create rules that you think the world should follow.
    ===========================================================
    What "rule" did I "make up"? That an 'outside review panel' shouldn't be made of insiders?!?!?!? That Dr Saathoff, head of this panel, should have recused himself (ie not participated AT ALL and certainly not as the head of the panel)since it was partly HIS work (as the head psychiatric consultant used by the Task Force in its later years? This is just common sense.

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  22. Instructive as a contrast to this was the NAS review which was INDEED an 'outside review' of the government's work in the science area. Because it was a true outside review it has vastly more credibility than the 'behavioral panel'.

    The only problem (that I'm aware of ) with the NAS review was foot-dragging on the part of the FBI as to the release of all pertinent data.
    http://www.bioprepwatch.com/news/nas-surprised-by-fbis-release-of-additional-amerithrax-data/223866/

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  23. Richard Rowley wrote: "What "rule" did I "make up"? That an 'outside review panel' shouldn't be made of insiders?!?!?!?"

    No, that a panel that does not include USAMRIID employees cannot be considered to be an "outside panel" in a review of what went wrong at USAMRIID.

    The EBAP panel reviewed what happened at USAMRIID, not what happened within the FBI. So, Dr. Saathoff and his group WERE outsiders by any measure.

    Or are you making up a "rule" that someone who works for the government anywhere cannot be objective about anything that happens elsewhere in another government organization?

    Ed

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  24. Richard Rowley wrote: "the NAS review which was INDEED an 'outside review' of the government's work in the science area."

    It was also a review by experts in one field (science) about work done by experts in another field (criminal investigation), so it was often meaningless and counter-productive, since different standards were involved.

    But, the review of USAMRIID's practices for evaluating the mental health of their employees was done by an OUTSIDE panel of mental health "experts" who did not work for USAMRIID and who would fit any standard for using "outside" experts.

    You just think that the EBAP panel was doing something other than what they were actually doing.

    Ed

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  25. From today's comment (partial):
    --------------------
    There were ample opportunities to see and confirm that he was mentally ill, but no one paid any attention. The people who didn't pay any attention can argue that they don't believe the facts which clearly say Ivins was the anthrax mailer, but they cannot argue that Ivins was not mentally ill and it was okay for him to be working with anthrax alone and unsupervised.
    ===========================================================
    Points:
    1)Ivins started working at USAMRIID in early 1981.

    2)Since he would have been a junior scientist at that point, working for the first time with deadly live anthrax, he probably WAS supervised and WAS NOT working alone.

    3)His supervisors and colleagues saw him on a day-in and day-out basis IN THE LABS and made evaluations of both his scientific know-how and how seriously he took the necessity of being cautious with the pathogens etc. Naturally, since such labs are also social environments, evaluations were made of him as a person too.

    4)On the basis of THAT (years of observation of Ivins in the quotidian lab work, perhaps some social interaction away from work) they a)promoted him and these promotions gave him enough seniority for his own lab (ie so he could work without supervision) b)kept him at USAMRIID when there was a major RIF (reduction in forces)in the late 1990s at USAMRIID (the same RIF that laid off, among others, Ayaad Assaad) when as many as 30% of the workforce was let go, AND (ultimately) gave him the highest award possible for his work at USAMRIID: see
    http://professorhex.blogspot.com/2008/08/anthrax-bruce-ivins-wins-highest.html
    (END PART I)

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  26. 5)So Ivins' supervisors/colleagues at USAMRIID (or at least the old timers) knew Ivins for 2 solid decades BEFORE the fall of 2001, knew him from the work, scientific conferences etc.

    6)Compare that to the length of knowledge that even the Amerithrax old-timers like Della Fera had of Ivins (maximum of 6 1/2 years) and the variety of environments (the investigators didn't know him firsthand EXCEPT via the Amerithrax investigation).

    I'd trust the collective judgement of the USAMRIIDers over that of the investigators any day.

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  27. Worthwhile about Saathoff/Saathoff's panel is this:
    http://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/did-gregory-b-saathoff-first-chart-the-sorority-theory-in-early-september-2007-for-the-fbi-quantico-and-then-in-2009-2010-independently-review-his-own-work/

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  28. Partial post by Mister Lake:
    --------------
    Richard Rowley wrote: "What "rule" did I "make up"? That an 'outside review panel' shouldn't be made of insiders?!?!?!?"

    No, that a panel that does not include USAMRIID employees cannot be considered to be an "outside panel" in a review of what went wrong at USAMRIID.
    =============================================================
    I wrote nothing of the sort. I wrote nowhere in this thread (or in any other venue) that "a panel that does not include USAMRIID employees cannot be considered to be an "outside panel" in a review of what went wrong at USAMRIID."

    I wrote (or implied) that an outside psychiatric panel had to be made up of OUTSIDE psychiatrists (it's a tautology!), not FBI/DoJ consultants, and, as far as I know, no psychiatrists work at USAMRIID.

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  29. Partial post by MIster Lake:
    -----------
    At the bottom of page 194 the panel's report says:

    "Over the course of more than 25 years — from the beginning of his employment with USAMRIID in 1980 until 2006 — Dr. Ivins gave authorities permission to obtain his medical records more than a dozen times. Had these records been obtained, they would have shown a longstanding pattern of disturbed thinking in response to stress"
    ------------------------------------------------------------
    Employers are MOSTLY interested in how employees behave at work. Ivins didn't find the work environment stressful. Quite the contrary: when things at home were difficult he would just hang out at his lab in off hours. That likely was a pattern for many years, if not decades.

    Not only do I see the panel as hopelessly compromised by its lack of separation from the FBI task force, but I see the whole thing (recommendations and all) as just an enormous self-referential exercise.

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  30. Partial post by Mister Lake:
    ------------
    Dr. Saathoff was familiar with the case, he assisted the FBI in the case
    ===========================================================
    And that's why he wasn't an outsider. Or don't you know what the word 'outside' means?!?!?!?!?

    ReplyDelete
  31. Richard Rowley wrote: "I'd trust the collective judgement of the USAMRIIDers over that of the investigators any day."

    That is probably the most ridiculous thing you've ever written. Don't you know ANYTHING about the case?

    Ivins was going to psychiatrists long before he started working for USAMRIID. HE KNEW HE WAS MENTALLY ILL. His psychiatrists were giving him medicines to control his illness. He told them about murders he was plotting!

    Ivins' mental illness was not diagnosed by the FBI. It was diagnosed by IVINS' OWN PSYCHIATRISTS.

    And you think that his friends knew better than his psychiatrists - and better than Ivins himself? That's just plain crazy.

    How many times have you read where some serial killer or mass murderer was well-respected by his neighbors and they never had a clue as to what was going on? Right now, the neighbors of that soldier who killed 16 people in Afghanistan are talking about how they can't believe he did it.

    One of the criteria for a sociopaths is that they are adept at making people think they are nice and normal, even though they are totally nuts.

    What about Ivins' burglaries? What about his harassment of Nancy Haigwood? What about his vandalism? Are those all normal to you?

    You need to rethink things. You're really into Looney Tune Land if you think that Ivins was "normal' because his friends and neighbors thought he was "normal."

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  32. Richard Rowley wrote: I wrote (or implied) that an outside psychiatric panel had to be made up of OUTSIDE psychiatrists (it's a tautology!), not FBI/DoJ consultants, and, as far as I know, no psychiatrists work at USAMRIID.

    You're not understanding what the panel was all about.

    The panel was looking at what happened at USAMRIID that caused USAMRIID management to allow a mentally ill man to work with deadly pathogens like anthrax.

    The panel was an OUTSIDE panel. They were NOT people who worked for USAMRIID.

    Therefore, there was NO "conflict of interest," nor anything improper.

    And, as I stated in my previous post, Ivins was diagnosed as being mentally ill by HIS OWN PSYCHIATRISTS, so any argument that the FBI was behind him being diagnosed as mentally ill is WRONG.

    You have some bizarre notion about the EBAP panel that has nothing to do with reality.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  33. Richard Rowley wrote: "And that's why he wasn't an outsider. Or don't you know what the word 'outside' means?!?!?!?!?"

    Yes, I do. But you apparently do not.

    Dr. Saathoff did not work for USAMRIID. Therefore he was an OUTSIDER when he and his panel were looking into what happened at USAMRIID. There's no way on earth he could be considered an "insider."

    Your view of things seems screwed up by some crazy belief that because Dr. Saathoff assisted the the FBI he cannot be an outsider in an evaluation of events at USAMRIID. That makes no sense at all.

    And citing nonsense from Lew Weinstein's site doesn't change anything. It's still nonsense.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  34. Partial post by Mister Lake going back quite a ways:
    --------------
    There was no "psychological analysis" in the Final Report. There's a section on "Mental Health," but it's about things Ivins said about his own mental health in emails, and things the FBI learned about his obsessions, his burglaries, etc.
    -------------------------------------------------------------
    The FINAL REPORT is composed of five Roman-numeraled sections, with section four (IV) by far the largest section "THE EVIDENCE AGAINST BRUCE IVINS" (pages 25 to 91 in a 92 page summary*). Both subsection D "Motive" and subsection E "Mental Health" are dealing in psychological analysis. WHENEVER (ie in any criminal case whatsoever)one is asserting that something is a motive or POTENTIAL motive of a defendant one is engaged in psychological analysis, whether one is a layman or a psychologist/psychiatrist.
    Whether one uses the term 'psychological analysis' or not.
    All we get in subsection D are bald assertions about motive, no real evidence of motive: "1. Dr. Ivins’s life’s work appeared destined for failure, absent an unexpected
    event." Talk about worthless mindreading!

    The E subsection is even more rife with non-evidence 'evidence':
    "Dr. Ivins’s e-mail messages revealed a man increasingly struggling with mental health problems in the time leading up to the anthrax attacks"

    Those two sections are crapola. But there's bad-to-absurd underlying pseudopsychologizing in subsections G H I J too. So, the whole 'case' against Ivins boils down to: 1)a single flask and 2) bad psychology.

    And naturally this bad psychology was fully endorsed by the Saathoff panel, since it was backing FBI Amerithrax consulant Saathoff.


    *So over 2/3rds of the document by # of pages

    ReplyDelete
  35. Partial post by Mister Lake:
    ----------
    Richard Rowley wrote: "I'd trust the collective judgement of the USAMRIIDers over that of the investigators any day."

    That is probably the most ridiculous thing you've ever written. Don't you know ANYTHING about the case?
    ========================================================
    Only: who did it. Why they did it. Where they did it. Aside from that I'm completely ignorant!

    ReplyDelete
  36. Richard Rowley wrote: "All we get in subsection D are bald assertions about motive, no real evidence of motive"

    and

    "The E subsection is even more rife with non-evidence 'evidence'"

    You've already made it clear that you have different rules for what is evidence than the rules used by the Department of Justice and all the courts in the land. If you want to believe your rules are better, that's up to you, but your rules are not the rules used in court - or on this blog.

    "Don't you know ANYTHING about the case?
    ========================================================
    Only: who did it. Why they did it. Where they did it. Aside from that I'm completely ignorant!"


    BELIEFS are NOT FACTS. So, you really are totally ignorant of the case. You only know about your beliefs and who you think did it.

    And, you can't even explain your beliefs, so you really have nothing to say. You're just arguing for the sake of arguing.

    You argue that evidence isn't evidence.
    You argue that outsiders are insiders.
    You argue that laymen know more about psychology than psychologists.
    You argue that only your beliefs are relevant to the case.

    You've made yourself clear. You don't believe the facts and you have no new facts. All you have are beliefs.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  37. Apparently I wrote too preemptorily and sweepingly about the NAS review panel: they too had some conflict-of-interest issues. See this blog (about 2/3rds of the way down: http://biopreparat-mknaomi.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html
    The pertinent part begins:
    ---------------
    The affiliations of the committee members makes for some interesting reading, too:

    Here is the official list from the NAS web site - although they left out quite a bit of material, which I added in:

    Alice Gast (Chair), President, Lehigh University

    Gast is a past director of research at MIT during the period when biowarfare research funding was exploding. MIT has a very large "Biodefense Systems Group."

    David Relman (Vice Chair), Professor of Medicine and Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford University

    Stanford University is a member of the Pacific Southwest Regional Center of Excellence For Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Disease research.

    Arturo Casadevall, Chair, Department of Microbiology and Immunology; Leo and Julia Forchheimer Professor of Microbiology and Immunology; Professor, Department of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

    -Casadevall is also the Deputy Director of the Northeast Center of Excellence For Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Disease research. - and why does the NAS not include this title in their summary?
    (END PART I)

    ReplyDelete
  38. Part II)
    Nancy Connell, Professor of Medicine, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey

    - The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey is a member institution of the Northeast Biodefense Center. These "Centers of Excellence" were part of the massive expansion in biowarfare-related research funding that the anthrax attacks engendered.

    Thomas Inglesby, Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Director of the Center for Biosecurity, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center; Associate Professor of Medicine and Public Health, University of Pittsburgh Schools of Medicine and Public Health

    As the director of this institution, he must be aware that there are charges that these attacks were intended to alarm the public and create a causus belli for a massively expanded biowarfare research program - a program that funds his institution. Tagging "lone wolf" Bruce Ivins as the culprit would go some way towards protecting this funding train. Not only that, the "biowarfare scenarios" he has promoted avoid any discussion of actual the likelihood of a terrorist organization acquiring such weapons - they're just designed to raise fear and increase funding.

    Murray Johnston, Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Delaware

    I see no direct conflicts of interest here - but this guy is an expert in mass spectrometry, and should have asked more questions about why no stable isotope analysis were conducted.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------
    Note: all remarks above by blogger
    END PART II

    ReplyDelete
  39. PART III)
    ------------
    Karen Kafadar, James H. Rudy Professor of Statistics and Physics, Indiana University

    Indiana University is a member of the Great Lakes Regional Center of Excellence For Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Disease research.

    Richard Lenski, Hannah Distinguished Professor of Microbial Ecology, Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Michigan State University

    Michigan State University is a member of the Great Lakes Regional Center of Excellence For Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Disease research.

    Richard Losick, Harvard College Professor; Maria Moors Cabot Professor of Biology; Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor in the Faculty of Arts & Sciences, Harvard University

    Harvard University is a member of the New England Regional Center of Excellence For Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Disease research.

    Alice Mignerey, Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland

    The University of Maryland has extensive links to the Middle Atlantic Regional Center of Excellence For Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Disease research. It's so excellent, dude...
    -------------------------------------------------------------
    Again all the above in original blog
    END PART III

    ReplyDelete
  40. Part IV
    ------------------------
    David Popham, Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Virginia Tech

    Virginia Tech is in the institute that hosts the Middle Atlantic Regional Center of Excellence For Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Disease website.

    Jed Rakoff, Judge, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York

    Why put a judge with zero scientific background (other than baseball) on a scientific review panel, other than as a PR stunt?

    Robert Shaler, Professor, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department; Director, Forensic Science Program, Pennsylvania State University

    Pennsylvania State University is a member of the Middle Atlantic Regional Center of Excellence For Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Disease Research.

    Elizabeth A. Thompson, Professor, Department of Statistics, University of Washington

    The Unversity of Washington is the lead institution in the Pacific Northwest Regional Center of Excellence For Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Disease Research.

    Kasthuri Venkateswaran, Senior Research Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

    Caltech is associated with the University of California, Irvine's massive grant for the establishment of the Pacific-Southwest Center of Excellence For Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Disease Research - the "largest grant in UCI history", delivered in 2005.

    David Walt, Robinson Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Biomedical Engineering; Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor, Tufts University

    Tufts University is a member of the Great Lakes Regional Center of Excellence For Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Disease Research, and is doing work with botulinum toxin among other things.
    ========================================================
    r. rowley: Still, I think even if we take the criticisms to heart the degree of conflict of interest is greater in the Behavioral Review Panel.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Partial post by Mister Lake:
    --------
    Richard Rowley wrote: "And that's why he wasn't an outsider. Or don't you know what the word 'outside' means?!?!?!?!?"

    Yes, I do. But you apparently do not.

    Dr. Saathoff did not work for USAMRIID. Therefore he was an OUTSIDER when he[...]
    =========================================================
    Boy, are you one confused dude!

    Observe:

    1)the work of USAMRIID waa/is/always will be)?) doing research in the BW area. This since at least in the 1940s.

    NEITHER "outside panel" (NAS or 'behavioral) was primarily
    concerned with whether USAMRIID does its job well.

    2)the work of the FBI/postal inspectors is investigating CRIMES. Including but not limited to Amerithrax.

    THIS is what the panels were looking at: the investigation of Amerithrax, at least primarily ('behavioral panel'=examining the Task Force/DoJ's claims about the BEHAVIOR of Bruce Ivins and how credible they were. Else they wouldn't have called it a behavioral panel, they would have called it 'panel to evaluate/improve security at USAMRIID').

    So to be 'outside' panels they had to be OUTSIDE the investigation they were examining (Amerithrax). The Saathoff panel wasn't because it was examining the work of Saathoff. This too is a tautology. If the NAS panel had included Paul Keim, Claire Liggett Fraser, and Jacques Ravel, then its work would have been as hopelessly compromised as that of the Behavior Panel. Why? Because the work of Paul Keim, Claire Liggett Fraser, and Jacques Ravel was what was being evaluated by the NAS panel (ie that subaspect of the Amerithrax investigation) and you cannot 'review' your own work. Again, a tautology.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Richard Rowley wrote: "So to be 'outside' panels they had to be OUTSIDE the investigation they were examining (Amerithrax)."

    Is that another RULE that you've established for the universe?

    The EBAP panel wasn't "concerned with whether USAMRIID does its job well." They were concerned with why and how a mentally ill person like Bruce Ivins was allowed to work with deadly pathogens.

    They were OUTSIDERS looking at USAMRIID's procedures for evaluating personnel to examine how Ivins slipped through the net that was supposed to keep out mentally ill people.

    Of course they knew about the case before they did the study. Do you have some fantasy that they should have been totally ignorant of the case and totally ignorant of USAMRIID in order to be "outsiders?"

    Why would people ignorant of the case AND of USAMRIID do such a study? How would they even know that there was a need for a study?

    You create RULES that make no sense. You want the world to operate according to your nonsensical rules so that the world will come to your nonsensical conclusions.

    The NAS review of the science used in the Amerithrax investigation was done by by experts in one field (science) about work done by experts in another field (criminal investigation), so it's conclusions were often meaningless and counter-productive, since different standards were involved. The committee members were NAS members who were willing to work on the project. Your fantasy seems to be that they should have picked "outsiders" regardless of whether they were NAS members or not and regardless of whether they were willing to work on the project or not.

    Your fantasy world has nothing to do with the real world.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  43. Partial post by Mister Lake:
    ----------------
    You argue that outsiders are insiders.
    =========================================================
    That's exactly what you have done this entire thread: argue that Dr Saathoff, handpicking a 'behavioral panel', HEADING that panel, a panel that looked into the work of Saathoff himself on the behavioral aspects of Dr Ivins in Amerithrax (where Saathoff was the PRIMARY behavioralist), somehow isn't an insider(!!!).

    Against all logic. Against all common sense. Against what I'm sure will be history's final judgement in the matter.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Richard Rowley wrote: "That's exactly what you have done this entire thread: argue that Dr Saathoff, handpicking a 'behavioral panel', HEADING that panel, a panel that looked into the work of Saathoff himself on the behavioral aspects of Dr Ivins in Amerithrax"

    That is NOT what the EBAP did.

    The EBAP looked into how a mentally ill person like Ivins was allowed to work with dangerous pathogens at USAMRIID.

    Dr. Saathoff was the PERFECT person do do that, since he already knew the case. All he and his panel had to do was obtain Ivins' mental health records and information about the screening process at USAMRIID and they would have the information needed.

    You seem to believe the job should have been given to someone totally ignorant of Ivins, of USAMRIID and of the Amerithrax case. That's absurd.

    The panel did NOT look into the "behavioral aspects of Dr. Ivins in Amerithrax." It looked into the screening practices at USAMRIID that allowed Ivins to work with deadly pathogens there.

    You distort things to fit your beliefs. That will be History's final judgment on the matter.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  45. I should note on this thread that Mister Lake in many of the above posts makes it SOUND like I argued here(this thread) or somewhere else (another thread here or another venue) that Ivins wasn't mentally ill. I did nothing of the kind. And THAT mistake by Mister Lake is what reveals his underlying thinking:
    (Ivins')mental illness=committing (the) crimes (of Amerithrax).

    It doesn't follow. Either logically or in any other way.
    But to understand how someone like Mister Lake thinks, it is imperative to recognize it: if the government can establish that the person is mentally ill, that 'establishes' "motive", even 'behavior'. That's why, long term, one isn't going to be able to convince them.
    http://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/schizophrenia-violent-behavior
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16651506
    http://www.schizophreniadisorders.com/understanding-violent-behaviour-from-a-person-with-schizophrenia.php

    ReplyDelete
  46. Richard Rowley wrote: "if the government can establish that the person is mentally ill, that 'establishes' "motive", even 'behavior'."

    You're changing the subject. And you're creating more straw man arguments.

    The subject was the purpose of the EBAP. You said that Saathoff shouldn't have been allowed to form it or be on it, because he already knew about Ivins' mental illness.

    Now, you are off into some straw man argument about how establishing that Ivins was mentally ill gives him motive for the anthrax mailings.

    No one ever said that. You're just creating that straw man argument so you can shoot it down.

    Ivins mental illness was determined by HIS psychiatrists.

    Ivins admitted to his obsessions.

    Ivins' motives for the CRIME had little to do with his mental illness, although, obviously, if he was thinking "normally" he probably wouldn't have done what he did.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  47. Richard,

    You seem to AGREE that Ivins was mentally ill.

    Do you also agree that he should NOT have been allowed to work with deadly pathogens?

    Do you also agree that there should have been a study to determine WHY he was allowed to work with deadly pathogens (REGARDLESS of whether he sent the anthrax letters or not)?

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  48. Also in connection with this subject matter, it should be noted that I am not alone in questioning the objectivity/non-conflict of interest of the behavioral panel. At least one forensic psychiatrist, Dr Annette Hanson, did the same thing:
    -------------------------
    [...] In light of Dr. SaathofF's work consulting with the FBI and Federal prosecutors during the initial investigation, the objectivity of the panel could also be called into question.

    According to the order to unseal the report, two of the purposes for releasing the report to the public were to "help the public understand both the crime and its perpetrator," and "to reassure the publie that Dr. Ivins, alone, committed the anthrax attacks" (Motion for Unsealing of Redacted Report of Expert Behavioral Analysis).

    Therefore, documenting that Ivins had the "means, motive and opportunity" to commit the crimes would create a strong impression of guilt in the public mind. Prejudicial public statements have previously been addressed by prohibitions against diagnosing celebrities, public officials, and foreign government officials (JAMA 2008;300:1348-50) and (Psychiatr. Clin. N. Am. 2002;25:635-46). It would seem logical to extrapolate from these standards a need to avoid public statements about unindicted suspects.

    I agree with the panel regarding the importance of physicians' participation in public health matters. Often, professional ethics involves weighing the importance of public safety against the rights and liberties of the individual. Mental health professionals hold a unique position in this balance of powers; abuse of psychiatric authority can be addressed through state licensing boards and peer review. In matters of national security, however, professional practice should not be shielded from this review. This case illustrates the need for AAPL and the American Psychiatric Association to update existing guidelines to address participation in national security matters and similar Federal investigatory panels.
    ----------------------------------------------------
    http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb4345/is_9_39/ai_n58322372/

    ReplyDelete
  49. Richard Rowley wrote: "I am not alone in questioning the objectivity/non-conflict of interest of the behavioral panel."

    You may not realize it, but the link you provided is to a response which says that Dr. Hanson's comments were crap.

    The response concludes with this:

    "Specifically, the Panel was assigned to "examine 'the mental health issues of Dr. Bruce Ivins and what lessons can be learned from that analysis that may be useful in preventing future bioterrorism attacks' " We fulfilled this charge by conducting a thorough review and analysis of thousands of pages of documents; policies and procedures, depositions, interview transcripts and e-mails, legislative and regulatory materials. Contrary to Dr. Hanson's assertions, the panel did not pronounce guilt nor did it develop or employ a "bioterrorist profile" or a profile of any kind. Indeed, the word "profile" is used nowhere in the document.

    The fact that you can find an "expert" who agrees with you means nothing. As the response shows, there are also "experts" who disagree with you.

    It's back to arguing opinions versus opinions, instead of arguing the facts of the case.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  50. Partial post by Mister Lake:
    -------------
    Richard Rowley wrote: "So to be 'outside' panels they had to be OUTSIDE the investigation they were examining (Amerithrax)."

    Is that another RULE that you've established for the universe?
    ==============================================================
    No, it's a tautology. If an outside panel isn't outside the investigation it is looking into, then the word "outside" is meaningless. It ain't.

    ReplyDelete
  51. Partial post by Mister Lake:
    ------------
    Richard Rowley wrote: "That's exactly what you have done this entire thread: argue that Dr Saathoff, handpicking a 'behavioral panel', HEADING that panel, a panel that looked into the work of Saathoff himself on the behavioral aspects of Dr Ivins in Amerithrax"

    That is NOT what the EBAP did.

    The EBAP looked into how a mentally ill person like Ivins was allowed to work with dangerous pathogens at USAMRIID.
    ========================================================
    That's only a tiny fraction of what they did.

    And you, of all people, are in a position to know that!

    ReplyDelete
  52. Richard Rowley wrote: "If an outside panel isn't outside the investigation it is looking into, then the word "outside" is meaningless."

    The EBAP was NOT - repeat NOT - looking into the "investigation."

    It looked into why a mentally ill person was allowed to work with deadly pathogens at USAMRIID.

    "That's only a tiny fraction of what they did."

    Why don't you explain to us what the rest of what they did was?

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  53. I couldn't find the original piece by Dr Hanson, but it is reproduced here at Meryl Nass's blog:
    http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/2011/06/use-of-psychological-profile-to-infer.html

    ReplyDelete
  54. Partial post by Mister Lake:
    --------------
    Richard Rowley wrote: "I am not alone in questioning the objectivity/non-conflict of interest of the behavioral panel."

    You may not realize it, but the link you provided is to a response which says that Dr. Hanson's comments were crap.
    ===========================================================
    Yes, the panel doesn't agree with Dr Hanson's criticism of the panel. No surprise there. I looked for her original piece but it has disappeared, leaving only traces at Weinstein's blog and Meryl Nass's blog.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Richard Rowley wrote: "I couldn't find the original piece by Dr Hanson, but it is reproduced here at Meryl Nass's blog"

    Thanks. I'd forgotten about that. But, it's still opinion versus opinion. The fact that you have someone (two, if we include Dr. Nass) who support your beliefs means NOTHING.

    There's no idea so ridiculous that you can't find an "expert" with perfect credentials to support it.

    But, the FACTS say Ivins did it and no opinion will change that.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  56. Partial post by Mister Lake:
    ---------------
    The subject was the purpose of the EBAP. You said that Saathoff shouldn't have been allowed to form it or be on it, because he already knew about Ivins' mental illness.
    ==============================================================
    Once again you've managed to mangle things I wrote about. You didn't have to be a psychiatrist to know "about Ivins' mental illness", he owned up to it, indeed discussed his mental health problems and progress/lack thereof with acquaintances/friends via email etc.

    Saathoff shouldn't have been allowed either to handpick the panel or to be on the panel (let alone be the HEAD of the panel) because the FINAL REPORT is so chockful of psychological analysis, the psychological analysis of Dr Saathoff (even if that psychological analysis was, presumably, mostly written up by Rachel Lieber). It's a conflict of interest. It's obvious to anyone who has a notion of what conflict of interest is. (see my analogy many posts ago of Willman 'reviewing' his own book)

    ReplyDelete
  57. "That's only a tiny fraction of what they did."

    Why don't you explain to us what the rest of what they did was?
    --------------------------------------------------------------
    Anyone can do that for themselves. The executive summary is 14 pages long(well, more like 13 pages and a smidge). MOST of it is a recapitulation of the general picture of Ivins' health/its relation to Amerithrax just as related in the FINAL REPORT (at least I noticed no deviations). Only in the last two paragraphs of page 12 does the subtopic of "Security Issues" come up and that is continued on page 13 & very top of 14, so 1 1/2 pages of the total of 13-14 pages of the executive summary are given to 'security issues'.

    ReplyDelete
  58. Partial post by Mister Lake
    --------------
    Contrary to Dr. Hanson's assertions, the panel did not pronounce guilt nor did it develop or employ a "bioterrorist profile" or a profile of any kind. Indeed, the word "profile" is used nowhere in the document.
    ===============================================================
    In effect they DID pronounce his guilt. Why else would your 'recommendations' center on trying to 'keep out' someone with Ivins' mental condition(s)? Why else would you say that Ivins had 'motive' (an psychological assessment for sure!) to commit the crimes? Totally bogus.

    As to the WORD 'profile' it's usually used in prospect. Chances are the word 'profile' wasn't much used in the FINAL REPORT either, because once you've 'got your man' the matter is no longer in prospect.

    ReplyDelete
  59. Mister Lake addressing me:
    ------------------------
    You seem to AGREE that Ivins was mentally ill.

    Do you also agree that he should NOT have been allowed to work with deadly pathogens?

    Do you also agree that there should have been a study to determine WHY he was allowed to work with deadly pathogens (REGARDLESS of whether he sent the anthrax letters or not)?
    ===============================================================
    Okay, as to the first question, in an ideal world you wouldn't want anyone severely mentally ill to work at a BW lab. But this situation is always mediated via the vetting process and in-house security apparatus/protocols. Some people START with minor mental illness (this almost a tautology too!)and.....get worse.

    I'm sure that, had Ivins been arrested and convicted for his breakins in the 1970s/early 1980s, he would have been out of a job at USAMRIID. But, that aside, the degree of obtrusiveness we want 'security officers' to have is very problematic: Ivins was a world-beater as a microbiologist. More stringent vetting would eliminate not only potential ad-hoc terrorists but excellent microbiologists who are just a bit weird. Ivins was mostly the latter (in my view).

    ReplyDelete
  60. Partial post by Mister Lake addressing me:
    --------------
    The fact that you can find an "expert" who agrees with you means nothing. As the response shows, there are also "experts" who disagree with you.
    ===============================================================
    Well, yeah, Dr Saathoff for one. But it isn't his EXPERTISE that is at issue here, it's his ethics/objectivity. To evaluate that, the last person you would ask is: Dr Saathoff.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Another link to Hanson's original piece:
    -----------
    http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Presumption+of+guilt%3A+problematic.-a0264094971

    ReplyDelete
  62. Richard Rowley wrote: "Saathoff shouldn't have been allowed either to handpick the panel or to be on the panel (let alone be the HEAD of the panel) because the FINAL REPORT is so chockful of psychological analysis, the psychological analysis of Dr Saathoff (even if that psychological analysis was, presumably, mostly written up by Rachel Lieber). It's a conflict of interest."

    The JUDGE who authorized the report obviously didn't think it was a conflict of interest.

    "In effect they DID pronounce his guilt. Why else would your 'recommendations' center on trying to 'keep out' someone with Ivins' mental condition(s)?"

    Because it was STUPID to allow someone with Ivins' mental conditions work with deadly pathogens!

    "More stringent vetting would eliminate not only potential ad-hoc terrorists but excellent microbiologists who are just a bit weird. Ivins was mostly the latter (in my view)."

    So, you think it was OKAY for Ivins to have been working alone at night, unsupervised, with deadly pathogens - even though he was an admitted burglar, he was an admitted vandal, he had made threats to poison people, he had expressed plans to make BOMB and had purchased ingredients for the bomb, and he was diagnosed as a sociopath?

    None of that matters to you, because in your mind, "Ivins was a world-beater as a microbiologist."

    In reality, however, the facts say Ivins was NOT a very good microbiologist. He mostly just knew one thing: How to create pure spores.

    His name was on scientific reports because he made the spores for the projects described in the reports. Early in his career he was the lead on some projects, but later he was just included because he made the spores. He was totally wrong about where the Ames strain came from, he was totally wrong about how widely the Ames strain was distributed, he was totally wrong in things he told the CDC, he was totally wrong about how frequently morphs formed, he was totally wrong about what caused morphs, and that list doesn't include his mistaken beliefs that caused him to send dry spores through the mails thinking that no one would be harmed.

    "But it isn't his [Saathoff's] EXPERTISE that is at issue here, it's his ethics/objectivity."

    That's not an issue here. You're just trying to make it an issue in order to change the subject.

    You claim that Hanson is right and Saathoff is wrong because Saathoff cannot be objective about his own work. There's no reason to believe that Hanson is objective, either. Her opinions seem to be uninformed nonsense.

    People aren't automatically right because they agree with you on an issue and automatically wrong if they disagree.

    FACTS determine who is right and wrong.

    The FACTS say that Ivins was the anthrax mailer. Arguing about people's ethics and whose opinion is biased and whose opinion isn't biased won't change that.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete
  63. Partial post:
    ------------
    Richard Rowley wrote: "Saathoff shouldn't have been allowed either to handpick the panel or to be on the panel (let alone be the HEAD of the panel) because the FINAL REPORT is so chockful of psychological analysis, the psychological analysis of Dr Saathoff (even if that psychological analysis was, presumably, mostly written up by Rachel Lieber). It's a conflict of interest."

    The JUDGE who authorized the report obviously didn't think it was a conflict of interest
    ==============================================================
    We would have to see the document (ie the particular filing by the DoJ) to see whether it listed the proposed panel membership.
    Obviously if the judge didn't know that membership he could hardly have ruled against the panel BASED ON THAT MEMBERSHIP.

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  64. "In effect they DID pronounce his guilt. Why else would your 'recommendations' center on trying to 'keep out' someone with Ivins' mental condition(s)?"

    Because it was STUPID to allow someone with Ivins' mental conditions work with deadly pathogens!
    -------------------------------------------------------------
    Ah, but in my view, you are defending even more indefensible stupidities of the government! And have been doing so for 3 years.

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  65. Partial post by Mister Lake:
    --------
    "But it isn't his [Saathoff's] EXPERTISE that is at issue here, it's his ethics/objectivity."

    That's not an issue here. You're just trying to make it an issue in order to change the subject.
    ==========================================================
    The subject was the behavioral panel and whether it could be an "outside" panel, or a disinterested judge of the psychological work contained in the FINAL REPORT when Saathoff, the primary forensic psychiatrist working with the Task Force/DoJ in the case:
    1)handpicked the membership of the panel and
    2)headed the panel

    Naturally, this has an ethical dimension: if Saathoff couldn't recuse himself under THOSE circumstances, then when COULD he recuse himself from a panel?!?!?!?

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  66. Richard Rowley wrote: "Obviously if the judge didn't know that membership he could hardly have ruled against the panel BASED ON THAT MEMBERSHIP."

    Are you changing the subject again? The judge knew Saathoff was going to be organizing the panel, and you claim that Saathoff shouldn't have been allowed to do that.

    Plus, the judge knew the membership when the study was finished, and he authorized the report to be made public. That says he didn't see any problem with the report, with Saathoff or with the makeup of the panel that produced the report.

    "Ah, but in my view, you are defending even more indefensible stupidities of the government!"

    Are you changing subjects again? The subject was the STUPIDITY of allowing someone mentally ill to work with deadly pathogens, which YOU said was okay in Ivins' case. And you're changing the subject to be about what? ... the stupidity of everyone in the government?

    "Naturally, this has an ethical dimension: if Saathoff couldn't recuse himself under THOSE circumstances, then when COULD he recuse himself from a panel?!?!?!?"

    There was NO REASON for Saathoff to recuse himself. There WAS NO CONFLICT OF INTEREST. You only fantasize that there was, and because someone else has the same fantasy, you think you're right. It's NONSENSE.

    I detest arguing opinion against opinion. The FACTS say it was not a conflict of interest, because (1) a JUDGE authorized it AND the public distribution of the report. Plus, (2) it's ridiculous to claim it was a conflict of interest because the panel was evaluating procedures at USAMRIID and NONE of the panel members had any connection to USAMRIID.

    I suggest we drop this topic, since there is clearly no hope of resolving it. A JUDGE ruled that it was okay to create the report and to make the report public, but that doesn't make any difference to you.

    Ed

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  67. I suggest we drop this topic, since there is clearly no hope of resolving it. A JUDGE ruled that it was okay to create the report and to make the report public, but that doesn't make any difference to you.
    -----------------------------------------------------
    You wrote that already and I noted that without seeing the filing, we have NO IDEA whether the judge was aware of what the makeup of the panel would be (the judge was merely authorizing a panel, not ruling on its makeup or the contents of its report).

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  68. There was NO REASON for Saathoff to recuse himself. There WAS NO CONFLICT OF INTEREST.
    ============================================================
    If you can't see THAT, Mister Lake, then it's clear you would NEVER be able to see a conflict of interest involving the FBI/DoJ.
    A pity.

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  69. Partial post by Mister Lake:
    ---------------
    "More stringent vetting would eliminate not only potential ad-hoc terrorists but excellent microbiologists who are just a bit weird. Ivins was mostly the latter (in my view)."

    So, you think it was OKAY for Ivins to have been working alone at night, unsupervised, with deadly pathogens - even though he was an admitted burglar,[...]
    ============================================================
    Once again Mister Lake scrambles the chronology....perhaps he took lessons from Jeff Taylor?

    1)Ivins admitted the burglaries sometime in the 2005 to 2008 timeframe.

    2)No one at USAMRIID knew about them in the 1980s (or 1990s etc), so how were they to respond to them?

    This, as so much of what is discussed in this case (especially the legal side), is about process. But Mister Lake has no feel for process, so he's not really interested in the law.

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  70. Richard Rowley wrote: "Obviously if the judge didn't know that membership he could hardly have ruled against the panel BASED ON THAT MEMBERSHIP."

    Are you changing the subject again? The judge knew Saathoff was going to be organizing the panel, and you claim that Saathoff shouldn't have been allowed to do that.
    ===============================================================
    Have you seen the filing? If not, then you have no basis for saying the judge knew Saathoff was going to be organizing the panel.

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  71. Richard Rowley wrote: "we have NO IDEA whether the judge was aware of what the makeup of the panel would be (the judge was merely authorizing a panel, not ruling on its makeup or the contents of its report)."

    We know that the judge authorized making the report public AFTER it was completed, and after he'd presumably read it. That means he saw no problem with it. He knew then who was on the panel and what the report said.

    "If you can't see THAT, Mister Lake, then it's clear you would NEVER be able to see a conflict of interest involving the FBI/DoJ."

    You are wasting time arguing about nonsensical "conflicts of interest", which is just your opinion. It's opinion versus opinion, with no way to resolve he issue (except to accept your opinion).

    I've got better things to do than argue opinions with you.

    Ed

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  72. Richard Rowley wrote: "2)No one at USAMRIID knew about them in the 1980s (or 1990s etc), so how were they to respond to them?"

    You totally miss the point of the EBAP report and why the panel was created. It was created to figure out WHY managers at USAMRIID didn't know about Ivins' mental problems, even though they had AMPLE opportunities to find out about them. Ivins talked about his mental problems with his co-workers, and he authorized people at USAMRIID to look into his mental history, but they didn't do so.

    To argue that they didn't know about Ivins' mental problems until after he murdered five people and injured 17 others says that you don't understand the subject under discussion. THEY SHOULD HAVE KNOWN.

    Ed

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  73. Richard Rowley wrote: "Have you seen the filing?"

    You're the one who is arguing this subject. Shouldn't you be the one to locate the filing and show it to everyone as "evidence" of our point of view?

    Or, are you just ASSUMING what it contains?

    Ed

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