Download or read book Recounting the Anthrax Attacks written by R. Scott Decker and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-03-19 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was September 18, 2001, just seven days after al-Qaeda hijackers destroyed the Twin Towers. In the early morning darkness, a lone figure dropped several letters into a mailbox. Seventeen days later a Florida journalist died of inhalational anthrax. The death from the rare disease made world news. These anthrax attacks marked the first time a sophisticated biological weapon was released in the United States. It killed five people, disfigured at least 18 more, and launched the largest investigation in the FBI’s history. Recounting the Anthrax Attacks explores the origins of the innovative forensics used in this case, while also explaining their historical context. R. Scott Decker’s team pursued its first suspect with dogged determination before realizing that the evidence did not add up. With renewed energy, they turned to non-traditional forensics—scientific initiatives never before applied to an investigation—as they continued to hunt for clues. These advances formed the new science of microbial forensics, a novel discipline that produced critical leads when traditional methods failed. The new technologies helped identify a second suspect—one who possessed the knowledge and skills to unleash a living weapon of mass destruction. Decker provides the first inside look at how the investigation was conducted, highlighting dramatic turning points as the case progressed until its final solution. Join FBI agents as they race against terror and the ultimate insider threat—a decorated government scientist releasing powders of deadly anthrax. Walk in the steps of these dedicated officers while they pursue numerous forensic leads before more letters can be sent until finally they confront a psychotic killer.
Download or read book The Anthrax Letters written by Leonard A. Cole and published by Skyhorse Publishing Inc.. This book was released on 2009-04 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading expert on bioterrorism explains the science behind the 2001 anthraxattacks.
Download or read book The 2001 Anthrax Deception written by Graeme MacQueen and published by SCB Distributors. This book was released on 2015-09-19 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2001 anthrax letter attacks in the United States killed five people and wounded dozens. They were widely blamed on extremist Muslims and their backers and used to support the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. They were also used to justify and hasten the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, which was being presented to Congress just as the first anthrax victim grew ill. In October 2001, one of the hypotheses that gained ground was that of the Double Perpetrator, the claim that al-Qaeda was carrying out the attacks with the support of Iraq. Much evidence was put forth to support this Double Perpetrator hypothesis but independent scientists soon discovered that the anthrax spores came from a domestic lab in the US serving the military and intelligence communities, not from al-Qaeda or Iraq. The FBI then quickly claimed that an individual was responsible for the attacks and began noisily looking for this “lone wolf.” In 2008 the Bureau named Dr. Bruce Ivins of the US Army Medical Institute of Infectious Disease as the “anthrax killer.” Although the FBI remains committed to the Ivins hypothesis, the case has been disintegrating for the last three years. Currently, it is justly held in contempt not merely by scientists who worked with Ivins but by many journalists as well as several US senators. But this raises the question: if Ivins did not commit this crime, who did? This book presents evidence to support the following points: (a) The anthrax attacks were carried out by a group of perpetrators, not by a “lone wolf.” The attacks were, therefore, the result of a conspiracy— by definition a plan by two or more people, made in secret and resulting in an immoral or illegal act. (b) The group that carried out this crime consisted, in whole or in part, of insiders deep within the US state apparatus. (c) These insiders were the same people who planned the 9/11 attacks (d) The anthrax attacks were meant to facilitate a seizure of power by the executive branch of government through intimidation of Congress and US civil society. They were also designed to achieve public acquiescence to and support for the redefinition of US foreign policy, replacing the Cold War with a new and aggressive global conflict framework, the Global War on Terror.
Download or read book The Mirage Man written by David Willman and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2011-06-07 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist David Willman tells the whole gripping story of the hunt for the anthrax killer who terrorized the country in the dark days that followed the September 11th attacks. Letters sent surreptitiously from a mailbox in New Jersey to media and political figures in New York, Florida, and Washington D.C. killed five people and infected seventeen others. For years, the case remained officially unsolved—and it consumed the FBI and became a rallying point for launching the Iraq War. Far from Baghdad, at Fort Detrick, Maryland, stood Bruce Ivins: an accomplished microbiologist at work on patenting a next-generation anthrax vaccine. Ivins, it turned out, also was a man the FBI consulted frequently to learn the science behind the attacks. The Mirage Man reveals how this seemingly harmless if eccentric scientist hid a sinister secret life from his closest associates and family, and how the trail of genetic and circumstantial evidence led inexorably to him. Along the way, Willman exposes the faulty investigative work that led to the public smearing of the wrong man, Steven Hatfill, a scientist specializing in biowarfare preparedness whose life was upended by media stakeouts and op-ed-page witch hunts. Engrossing and unsparing, The Mirage Man is a portrait of a deeply troubled scientist who for more than twenty years had unlimited access to the U.S. Army’s stocks of deadly anthrax. It is also the story of a struggle for control within the FBI investigation, the missteps of an overzealous press, and how a cadre of government officials disregarded scientific data while spinning the letter attacks into a basis for war. As The Mirage Man makes clear, America must, at last, come to terms with the lessons to be learned from what Bruce Ivins wrought. The nation’s security depends on it. From the Hardcover edition.
Download or read book Anthrax in Humans and Animals written by World Health Organization and published by World Health Organization. This book was released on 2008 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fourth edition of the anthrax guidelines encompasses a systematic review of the extensive new scientific literature and relevant publications up to end 2007 including all the new information that emerged in the 3-4 years after the anthrax letter events. This updated edition provides information on the disease and its importance, its etiology and ecology, and offers guidance on the detection, diagnostic, epidemiology, disinfection and decontamination, treatment and prophylaxis procedures, as well as control and surveillance processes for anthrax in humans and animals. With two rounds of a rigorous peer-review process, it is a relevant source of information for the management of anthrax in humans and animals.
Download or read book Amerithrax Investigative Summary written by Barry Leonard and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. Sets forth the evidence that was developed in the Amerithrax investigation. In the fall of 2001, anthrax letter attacks killed five people and sickened 17 others. Traditional law enforcement techniques were combined with scientific analysis to trace the anthrax used in the attacks to a particular flask of material. By 2007, investigators determined that a single spore-batch created and maintained by Dr. Bruce Ivins at the U.S. Army Med. Res. Inst. of Infectious Diseases was the parent material for the letter spores. Evidence concluded that Dr. Ivins, alone, mailed the anthrax letters. However, before the indictment process, Ivins committed suicide and died on July 29, 2008. Investigations confirm that Ivins perpetrated the anthrax letter attacks.
Download or read book Amerithrax written by Robert Graysmith and published by Monkey's Paw Publishing, Inc.. This book was released on 2021-02-26 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times Bestselling Author of 'Zodiac' and 'Zodiac Unmasked'. AMERICA WAS THE CRIME SCENE Six days after the devastating events of 9/11, as the dust still clung to the air over New York, a new terror descended upon America. An invisible enemy that when inhaled, fatally ravaged the lungs, body, and brain. Mysterious envelopes filled with lethal powder contaminated everything and everyone they came in contact with. They began arriving at their destinations and unsuspecting victims inhaled the microscopic dust particles carrying the Bacillus anthracis bacteria, more commonly known as anthrax. In this weaponized form, inhalational anthrax is at its most lethal. These poison pen letters would contaminate USPS mailboxes, machinery, letter carriers, mailrooms, newsrooms, and the Capitol, all starting with an entire building in Boca Raton, Florida. Putting in motion one of the most critical manhunts in US history. This is the definitive story of the insidious threat--and the relentless hunt to stop America's most sinister bio-terrorist.
Download or read book Anthrax written by Philipp Sarasin and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many security experts believe that the next act of widespread terrorism will likely come from a weapon of biochemical means. In Anthrax: Bioterror as Fact and Fantasy, Philipp Sarasin explores the real threats of biological weapons--in contrast to the idea of biological substances as nebulous agents of terror--by analyzing the anthrax scares that occurred in the United States in 2001.Sarasin argues that while threats of bioterrorism are real, they are disproportionate to the fantasmal fears that now permeate American politics and culture.
Download or read book The Mirage Man written by David Willman and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The anthrax mailings of 2001 triggered the FBI's biggest and most complicated investigation since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Now, for the first time, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Willman tells the gripping story of the hunt for the anthrax killer--a case that consumed the FBI and became a rallying point for launching the Iraq War.
Download or read book The Anthrax Vaccine written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2002-04-18 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The vaccine used to protect humans against the anthrax disease, called Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed (AVA), was licensed in 1970. It was initially used to protect people who might be exposed to anthrax where they worked, such as veterinarians and textile plant workers who process animal hair. When the U. S. military began to administer the vaccine, then extended a plan for the mandatory vaccination of all U. S. service members, some raised concerns about the safety and efficacy of AVA and the manufacture of the vaccine. In response to these and other concerns, Congress directed the Department of Defense to support an independent examination of AVA. The Anthrax Vaccine: Is It Safe? Does It Work? reports the study's conclusion that the vaccine is acceptably safe and effective in protecting humans against anthrax. The book also includes a description of advances needed in main areas: improving the way the vaccine is now used, expanding surveillance efforts to detect side effects from its use, and developing a better vaccine.
Download or read book The Anthrax Letters written by Leonard A. Cole and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At 2:00am on October 2, 2001, Robert Stevens entered a hospital emergency room. Feverish, nauseated, and barely conscious, no one knew what was making him sick. It was the doctors and public health officials who solved this medical mystery. Stevens was the first fatal victim of bioterrorism in America. The events of September 11th and the anthrax attacks that followed only three weeks later were horrifying. Many of us felt we were living in a world gone mad. Already shaken by the images of jetliners deliberately flown into the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center, we were soon scared to open our mail. No longer could we look forward to birthday wishes or holiday postcards. We couldnâ (TM)t even safely face the delivery of our monthly bills. We had now become literally afraid of the microbial menace that could be lurking in our mailboxes. This time terror had struck close to homeâ "to everyoneâ (TM)s home. But behind the panic and the politics was a key line of defense. While the police and FBI frantically investigated a crime, there were other professionals at work, conducting their own painstaking inquiry â " medical and scientific detectives hot on the trail of deadly organisms deliberately set loose in the postal system. Modern heroes in a quickly changing world, the public health officials, physicians, researchers, and scientists who staff our hospitals, clinics, and laboratories will be the first responders on the scene of any future biowarfare event. Conducting his own detective work, bioterrorism expert Leonard Cole has composed a series of fascinating stories that get to the heart of all the noisy sound bytes and hysterical headlines. Cole is the only person outside law enforcement to have interviewed every one of the surviving inhalation-anthrax victims, along with the relatives, friends, and associates of those who died, as well as the public health officials, scientists, researchers, hospital workers, and treating physicians â " indeed, anyone who has something of value to add to the story. Speaking through their voices, the narrative reflects the tension and emotions stirred by the events from the fall of 2001. Fast paced and riveting, this minute-by-minute chronicle of the anthrax attacks recounts more than a history of recent current events, it uncovers the untold and perhaps even more important story of how scientists, doctors, and researchers perform life-saving work under intense pressure and public scrutiny. The Anthrax Letters amply demonstrates how vulnerable America and the world really were in 2001. It also shows quite clearly how scientific research promises to strengthen our ability to address the challenges we must meet in the future.
Download or read book The Demon in the Freezer written by Richard Preston and published by Fawcett. This book was released on 2003-08-26 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The bard of biological weapons captures the drama of the front lines.”—Richard Danzig, former secretary of the navy The first major bioterror event in the United States-the anthrax attacks in October 2001-was a clarion call for scientists who work with “hot” agents to find ways of protecting civilian populations against biological weapons. In The Demon in the Freezer, his first nonfiction book since The Hot Zone, a #1 New York Times bestseller, Richard Preston takes us into the heart of Usamriid, the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, once the headquarters of the U.S. biological weapons program and now the epicenter of national biodefense. Peter Jahrling, the top scientist at Usamriid, a wry virologist who cut his teeth on Ebola, one of the world’s most lethal emerging viruses, has ORCON security clearance that gives him access to top secret information on bioweapons. His most urgent priority is to develop a drug that will take on smallpox-and win. Eradicated from the planet in 1979 in one of the great triumphs of modern science, the smallpox virus now resides, officially, in only two high-security freezers-at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and in Siberia, at a Russian virology institute called Vector. But the demon in the freezer has been set loose. It is almost certain that illegal stocks are in the possession of hostile states, including Iraq and North Korea. Jahrling is haunted by the thought that biologists in secret labs are using genetic engineering to create a new superpox virus, a smallpox resistant to all vaccines. Usamriid went into a state of Delta Alert on September 11 and activated its emergency response teams when the first anthrax letters were opened in New York and Washington, D.C. Preston reports, in unprecedented detail, on the government’ s response to the attacks and takes us into the ongoing FBI investigation. His story is based on interviews with top-level FBI agents and with Dr. Steven Hatfill. Jahrling is leading a team of scientists doing controversial experiments with live smallpox virus at CDC. Preston takes us into the lab where Jahrling is reawakening smallpox and explains, with cool and devastating precision, what may be at stake if his last bold experiment fails.
Download or read book Review of the Scientific Approaches Used During the FBI s Investigation of the 2001 Anthrax Letters written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Less than a month after the September 11, 2001 attacks, letters containing spores of anthrax bacteria (Bacillus anthracis, or B. anthracis) were sent through the U.S. mail. Between October 4 and November 20, 2001, 22 individuals developed anthrax; 5 of the cases were fatal. During its investigation of the anthrax mailings, the FBI worked with other federal agencies to coordinate and conduct scientific analyses of the anthrax letter spore powders, environmental samples, clinical samples, and samples collected from laboratories that might have been the source of the letter-associated spores. The agency relied on external experts, including some who had developed tests to differentiate among strains of B. anthracis. In 2008, seven years into the investigation, the FBI asked the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to conduct an independent review of the scientific approaches used during the investigation of the 2001 B. anthracis mailings. Review of the Scientific Approaches Used During the FBI's Investigation of the Anthrax Letters evaluates the scientific foundation for the techniques used by the FBI to determine whether these techniques met appropriate standards for scientific reliability and for use in forensic validation, and whether the FBI reached appropriate scientific conclusions from its use of these techniques. This report reviews and assesses scientific evidence considered in connection with the 2001 Bacillus anthracis mailings.
Download or read book Bioterror written by R. William Johnstone and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2008-09-30 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book uses the 2001 anthrax attacks as its point of departure for an analysis of the past, present, and future of America's preparedness to deal with major challenges to public health, including bioterrorism and pandemic flu. The study identified the strength and weaknesses of the system while making recommendations for improvements. This allows the U.S. to be better prepared if faced with a larger or different biological threat. This book looks for linkages not only between bioterrorists and pandemic defenses, but also between public health security and the wider field of homeland security. Johnstone highlights some key foundation plans and strategies that are to serve as a basis for public health security. Failure to address these crucial issues not only creates unfounded mandates but also inhibits priority setting, leadership, and accountablity. Bioterror: Anthrax, Influenza, and the Future of Public Health Security utilizes a large number of sources from within both the public health and public policy communities to document how each sector responded to the anthrax attacks and re-emergent infectious diseases, and how those responses have evolved to the present day, As with other areas of homeland security, sustained progress in public health security is not likely until basic questions about funding priorities and leadership are successfully addressed. In the response to the only mass casualty event in the United States since 2001, Hurricane Katrina, and in various emergency simulation exercises such as TOPOFF series, major performance deficiencies have been observed. This book brings together a variety of sources, the best available evidence on the status of the public health security system at three distinct points: before 2001; during and immediately after the anthrax attacks; and in the period from 2004 to the present.
Download or read book Reopening Public Facilities After a Biological Attack written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2005-08-18 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The anthrax attacks in fall 2001 spurred an extensive and costly decontamination effort where many decisions had to be made about which sites required cleanup, what method to use, how to determine the effectiveness of the cleanup, and how "clean" the building had to be for reoccupation. As part of a project funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and managed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the National Research Council was asked to consider the criteria that must be met for a cleanup to be declared successful, allowing the reoccupation of a facility. The report finds that efficiently sampling and characterizing a pathogen is critical for choosing the best remediation strategy. However, there should be no universal standard for deciding when a building is safe to re-enter because varying pathogen amounts and characteristics could require different strategies. The report offers a flowchart for decision-makers that includes questions about the characteristics of the pathogen; how far it has spread; whether it is transmissible between humans; and how long it will survive to pose a threat. The report also recommends that a risk-assessment approach be adopted as part of a strategy for achieving a "socially acceptable" standard for cleanup.
Download or read book Anthrax written by Jeanne Guillemin and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book has implications in an era of growing concern over chemical and biological weapons.
Download or read book Anthrax War written by Bob Coen and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2010-04-27 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation into the 2001 U.S. anthrax attacks leads to the realization that a new and terrible arms race may soon be upon us, one that spans the globe and is driven by an array of forces working with deadly microorganisms. Penetrating what they regard as an international "bioweapons mafia," Bob Coen and Eric Nadler encounter scientists, capitalists, politicians, and assassins — all playing with the world's most dangerous germs. Coen and Nadler pursue leads across four continents in an attempt to illuminate the secret world of international biological weapons research. They probe the mysterious deaths of some of the world's leading germ war scientists, including the death of Bruce Ivins — the man the FBI controversially insists is the lone perpetrator of the anthrax attacks. They also examine the suspicious suicide of British scientist and weapons inspector David Kelly, who was found dead in the woods the same week U.K. officials killed an investigation into illegal human experimentation at the top–secret facility where he once worked. As the plot darkens, it becomes clear that the 2001 anthrax attacks are a portal into a new and lucrative "biomilitary–industrial complex," and one of the most frightening stories of our time.
