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Ames Strain Anthrax?
"While initial tests have suggested that the anthrax spores used in the
terrorist attacks were of the Ames strain, further genetic testing is needed
to establish conclusive proof. Some scientists have suggested the
terrorists' strain could be an "Ameslike" variation, unknown until now. ŒThe
evidence suggests it's THE SAME STRAIN,¹ Friedlander said. ŒBut there is the
possibility that it is not.¹..."
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Army sent anthrax strain to only 5 labs
11/30/01
Steve Fainaru and Joby Warrick
Washington Post
Since the mid-1980s, the U.S. Army laboratory that is the main custodian of
the virulent strain of anthrax used in terrorist attacks distributed the
bacteria to just five labs in the United States, Canada and England,
according to government documents and interviews.
Two of the labs - both in the private sector - received the strain this
spring, only a few months before letters tainted with anthrax spores were
mailed to New York and Washington, the records show.
Col. Arthur Friedlander, senior military research scientist at the U.S. Army
Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., said
the Ames strain was distributed by the military for research under strict
controls to "legitimate workers in the field."
FBI spokesman Mike Kortan said yesterday that the agency's anthrax probe had
moved "way beyond" the short list of labs that received the Ames strain from
Fort Detrick.
Transfer records obtained by the Post under the Freedom of Information Act
show that the Army agency in Frederick, Md., shared the Ames strain last
March with scientists at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences
Center, an Albuquerque research institute, and in May and June with the
Battelle Memorial Institute, a Columbus, Ohio, corporation involved in
anthrax vaccine research.
No records were available before 1997, when a new federal law required
researchers to report the transfer of dangerous pathogens to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. But Army officials said the other labs to
receive Ames were the Defence Research Establishment Suffield, a Canadian
biodefense institute that received Ames in 1998; the U.S. Army Dugway
Proving Ground, a test facility in the Utah desert that received the
bacteria in 1992; and the Chemical Defence Establishment at Porton Down, a
British biodefense institute near Salisbury, England, which received the
Ames strain in the mid-1980s.
"This is not a cavalier thing that one does," Friedlander said. "When anyone
isolates strains, they are shared through the scientific community. That's
how research gets done. It follows a long tradition of collaboration with
people that we are well familiar with."
The Ames strain, a virulent form of the bacteria, is named for the Iowa city
where it was originally isolated.
It was used in attacks that killed five people and infected 13 in Florida,
New York, Connecticut and Washington, D.C., according to investigators.
When the anthrax attacks began in early October, many experts believed that
the Ames strain, because of its use in vaccine studies, had been distributed
to thousands of researchers worldwide. But that number has been found to be
much lower in recent weeks. Friedlander estimated yesterday that the numbers
of labs in possession of virulent anthrax strains, including Ames, probably
numbered "no more than a dozen."
In addition to the five labs that received Ames from the Army, others known
to have the Ames strain are Martin E. Hugh-Jones, an anthrax researcher at
Louisiana State University, and a lab at Northern Arizona University in
Flagstaff, Ariz. Jones recently said he received the Ames strain in the late
1990s from microbiologist Peter Turnbull, then at Porton Down. Turnbull,
confirming the transaction in an interview last week, said Porton Down
shared Ames with "very few" researchers, whom he declined to name.
The records document the delivery of Ames bacteria to at least 10
establishments, but only five received Ames in a form that makes people
sick.
The first agency reported to have received the Ames strain from Fort Detrick
was the Chemical Defence Establishment, which used the bacteria to test
vaccines for troops.
Porton Down scientists previously acknowledged sharing the bacteria with the
agency's public health branch, the Center for Applied Microbiology and
Research. The center's officials in turn have acknowledged distributing the
bacteria to a small number of private researchers.
Fort Detrick's documents record several exchanges of Ames bacteria between
Fort Detrick and the Dugway Proving Ground, the Pentagon's primary chemical
and biological defense testing center, in Utah's Great Salt Lake Desert.
Dugway, the site of several biological weapons tests in the 1950s and 1960s,
has continued to use live anthrax spores in experiments that test the
durability of military equipment under a simulated biological attack.
Michael Cast, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Developmental Test Command,
which oversees Dugway, said the security measures at the West Desert Test
Center, where Dugway scientists test everything from protective suits to
armored vehicles, are "very stringent."
In 1998, the Canadian government requested the Ames strain for its Defence
Research Establishment Suffield, Ottawa's counterpart to Fort Detrick.
According to documents prepared by that agency's scientists, Ames was one of
11 strains of Bacillus anthracis bacteria given to Canada.
The Canadians studied Ames in experiments that tested the effectiveness of
antibiotics against various bacterial strains, documents showed.
The Canadian agency's chief scientist, Kent Harding, said the anthrax spores
were closely guarded against theft. "We're talking several locked doors and
24-seven monitoring," he said.
Two research agencies received Ames bacteria from Fort Detrick this year, in
shipments that predate the Sept. 11 attacks. Battelle Corp., a major
government contractor that manages Energy Department laboratories and
operates the Chemical and Biological Information Analysis Center for the
Defense Department, was planning to use the strain in developing vaccines.
Spokeswoman Katy Delaney said she could not comment on Battelle's anthrax
research, but she said officials were unaware of security problems at its
facilities.
"We know of no instances of safety or security breaches in our biodefense
research," Delaney said.
The records also show that the Army shared Ames with the University of New
Mexico Health Sciences Center last March.
The center operates a Pentagon-funded lab that evaluates potential
treatments and protections against biological weapons.
A university spokesman declined to comment on the specifics of the research.
While initial tests have suggested that the anthrax spores used in the
terrorist attacks were of the Ames strain, further genetic testing is needed
to establish conclusive proof. Some scientists have suggested the
terrorists' strain could be an "Ameslike" variation, unknown until now.
"The evidence suggests it's the same strain," Friedlander said. "But there
is the possibility that it is not."
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