The Vet School was tucked between a trailer court (go figure) and I-80. It was a collection of buildings at that time.

I think talking to that Jim Rodgers would be very interesting. He mentions…..about ten years ago….well that is when what I saw happened.

Something happened. I’m not sure if they knew what had hit them. But the perps were probably long gone before they figured out they had been compromised. The Vet School may not be as guilty as they feel. I don’t think they knew anything until they failed the 2nd test. That would have put them in violation of the license. It would have caused them to come up with a plan and that plan was to get paraformaldehyde. But I’ve gone over this in my story.

It all fits together for me.

http://www.usaha.org/news/newsletter/USAHA-Newsletter-June2001.pdf

Richard Ebright of Rutgers University has made the point over the years that with the expansion of biodefense research, there is a risk of access to both pathogens and know-how. The research is being done at universities and private companies throughout the country. In understanding the probativeness of the FBI’s genetic findings — and in considering this claim by the Postal Inspector that virulent Ames was at USDA Ames — it is useful consider the type of research done at the USDA and ISU.

For example, they did cutting edge stuff at Iowa State University such as at the NASA Food Technology Commercial Space Center there — and not just products like the freeze-dried ice cream you buy at your local science museum. For example, Microbial-Vac SystemsTM, Inc. Rocky Mountain Resource Labs, Inc. Jerome, Idaho Corporate Founding Partner since November, 2000, developed a novel aseptic wet-vacuum microbial sampler to evaluate surface disinfection. The system vacuum the bacteria or spores up and concentrates it for better on-site detection. It concentrates the anthrax sample by a factor of ten times what could previously be achieved. It can be used to counter bioterrorist activities in our food supplies. Later testing was done at University of Vermont and University of Tennessee. In early testing in 2001, however, the company went through Iowa State University to use a commercial packing facility in the Midwest to test for e coli.

Borrowing liberally from the NASA FTCSC’s Annual Report:
– Iowa State University’s Dr. James S. Dickson, then Chairman of the Microbiology Department and NASA FTCSC affiliate faculty member, researched ways to combat anthrax at the Postal Service. He did experiments to determine the irradication decimal reduction values for dry anthrax spores in #10 business envelopes. The Surgeon General’s Office had asked Dr. Dickson to find the dosage to kill anthrax spores that might be present in envelopes.

– Rocky Mountain Resources, Inc. is using the Microbial-Vac System™ (M-Vac) to research ways to detect anthrax on letters and packages. The M-Vac is used to collect dry powder samples from surfaces of unopened envelopes by going through the small opening at the edge of the sealed envelope. The M-Vac can also collect samples from the outsides of envelopes and boxes with low levels of liquid and can collect 10 to 20 times more anthrax surrogate (B. subtilus) than a wet cotton swab.

– Iowa State University’s Dr. Thomas Richard, NASAFTCSC affiliate faculty member, is involved in a study to prepare our country against a possible threat of livestock contamination. The NASA center did not provide facilities as such. Those were contributed in-kind by participants. Dr. James Dickson, for example, evaluated Microbial-Vac as part of the NASA program. He is now a professor of Animal Science. Microbial-Vac inventor Bruce Bradley confirms that the company did no testing at ISU or the USDA facility.

In December 2001, Dr. Dickson explained:

“No potential ingredients for biological weapons exist in the ISU Microbiology building, he said. “We don’t really have any of those agents in our lab. We don’t have any of the bacteria just sitting around, and we surely don’t have any anthrax.” When I spoke with him, he referred to me to the Veterinary School to ask them about the inventory that had been there. Dr. Cheville in turn called and confirmed that it was still his understanding that the collection of isolates in the Vet school inventory that was destroyed in October 2001 would not have included Ames.

The Microbial-Vac founder explained in a reported interview that they tried to get the coach to put them in the game. “We tried, but just couldn’t reach key people during the Anthrax letter attacks. We did talk to the U.S. Senate Sergeant-of-Arms’ technical advisor and mailed M-Vac information to his home. However, he never did get back to us and subsequently, has not returned phone messages,” continues Bradley. “We are trying to understand the dilemma, because in addition to us, there were apparently thousands of people or firms contacting the FBI, CDC, or other agencies dealing with the Anthrax attack. It was impossible for us to get through the screening process. Senator Craig’s office was being evacuated as we spoke to his staff on the phone the day the Daschle letter was found. We are still trying, but I guess we are too far away from where the big decisions are made. We all know there will be more bioterrorist attacks on our people or strikes on our food supplies. Our major goal is to do our best to make sure the M-Vac will be in a position to help our country in this battle against bioterrorism when the next incident occurs.” Bradley continued.”

Testing done in Idaho under a small business grant from the U.S. Army in 2001 showed that wet or dried suspect bacillus subtilus could be collected off diverse surfaces with greater efficiency than swabs (display taken from website accessed in 2002)

In October 2000, RMR Labs/ Microbial-Vac had entered into a joint research project with the Naval Medical Research Center. The collaborative research agreement aimed to validate improved methods for detecting four dangerous food pathogens: Salmonella, Listeria, E. coli, and Campylobacter. David M. Rollins, who then went to work at the University of Maryland, was the scientist at the Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland working on the joint project. Dr. Bruce Bradley of RMR Labs (inventor of Microbial-Vac) advises me that testing was done in 2001 for e coli at a commercial packing house in the Midwest.

The Naval Medical Research Center reportedly has worked with the Ames strain. The Naval Medical Research Center’s Biological Defense Research Directorate (BDRD) in 2001 was located in Silver Spring. Gary W. Long, a biologist formerly at the Naval Medical Research Center, has been quoted saying that he and his colleagues tested nearly 500 suspicious envelopes containing powder for the FBI, the Secret Service and other agencies in the late 1990s. (None contained anthrax). In 2001, BDRD developed, implemented and trained Navy personnel in how to sample, test and respond to possible biowarfare attacks by agents such as anthrax. Their webpage explained: ” researchers have been instrumental in the advancement and refinement of confirmatory diagnostic methods utilizing polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methodologies in tandem with innovative, state of the art biosensor technologies.” Ali Al-Timimi had a high security clearance for work with the Navy.

The NMRC’s Biological Defense Research Directorate serves as a national resource providing testing and analysis for the presence of anthrax and other potential hazards. Its portable laboratory, the only one of its kind devoted to detecting biological agents, was deployed to conduct tests in New York City and at the Pentagon following the airliner crash on September 11. After the anthrax mailings in October, the NMRC’s BDRD analyzed more than 16,000 samples from the Capitol, detecting the presence of anthrax at Hart Senate Office Building, the Supreme Court and several area mail processing facilities. In collaboration with university researchers, BDRD researchers have expanded their focus on developing a new generation of anthrax vaccine. The collaborative research agreement, known as a CRADA, between RMS Labs/Microbial-Vac and NMRC never was implemented because David Rollins left NMRC. I do not know whether there was a materials transfer (a different type agreement).

Separately, however, there was an agreement over three or four years beginning sometime in 2001 well before the formal announcement in October 2001, with US Army Natick Soldier Center. Natick Soldier Center was testing Microbial-Vac as part of its Biosensors for Rapid Detection of Food Quality and Safety program. RMR Labs had developed the technology through grants from the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Army Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. Under the joint research effort with the U.S. Army launched in 2001, the Natick Soldier Center evaluated and supported further development of the technology for sampling organisms on diverse surfaces. In announcing the testing, Andre Senecal, Ph.D., Senior Food Technologist, an expert in rapid detection technology at Natick Soldier Center.explained: “An analysis of past CB documented incidents by Battelle showed that food or water was used in more than 60 percent of all occurrences as a means of infecting the target.” The immediate customer of Natick Soldier Center’s Combat Feeding Directorate is United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (“USAMRIID”). Dr. Senecal, however, confirms by email that they do not have a BL3 facility so only work with the Sterne strain.

It is important to understand the connection between USAMRIID and USDA Iowa. Amerithrax began with a cow in Texas. Veterinarian Mike Vickers sent a sample from a carcass in south Texas to the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Lab (“TVMDL”) at the request of a USAMRIID vaccine reseracher that had been made to USDA Iowa. A now-retired Dr. Howard Whitford, who isolated it from a carcass, forwarded it. Two vials were sent. The box with the styrofoam came to Ft. Detrick using a label from Ames, Iowa. The mailing label resulted in the name “Ames” and some initial confusion among outside experts as to the history of the strain. It was forwarded pursuant to a request by Dr. Knudson of Ft. Detrick who had sought field strains of anthrax. Dr. Knudson at Ft. Detrick still had the correspondence from the time, to include even the mailing label. Published accounts suggest that it was just the use of the lab’s mailing that confused the origin and imply that it was sent to USAMRIID directly from Texas. Based on this forum’s poster, Marcia, a source that I credit and find highly reliable on her description of the interview by 3 postal inspectors — and thus based indirectly on three government sources involved in the investigation — Ames did have the “Ames strain.” (Of course, Postal Inspector Richter could always clarify things and explain that Marcia misunderstood what he said). Perhaps it was first sent to Iowa. It perhaps was redirected to Ft. Detrick not by the Texas A&M lab as assumed and reported, but by the Agriculture Department’s National Veterinary Laboratory in Ames. As I said, though, the USDA spokesman notes that they may not have known it by that nomenclature.

A half decade later, two researchers at Fort Detrick published a science paper in which they reported the Ames strain was highly lethal when tested on laboratory animals. The article said that the anthrax strain originated in Iowa, continuing the mistake caused by the mailing label. That was how Dr. Ivins labeled his record of flask 1029. So at least early on he and his colleagues were under the impression it came from Iowa.

In an Oct. 12, 2001 statement, ISU pointed a finger at its neighbor, the National Veterinary Services Laboratories, saying it “appears” to have shipped the Ames strain to Fort Detrick. Maybe that’s exactly what happened. When it was first discovered that the original source was the cow in Texas, the conclusion was just mistakenly reached by some that the sample was not first sent to Ames.   

The remarks in early 2002 by Dr. Eugster the director of the Texas lab who was interpreting notations on the isolate from the Texas cow, are not at all inconsistent. As explained on NPR, he did not know whether it was sent first to Ft. Detrick or first to Ames. (The scientist who actually isolated the sample, retired Howard Whitford, confirmed the same thing when contacted by telephone by Marcia). The Task Force, however, does know.

In an important early article, William Broad of the NYT who reviewed the USAMRIID file that contained the mailing label, did not indicate he saw postmarks and cancellations. None in fact appear. Even though there is no cancellation on the mailing package, the reason the FBI would know who typed the address label (directing it to Ft. Detrick) comparison of other typewritten correspondence. All one would have to do is to get correspondence from the respective TVMDL lab (in Texas) and the NSVL lab (in Iowa) from that year. While handwriting analysis may be voodoo to many, analysis of typed documents is not.

The document was faxed in 2001 to an ISU professor Jim D. from 301-295-4095. He then gave it to me and was very forthcoming in answering all questions; he had not been involved in the destruction. He referred me to others at ISU and after Lew-worthy persistence, they too talked to me. USDA Iowa folks, on the other hand, never responded except in response to the FOI request. On the fax of the page from the file showing the mailing label, the designation AFRRI 4420 appears. AFRRI stands for “Armed Forces Radiobiology Research” which is located at 8901 Wisconsin Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20889-5603 where I believe Dr. Knudson, who still had the correspondence file, had gone.
  
While there was still confusion as to where and when the anthrax originated, the AP reported in an early article that Harvard University, for example, purchased anthrax microbes for vaccine research from a U.S. Department of Agriculture culture bank several miles from Iowa State. Dr. Alibek and Dr. Spertzel and Dr. Martin Hugh-Jones, along with many others were critical of ISU’s destruction of its anthrax inventory. But the unintended consequence was that the destruction distracted attention away from the fact that the lab that was the more relevant lab was the USDA’s labs.

Jim Rogers, a USDA spokesman said nothing has been stolen from labs there. He told the Chicago Tribune that the anthrax colonies there are “not a big part of our work,” but that they were necessary for research, tissue-typing and diagnostic purposes. The USDA declined to make any of its Ames area staff available for interviews to reporters. One former scientist at the NSV Lab told the Tribune in October 2001 that security at the facility here has been extremely tight for the last 10 years or so. “They’ve never been careless, but things used to be a lot looser before they really began clamping down.” The USDA complex pictured above by Lew, which also includes the National Animal Disease Center, does research on other infectious diseases such as Mad Cow disease and West Nile virus. But the conditions at the strip mall, as noted by Lew’s quotes, were especially appalling. A picture is worth a thousand words and am very appreciative that Lew is showing us such great images.   

The implication is that the perp who accessed the Ames strain may have a connection to animal science rather than biodefense. Without being too distracted by the regrettable destruction of the separate inventory at a different lab in Ames at ISU, a key question becomes access to the USDA diagnostic lab in Ames run by National Veterinary Services Laboratories. To learn more on that, all that is needed is for DIA/Army to comply with the Freedom of Information Act and provide an unredacted copy of the 1999 letters sent by Abdur Rauf to Ayman Zawahiri. If the Army complies with FOI now, they will continue to bask in the glow of their good works. The (b)(6) exemption is inapplicable under these circumstances. The public has “a right to know what its government is up to.”

In October 2001, Iowa State University reported that it had destroyed its stores of anthrax in response to security concerns arising in the wake of the 9/11 attack and anthrax mailings. The destruction of the inventory at ISU was always a bit of red herring. Instead, the relevant lab was this USDA lab complex in Ames. To combat the bioterrorism threat, in addition to Plum Island, the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) also administers the NADC in Ames, Iowa, the primary USDA facility for conducting research on animal diseases of economic importance to U.S. agriculture. NADC is located immediately adjacent to the APHIS National Veterinary Service Laboratories (NVSL) and the APHIS Center for Veterinary Biologics (CVB).

Within USDA, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) protects America’s animals and plants from agricultural pests and diseases. APHIS’s Veterinary Services operates the NVSL, which is responsible for activities such as training and approving personnel from state and university diagnostic laboratories to conduct diagnostic tests for animal diseases. NVSL is composed of four facilities, three of which are located in Ames, Iowa. USDA’s in-house research agency, the ARS conducts research in fields that complement homeland security efforts, such as the development of vaccines.

Presently, more is known about samples at ISU than at Agriculture Department’s National Veterinary Laboratory in Ames. The university said the samples — there were over 100 vials — had been maintained for their historical interest and no research was underway. There are a number of publications by USDA Agricultural Research Service (“ARS”) and ISU authors on anthrax online. Researchers in Ames, Iowa and ISU international students were interviewed in December 2001 about access to microbiology labs containing anthrax and in April 2002 the labs received subpoenas along with other labs that had been identified as possibly possessing Ames.

The three federally NVSL operated in Ames have been at a high level of security since Sept. 11, 2001. The laboratories have worked with many dangerous pathogens, including anthrax. The security is based on a zone system, with the security measures protecting zones that contain more dangerous pathogens. In some zones, the high-security labs are protected with human and electronic surveillance, as well as other forms of monitoring. “Anyone working with select agents or toxins undergoes a Department of Justice background investigation,” says Michael Roof, head of the Agricultural Research Service Homeland Security. A “Special Edition: USDA’s Ames Laboratories, USAHA” in June 2001 pointedly explained the need for new facilities.

The National Animal Disease Center (“NADC”) at Ames (pop. 50,000) is very near Iowa State University. NADC Staff frequently collaborate with scientists and veterinarians at Iowa State and employs students through the school year. One ISU professor pointed out the prominence of the NADC: “(Terrorists) could steal pathogens from the National Animal Disease Center, taking abilities away from labs (for us to work there).” The June 2001 report cited by Lew described the USDA facilities at Ames and urged a dramatic renovation. Dr. Thomas Bunn served as Chief of the NVSL Diagnostic Bacteriology Laboratory (DB) to include anthrax. The DBL activities are carried out four buildings in the Ames area: a leased commercial building located in the Lincoln East Commercial Center strip mall near downtown Ames, leased space in NADC Buildings #2- Main Laboratory #3- Animal Isolation Facilities and the NVSL Central/CVB-L building on the APHIS main premises. There is a BL-3 lab in NADC Building #2 and a small one at the NVSL Central building; at the strip mall only BL-2 activities relating to anthrax are carried out.

NVSL had rented the building at the strip mall for over a quarter century, but it had significant deficiencies such as bad heating and cooling, poor ventilation and groundwater seepage. In 2001, the building owners did at least put on a fresh coat of interior paint. Insects and rodents were a problem. “In 1994, the USDA Office of Inspector General determined that these satellite facilities were not constructed to the recommended safety standards for handling some human pathogens. Interim steps were taken after the 1994 report to mitigate these issues” to include moving some isolation and identification to the BL-3 laboratory at the NVSL Central/ CVB-L Building and the NADC Building #4-Animal Isolation Facilities.

At ISU, the collection destroyed in October 2001 consisted of multiple vials of four or five strains of anthrax, according to.Jim Roth, assistant dean and professor of microbiology. He explained that there was no overall inventory, so there is no way to determine if any of the vials was missing.  The collection was perhaps best known for the time when, as described in the New Yorker, “[i]n 1978, a fondly remembered professor named R. Allen Packer had uncorked one of the fifty-year-old vials and, after a couple of tries, was able to coax the bacillus back to life.”     The New Yorker article noted “None of the vials were identified as “Ames,” but then the labels were cryptic, some bearing only numbers or dates.” The article continued: “The school’s anthrax collection had been stored in cabinets in the teaching laboratory, the doors of which were routinely locked at night.” “The lab is locked routinely. The particular cabinet was locked. We weren’t paranoid about it because we were taking the normal precautions,” Roth explained. Now Mr. Coen and Mr. Nadler have noted that the inventory at the strip mall was also destroyed.

Dr. Roth explained that first it was unknown whether Iowa State still had anthrax. “This building has over 1,000 rooms in it and probably a dozen microbiology labs,” he said. “It took a bit to find out if we had some [anthrax].” “We didn’t know what the Ames Strain was, either,” he said. “We didn’t name it the Ames Strain.” The collection had been stored in a drawer according to one report — cabinets in another. Upon being taken from the drawer, the collection of 100 vials was examined in a biological safety cabinet by two members of the ISU environmental health and safety unit.     “We decided they were more of a security risk now than we wanted to tolerate,” Dr. Roth said at the time. “We didn’t need them that badly and decided to destroy them. We checked with the FBI and CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] to see if it was OK to destroy them. They didn’t want them and didn’t need them for their investigation.” Veterinary school Dean, Cheville, Dr. Roth and Dr. Donald Reynolds, associate dean of research for Veterinary Medicine, met on Oct. 11 to discuss the fate of the ISU anthrax collection. They called the FBI, the Center for Disease Control and the USDA labs For its part, the New York Times reported in November 2001 that F.B.I. said “it never explicitly approved the destruction of the cultures, but never objected either.”

“Given they [the ISU samples] had become a security risk, we decided not to tie up highway patrol troops guarding them any more,” Roth said. Dr. Roth reports that they calculated a cost of $30,000 a month for a round-the-clock guard.So at dinner time one evening, every strain in the collection was placed in pink plastic autoclave bags and pushed into the a steam called an autoclave — heated to up to 120 degrees Celsius under 15 pounds of pressure.

That’s a lot of pressure to destroy a supply of anthrax at Ames that was extremely vulnerable to theft and connected to vaccine research at USAMRIID.

Perhaps Paul Keim could answer for us on Monday whether the FBI consulted a genetics expert on whether the inventory should be destroyed.