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Jeanne Guillemin, Matthew Meselson, American Anthrax
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American Anthrax: Fear, Crime, and the Investigation of the Nation’s Deadliest Bioterror Attack by Jeanne Guillemin. Times Books (320 pp.).
At Amazon.com (This title will be released on September 13, 2011.)
- A senior fellow in MIT’s Security Studies Program, Jeanne Guillemin offers a lucid account of the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five Americans and induced nationwide panic. The deadly anthrax-laced letters mailed to major media and Congress represented “a fatal biosecurity breakdown” that begs the question: how can the U.S. best protect the public in the future?
- We may never know who was responsible for the attacks, says the author. Whether Army microbiologist Bruce Ivins was involved or not (the FBI’s lead suspect, Ivins committed suicide, precluding any prosecution; the case against him was not airtight), some criminal had secretly gained access to anthrax spores in flask RMR 1029, which was in Ivins’ keeping at Fort Detrick’s U.S. Army Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, in Frederick, Md.
- Recounting every aspect of the crisis, Guillemin describes the Army’s “lack of vigilance” regarding lab security and calls for a thorough evaluation of the nation’s current biodefense initiative to ensure high security standards to protect the public.
-Joseph Barbato
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CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks? 