* Jeffrey Adamovicz and Gerry Andrews, the people who knew Dr. Ivins and his lab capabilities better than anyone else, make powerful arguments that the FBI has not made its case … and Adamovicz says “he feels morally obligated to continue to pursue the case.”
Posted by DXer on October 11, 2011
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Jeremy Pelzer writes in the Casper Star-Tribune (10/11/11) …
- The case against Ivins closed in July 2008, when he overdosed on Tylenol in an apparent suicide soon after learning that criminal charges were likely to be filed against him.
- However, the controversy still continues, as the family of one of the anthrax victims has filed a civil lawsuit against the U.S. government alleging negligence in handling anthrax at the Army lab.
- Government investigators compiled a list of circumstantial evidence against Ivins.
- But both Adamovicz, who was Ivins’ supervisor, and UW assistant veterinary sciences professor Gerry Andrews, who worked with Ivins for years, said the FBI’s case against their former colleague was very weak.
- For one thing, they said, Ivins would have needed several months to prepare the amount of anthrax used in the attacks — much longer than the couple of weeks alleged by the government.
- Ivins also worked with wet spores, Adamovicz said, not the dry spores used in the attack. If Ivins dried his spores, he said, they wouldn’t have the same composition as those found in the letters.
- Ivins used a similar anthrax strain to the type found in the letters, Andrews said, but that same strain was also farmed out to a number of other labs.
- Also, having worked with him for years, both Adamovicz and Andrews said Ivins gave no indication of being someone who would want to send lethal bacteria to kill innocent people.
- even 10 years and thousands of miles removed from Bruce Ivins, Adamovicz said the mystery of the anthrax attacks is still a major part of his life.
- “It’s almost like the white whale in a way,” Adamovicz said, referring to Captain Ahab’s continually out-of-reach nemesis in Moby Dick.
- “It is something that I feel morally obligated to continue to pursue.”
read the entire article at … http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming/article_83fbc2f4-1314-5369-a04e-fe57c6cf720f.html
DXer said
Adamovicz, Andrews, Little, Byrne, Welkos, Friedlander, Worsham and Friend powerfully explained Dr. Ivins’ innocence.
The mute swan issue is a case study on what may (or may not) work in advocacy.
I have no idea whether this proposed law giving mute swans protected status in New York will fly.
Senator proposes mute swan protection plan
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2014/03/8541863/senator-proposes-mute-swan-protection-plan
I do know, however, that any attempt by the NY DEC to kill the swans I know will face a court action to enjoin the DEC on the grounds that their eradication of the mute swan to favor the trumpeter swan is arbitrary and capricious. It is the trumpeter that is bigger eating and bigger pooping — and not a “native New Yorker.” The trumpeter was first introduced here in the 1990s — at least a full century after the mute swan.
DXer said
All these USAMRIID scientists are great. I hadn’t known that Jeffrey A. worked for DIA in 2003.
DXer said
These USAMRIID scientists have had very responsible positions in this country’s biodefense efforts:
Dr. Adamovicz, for example, testified at deposition:
“in 1996 I was assigned as a U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq, and I was the chief of the resident bioteam that did the copmliance, treaty compliance inspections, et cetera.
That was a three-month, temporary duty assignment. And then also in 2003, during the war — the second war in Iraq, I was assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency and sent to Baghdad, Iraq, for about four months.”
DXer said
Dr. Vahid Majidi dismisses these former heads of the bacteriology division precisely because they knew Dr. Ivins and his capabilities.