* USAMRIID today produced a copy of it’s response to a 17 January 2002 subpoena and admitted to the one project where a dried powder was made (by the FBI’s expert at USAMRIID who was collecting the samples from others)
Posted by DXer on May 22, 2014
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CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks? 
DXer said
It was the FBI’s scientist who made a dried powder at USAMRIID, not Bruce Ivins.
The heavily fictionalized “Hot Zone: Anthrax” has totally botched the timeline on subpoenas. The more dramatic point about the production of samples was the FBI’s delay in issuing them, the fact that their own scientist collecting the samples did not submit one even though a flask was in the refrigerator (and had been used to make a dried powder), and that the FBI through out Ivins sample! Even though the slant used met the specs of the subpoena and others using equivalent slants were not thrown out. The issue of submission of samples in no way implicates Ivins. Instead, the FBI’s lame mischaracterizations on the issue evidences serious misconduct and even spoliation of evidence.
DXer said
Lawsuit claims White House hindering FOIA requests, August 18, 2014
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2014/08/18/lawsuit-claims-white-house-reviews-hinder-foia-requests/
A conservative legal group on Monday plans to file alawsuit alleging that the White House’s tight control over document requests has led to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) violations by 12 federal agencies.
Comment:
USAMRIID has not provided the attachments from its response to the February 2002 subpoena even though GAO had announced that its report was expected out late summer 2014.
What is the reason for the delay?
Is Department of Army one of the 12 agencies subject to this lawsuit?
DXer said
The agencies include the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/18/lawsuit-white-house-accused-of-hiding-politically-embarrassing-information/#ixzz3ApiTcSV1
“The process of review, established in April of 2009 by a White House memo, stipulates that FOIA requests to federal agencies dealing with ‘White House equities’ need to be processed by the Obama administration first before being approved for release.
Drawn up by Gregory Craig, former counsel to President Barack Obama, the memo states, “This is a reminder that executive agencies should consult with the White House Counsel’s Office on all document requests that may involve documents with White House equities.”
The memo does not bode well for the administration’s self-proclamation as the most transparent administration in the nation’s history. In confirmation of administration priorities, the White House on Sunday again stated that Obama is “committed to a transparent and open government and has taken unprecedented steps to ensure that members of the public have access to information.”
As revealed previously by the Washington Times in June, however, the undefined “White House equities” phrase has been used to keep a close grip on information that is politically embarrassing.”
DXer said
The request for the labs that USAMRIID provided Ames prior to 9/11 is going to be denied shortly.
To force production, an appeal needs to be taken and suit under FOIA brought.
The request about the dried aerosol work is also going to be denied.
As to each request, FOIA personnel sought to fake compliance by documents that clearly were not responsive.
Given the lack of transparency — and this position that even 12 years later the work cannot be checked — it seems that most of the labs should be shut down and work stopped as my friend, Dr. Ebright, urges.
In the meantime, GAO of course should obtain the documents that USAMRIID provided to the FBI as attachments to its response to the subpoena. They are absolutely necessary to analysis.
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
A FOIA plaintiff has choice of several district court jurisdictions in connection with the request.
DXer said
USMRMC reports today that USAMRIID is looking for the Enclosures “Simulants” and “Anthrax Shipments” that accompanied USAMRIID’s response to the subpoena.
DXer said
CDC says it improperly sent dangerous pathogens in five incidents in past decade
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/cdc-says-it-improperly-sent-dangerous-pathogens-in-five-incidents-in-past-decade/2014/07/11/acd55bfc-0882-11e4-a0dd-f2b22a257353_story.html
Federal government laboratories in Atlanta improperly sent highly dangerous pathogens, including anthrax, potentially lethal botulism bacteria and deadly bird flu virus to other laboratories in five separate incidents in the past decade, officials said Friday.
The incidents, which raise troubling questions about the federal government’s ability to safely store and transport potentially deadly pathogens, prompted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to halt operations at two labs and impose a moratorium on biological material leaving multiple labs at its Atlanta headquarters.
***
The CDC disclosed the incidents in a report Friday detailing safety lapses that occurred last month ,when as many as 84 workers may have been exposed to live anthrax after employees unknowingly sent live samples of the bacteria from one CDC lab to other CDC labs.
As part of its internal investigation, the CDC found that “this is not the first time an event of this nature has occurred,” according to the report. “At the time of this writing, CDC is aware of four other such incidents in the past decade.”
Frieden said most distressing was the discovery Wednesday that on March 13, shipments of “highly pathogenic” H5N1 influenza virus were inappropriately sent from the CDC to a U.S. Department of Agriculture laboratory in Georgia. It took six weeks for staff to report the discovery.
The release of the CDC report comes days after government officials discovered decades-old vials of smallpox in a building on the Bethesda campus of the National Institutes of Health. The vials, which officials said appear to date from the 1950s, were flown to the CDC and initial testing has confirmed the presence of smallpox-virus DNA.
Frieden said two of six vials labeled as smallpox already have shown growth in tissue cultures, meaning the samples are viable, or alive.
It remains unclear how the smallpox samples ended up in Building 29A, in a lab that the Food and Drug Administration has operated since 1972. On July 1, a scientist preparing for the lab’s move to the main FDA campus in White Oak, Md., found the vials in a cardboard box in a cold storage room. There is no cure for smallpox, which killed hundreds of millions of people in the 20th century alone before finally being eradicated in the late 1970s, and historically about one-third of people who contracted it died from the disease.
DXer said
CDC Issues Tough Report on Anthrax Scare
HealthDay July 11, 2014
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2014/07/11/cdc-issues-tough-report-on-anthrax-scare
“But, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials have announced a moratorium on the transfer of any dangerous germs or materials from high-level government labs”.
***
“Anthrax made headlines in 2001 during the bioterror attacks. In the attacks, someone purposely spread anthrax through the U.S. mail system, killing five people and sickening 22.”
Comment:
While I can’t be sure what Yazid Sufaat and Adnan El-Shukrijumah were doing in early October 2001, I can be confident, based on the documentary evidence produced by the unflaggingly helpful USMRMC FOIA person, that Dr. Ivins was working nights and weekends on an experiment with 52 rabbits.
Transparency — and it is hardest when mistakes are disclosed — should be rewarded. So Congressional leaders should be very slow to deter disclosure of mistakes.
It’s obstruction and destruction of documents and false statements — not mistakes — that Congress needs to come down hard on.
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
DXer: John Ezzell forthrightly (to my way of thinking, heroically) answered all my questions relating to the DARPA research in which Flask 1029 (the “murder weapon” to borrow US Attorney Taylor’s term) was used to make a dried powder Ames aerosol.
Posted by Lew Weinstein on December 10, 2010
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/john-ezzell-forthrightly-to-my-way-of-thinking-heroically-answered-all-my-dxers-questions-relating-to-the-darpa-research-in-which-flask-1029-the-“murder-weapon”-to-borrow-us/
The Ames that Dr. Ezzell’s lab used to make the dried powder was from Flask 1029. Was that the only time dried powder was made for the DARPA researchers out of Ames?
Posted by Lew Weinstein on March 10, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/the-ames-that-dr-ezzells-lab-used-to-make-the-dried-powder-was-from-flask-1029-was-that-the-only-time-dried-powder-was-made-for-the-darpa-researchers-out-of-ames/
why did the FBI keep evidence of John Ezzell’s dried powder from the NAS?
Posted by Lew Weinstein on March 21, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/why-did-fbi-keep-evidence-of-john-ezzells-dried-powder-from-the-nas/
DXer says … The FBI’s narrative will never withstand the production of emails of John Ezzell, James Burans and David Wilson
Posted by Lew Weinstein on December 29, 2010
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2010/12/29/dxer-says-the-fbis-narrative-will-never-withstand-the-production-of-emails-of-john-ezzell-james-burans-and-david-wilson/
DXer said
Who in Dr. Ezzell’s lab threw out Ivins’ February 2002 sample which contained the 4 morphs?
Posted by Lew Weinstein on March 22, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/03/22/who-in-dr-ezzells-lab-threw-out-ivins-february-2002-sample-which-contained-the-4-morphs/
Terry Abshire in a document produced this week under FOIA explains that the genetically matching sample she had in her lab was not submitted in the initial set ; instead, wasn’t her lab provided genetically matching material in August 2000 for DARPA research in which Dr. Ezzell made a dried powder out of the Ames and gave it to the DARPA researchers?
Posted by Lew Weinstein on October 6, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/terry-abshire-in-a-document-produced-this-week-under-foia-explains-that-the-genetically-matching-sample-she-had-in-her-lab-was-not-submitted-in-the-initial-set-instead-wasnt-her-lab-provided-ge/
This is an interview of a scientist who had been working on the DARPA research while at USAMRIID; did Joany Jackman leave the remaining Ames from Flask 1029 with Terry Abshire or John Ezzell when she left?
Posted by Lew Weinstein on April 12, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/his-is-an-interview-of-a-scientist-who-had-been-working-on-the-darpa-research-while-at-usamriid-did-joany-jackman-leave-the-remaining-ames-from-flask-1029-with-terry-abshire-or-john-ezzell-when-she/
Is Southern Research Institute the phrase that fits in front of laboratory in regard to the location that aerosol work for DARPA was done? Was it Johns-Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory? Or instead were the special facilities built at USAMRIID. The research involved the FBI’s anthrax expert John Ezzell and his assistant Joany Jackman.
Posted by Lew Weinstein on July 21, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/is-southern-research-institute-the-phrase-that-fits-in-front-of-laboratory-in-regard-to-the-location-that-aerosol-work-for-darpa-was-done-or-was-it-johns-hopkins-university-applied-physics-labora/