* The Chair of the Dangerous Pathogens 2000 conference at which the Al Qaeda scientist’s Rauf Ahmad’s research on killing mice with anthrax was presented, worked at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Center while advising the FBI’s Amerithrax Investigation ; the paper Dr. Baillie presented was co-authored with sequencer of the Ames strain
Posted by DXer on November 16, 2014
CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks? 
DXer said
Daniel Dae Kim, Tony Goldwyn on new series ‘The Hot Zone: Anthrax’
The actors tell “The View” about their experiences living through the post-9/11 anthrax attacks and what it was like filming the series in Canada amid the pandemic.
https://abcnews.go.com/theview/video/daniel-dae-kim-tony-goldwyn-series-hot-zone-81450528
DXer said
The former CIA and FBI scientist working on Amerithrax — Michael Garvey — has explained that Ames anthrax was detected in Afghanistan. He made the revelation in a PhD thesis available online.
This is one of the facts that the DOJ and FBI is hiding.
Is the CIA going to argue that the fact that Ames was classified needs to be hidden from the public even though its employee already has formally revealed that fact?
Until the FBI reveals who was responsible for discarding the finding, I am not in a position to show the incredible conflict of interest that (I believe) existed. The issue goes to the very heart of FOIA’s purpose relating to public understanding of the operation of governmental agencies.
DOJ writes:
“Defendant notes that the CIA has not filed a declaration in this action asserting Exemption 1 to the classified information withheld by the FBI. On June 14, 2019, FBI RIDS requested that the CIA provide a declaration asserting such withholdings, which Defendant will subsequently file with the Court. See Seidel Decl. ¶ 109.”
What? DOJ consulted with USAMRIID scientists, and were advised by USAMRIID that NOTHING needed to be classified about the Ames strain being detected in Afghanistan.
Is the DOJ going to disclose that fact to the United States District Court? (I’m still working my way through the DOJ’s filing).
DXer said
Les Baillie, who had organized the conference attended by the infiltrating scientist sent by Ayman Zawahiri, worked with R. Scott Decker. He consulted on the genetics.
Amerithrax was hugely botched. Decker should be called to testify before Congress as to why he failed to collect the samples from labs abroad for two years.
A delay in collecting evidence risks that it is not preserved.
The USAMRIID and Porton Down conducted annual in-person exchanges. Ivins, Ezzell and the others would go to the UK. Or they would come here.
Those exchanges were provably infiltrated by a scientist sent by Ayman Zawahiri and R. Scott Decker knew this.
Baillie, the leading Ames researcher from Porton Down in Fall 2001, started working for the FBI to work on the genetics in Maryland. That’s right. On the genetics no less.
Decker’s failure to not collect the samples from abroad — that Mueller would allow it — is stunning.
There needs to be a Congressional investigation.
Decker just assumed that the Ames was not obtained abroad he says at more than one point because the writer of the letter had spelled the word “penacilin”. That doesn’t even make sense.
Baillie should be asked to come and testify also.
DXer said
Russian envoy: ‘Highly likely’ Britain had nerve agent used in spy attack
By Laura Smith-Spark, CNN
Updated 5:41 PM ET, Thu March 22, 2018
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/22/europe/russia-reaction-uk-spy-intl/index.html
Speaking at the Russian embassy in London, Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko questioned how it was possible for British authorities so quickly to designate the nerve agent “as so-called Novichok,” when the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said it would take two to three weeks to analyze the sample.
“Could it mean that it’s highly likely that the British authorities already had this nerve agent in their chemical lab in Porton Down, which is the largest secret military facility in the UK that has been dealing with chemical weapons?” Yakovenko asked, noting that the facility lies only eight miles from Salisbury.
DXer said
April 25, 2017
Both labs confirmed that the Porton Down ‘sugar’ strains differed by only two genetic letters from the Ames Ancestor strain—a near identical matching. The researchers speculate that during the intense culturing attempts of the sugar samples in 1997, spores from the Ames Ancestor strain, which were likely to be abundant in the Porton Down military defense laboratory facilities, fell into the culture media and grew.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-04-year-old-viable-anthrax-strain-debunked.html#jCp
DXer said
The 2014 Gregory Koblentz directed GMU thesis notes the problem of conflict of interest that inevitably arose in Amerithrax while the FBI was trying to work out its scientific approach:
“While the FBI would perform extensive investigations on each consultant in order to verify his/her suitability to assist the investigation and rule them out as a subject of the investigation, the unique aspect of the investigation could be correlated to a forensic examiner, who is suspected of a sexual assault, being consulted on and examining the sexual assault evidence in the same case.”
DXer said
Professor Les Baillie, who advised Amerithrax while at the University of Maryland, and was Chairman of the Dangerous Pathogens 2000 Conference at which Al Qaeda anthrax scientist explained his research involving killing mice with anthrax, recently estimated the costs of clean-up in connection with the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings to be $1 billion.
http://image.slidesharecdn.com/professorlesbailliecompatibilitymode-141013083740-conversion-gate02/95/professor-les-baillie-4-638.jpg?cb=1413207506
DXer said
1.
http://www.jmedcbr.org/Editor%20Bios/Baillie.html
PROF LES BAILLIE, MPHIL, PHD
UK
Dr Baillie’s research career has focused on the study of Bacillus anthracis and its illicit use as a bio-weapon. From 1991-2002 he worked at Dstl Porton Down, an agency of the UK ministry of Defence and lead a team developing vaccines and detectors. Notable successes were the development of the UK’s recombinant anthrax vaccine and the sequencing of the Ames strain of B.anthracis (the group provided the DNA). In 2002 he joined the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute in Baltimore as an associate professor and established a research group working on project ranging from Salmonella based oral vaccines for anthrax to real time detectors. The following year he took an appointment as director of the Biodefence Medical Countermeasures Department at the Naval Medical Research Center. By the time he left in 2007, he had established a multidisciplinary research group focused on developing and delivering novel technologies to the warfighter to counter the threat of bioterrorism. Approaches included high-throughput genome sequencing of biothreat agents, rapid hand held fluorescence based detector systems, innate immune system triggers for broad-spectrum protection, DNA vaccines and the development of an artificial immune system. Baillie returned to the UK in 2007 to take up a chair in microbiology at Cardiff University where he has continued his interest in defence related issues in the UK and US.
Dr Baillie gained his undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences from Plymouth Polytechnic which was followed by a master of philosophy degree from the University of the West of England. His PhD was subsequently awarded by Sheffield University
He is currently funded to work on a number of defence related projects including the real time detection of anthrax, the decontamination of military vehicles and the development of medical countermeasures against biothreat agents. He serves as a scientific reviewer for the Canadian CRTI programme and is a member of the UK Home Office Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosives Science and Technology Advisory Board.
2.
17 November 2011 – ANTHRAX
Les Baillie: “We are trying to decontaminate thousands of hectares of land”
http://www.infection-research.de/interviews/view/detail/interview/baillie/
Anthrax, Bacillus anthracis, Bioweapons, Decontamination
“Les Baillie is a professor of microbiology at Cardiff University. His main research interest is a bacterium made famous for its potential as a bioweapon: Bacillus anthracis, responsible for “anthrax”. His research takes him regularly to regions of northern Turkey where anthrax is endemic. In this interview he explains why the people living there are accustomed to living with the bug, and how he and his colleagues will try to break the bug’s infection cycle.
Your main research topic is anthrax. When talking about anthrax, what comes to mind are the biological weapons used by terrorists since September 11, 2001, which have caused 5 deaths. You are currently working on a project in eastern Turkey in a region where the anthrax causing bacterium Bacillus anthracis is endemic. Isn´t that dangerous?
To tell you the truth: we don´t know. The so-called “Ames Stream” of Bacillus anthracis, which is very dangerous and which had been used as biological weapon, was originally isolated from a cow in Florida. [sic; it was isolated from a cow in Texas. Florida is where Robert Stevens died and then the anthrax was cultured from his blood]. ”
3
.
Les Baillie is interviewed here about honey bees and possible antimicrobial properties. My wife wants to keep bees and so I’ve been collecting books about beekeeping for years.
Where will we find new antibacterial drugs? In honey? 25 July 2011
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/jul/25/honey-antibacterial-research-mrsa-c-difficile