Last Updated

13 Jul 2003

Source: Wall Street Journal, May 10, 2002.

Tests Show Anthrax in Attacks Came From Military Supplies

By ANTONIO REGALADO and GARY FIELDS, Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

A detailed DNA analysis of the anthrax used in last fall's bioterrorism attacks supports the notion that the deadly powder was derived from supplies originally held by the U.S. military.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation will press ahead with more DNA studies from anthrax samples subpoenaed from several U.S. government and other laboratories to try to determine who sent the anthrax to the Capitol Hill office of Sen. Tom Daschle and others, law-enforcement officials said.

Guiding investigators is a complete genetic map of the anthrax found in the body of Robert Stevens (case 5), a photo editor at American Media Inc. in Boca Raton, Fla., who was the first of five people killed starting in October. The genetic code was compiled by researchers at the Institute for Genomic Research, or TIGR, in Rockville, Md., and is described Friday in a report in the journal Science.

The scientists say their DNA-sleuthing has turned up some subtle differences between the "Florida isolate" that killed Mr. Stevens and other types of anthrax . Investigators are guardedly optimistic such clues can help trace the source of the terror strain. "It gives us some differences to look for. We just hope now, that those differences are distinct enough for us to separate labs," an FBI official said.

The FBI has acquired anthrax samples from several U.S. laboratories known to possess the Ames strain, the variety of microbe used in the attacks. Supplies of Ames, first isolated from a sick cow in 1981, have been maintained by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, at Fort Detrick, Md. But Ames was shared over the years with about a dozen other military, contractor and university laboratories.

The FBI's samples are being held at Fort Detrick. Authorities continue to believe the anthrax was produced domestically and have made U.S. military labs the primary focus of the investigation.

While all copies of Ames are similar, the microbes' DNA slowly mutates as it grows. Those differences are the ones now under scrutiny, but so far don't point to a particular source, according to the FBI.

Scientists at TIGR, in collaboration with Northern Arizona University, conducted the most extensive search yet for differences among samples of anthrax . They found that anthrax from dead animals could be distinguished from the strain used in the Florida attack. Telling the difference between samples of Ames from various laboratories was harder. The Florida isolate appears identical to some laboratory samples, including some held by Fort Detrick, and nearly identical to others. The differences being studied amount to one chemical letter among the five million that make up the anthrax genome.

While DNA studies have helped narrow investigators' focus, the details of how the anthrax was manufactured into a fine, deadly powder are more likely to lead them to specific suspects. Ronald Atlas, a microbiologist at the University of Louisville, says such information would address the key questions: "Who had the expertise, how was it done and how did they know how to do that?"

Investigators say they have scrutinized several individuals capable of producing anthrax , including former Fort Detrick employees, but hadn't identified a top suspect. Should genetic evidence identify a particular laboratory as the likely source of the anthrax , the FBI says it plans another layer of interviews and actions that will include giving polygraph tests to current and former employees.