[iwar] [fc:Anthrax.bacteria.likely.to.be.US.military.strain]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-26 13:47:35


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Subject: [iwar] [fc:Anthrax.bacteria.likely.to.be.US.military.strain]
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<a href="http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991473">http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991473>

Anthrax bacteria likely to be US military strain

19:00   24  October  01

Debora MacKenzie

The bacteria used for the anthrax attacks in the US is either the strain the 
US itself used to make anthrax weapons in the 1960s, or close to it. It is 
not a strain that Iraq, or the former Soviet Union, mass-produced for 
weapons.   

There have been charges over the past week that the sophistication of the 
anthrax suggests that it was produced with the backing of some government, 
such as Iraq. But neither the strain nor the physical form of the anthrax is 
particularly sophisticated, say bioweapons specialists.

Last week, Tom Ridge, President Bush's Homeland Security adviser, stated that 
the anthrax sent to Florida, NBC and Senator Tom Daschle were all the same 
strain. An FBI spokesman in Florida confirmed that this was the Ames strain.

But there has been confusion over what Ames means. The scientists analysing 
the anthrax are comparing its DNA with a library of strains collected from 
all over the world. In this collection, the standard Ames strain is the one 
the US used when it produced anthrax weapons, a programme which ended in 1969.

To be identified as Ames in the studies currently underway, the anthrax must 
either be the American military strain or one that's very similar.


Hundreds of strains 
 

It is a good choice for a terrorist. Ames is more likely than other strains 
of anthrax to cause disease in animals immunised with the standard US anthrax 
vaccine, which is now being given to US troops. It also has proven virulence 
and is not traceable to one particular country, says Ken Alibek, former 
deputy head of the Soviet bioweapons programme.

The Soviets did not mass-produce Ames, says Alibek. Iraq favoured the Vollum 
strain, which has been identified in samples from its Al Hakam bacterial 
fermentation plant. The anthrax mass-produced for weapons in the US was 
destroyed after 1969.

But samples were kept in the US and elsewhere. "The South African collection 
had hundreds of different strains," Alibek points out. And Wouter Basson, 
former head of the South African bioweapons programme, reportedly visited 
Libya after the fall of the apartheid government in 1994. 


Not rocket science 
 

As for the size of the anthrax particles used in the attacks, they were 
reportedly milled down to a few micrometres, optimal for inhalation. This has 
been cited as evidence of state involvement.

But "you can use readily available equipment to do this," says Alibek. "It 
isn't rocket science." The attacks have caused relatively few inhalation 
cases so far, which suggests that the spores were not blended with 
anti-caking chemicals to promote airborne spread, which Alibek calls the real 
secret of weaponising anthrax. He suspects the attackers don't have much 
material to work with.

Frequent mutations 
 
We could soon know. Paul Keim's team at Northern Arizona University in 
Flagstaff has pioneered the genetic analysis of anthrax bacilli. Team member 
Kimothy Smith says they have found that some DNA regions mutate frequently, 
as often as once in every 1000 cell divisions.

By comparing the amount of mutation, says Smith, "you can say with a high 
degree of confidence how many bacterial generations separate an unknown 
strain from closely related reference strains". This can help pinpoint the 
exact strain the unknown anthrax came from.

It is also a way of counting the number of cell divisions the bacilli have 
been through since they parted company with the most closely related strain. 
And a small batch of anthrax will have undergone many fewer cell divisions 
than a big batch. 

So the analysis could reveal whether the anthrax came from a 50-litre 
fermenter, such as a small-scale terrorist could obtain, or the huge vats of 
a state-sponsored bioweapons facility.

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