The anthrax in the letters sent to government and media offices in Washington and New York cannot be definitively tied to the anthrax in the possession of a Fort Detrick researcher, according to a new report released Tuesday by the National Research Council.
An NRC committee reviewed the scientific procedures the FBI used during its investigation of the anthrax attacks that killed five people and sickened 17 over a period of weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The FBI, which commissioned the study, faced skepticism when it closed its investigation last February, concluding that Bruce Ivins, a scientist researching anthrax at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Frederick County, had mailed the letters. Ivins committed suicide in 2008.
The FBI relied heavily on genetic testing of anthrax in vials in Ivins’ possession in reaching its conclusion, and said the anthrax in the letters was conclusively linked to the spores in a flask in his lab, labeled RMR-1029.
“The scientific link between the letter material and flask number RMR-1029 is not as conclusive as stated in the DOJ Investigative Summary,” the NRC report said.
But the study said it found the letter spores were “consistent” with having been derived from Ivins’ flask, even though “the analyses did not definitively demonstrate such a relationship.”
The NRC panel noted that RMR-1029 could not have been the immediate source of the anthrax in the letters. The study said “one or more separate growth steps” would have been necessary for the letter spores to have come from that flask.
In a statement, the FBI and Justice Department did not dispute the report’s findings, but said the forensic analysis wasn’t the only evidence that pointed to Ivins.
“The FBI has long maintained that while science played a significant role, it was the totality of the investigative process that determined the outcome of the anthrax case,” the statement said.
