A panel of experts has cast fresh doubt on the scientific evidence used by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to finger Bruce Ivins, the late army researcher accused of perpetrating the 2001 deadly anthrax attacks.
According to a National Research Council (NRC) report released today, the bacterial spores behind the bioterrorist attacks may have originated from somewhere other than Ivins’ laboratory at the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases in Fort Detrick, Maryland.
“It is not possible to reach a conclusion in regards to the origins of the anthrax used based on scientific analysis alone,” Alice Gast, president of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and the chair of the NRC committee that wrote the report, said today at a press briefing.
In the fall of 2001, letters laced with Bacillus anthracis surfaced in the US mail, killing five people and sickening 17 others. The ensuing FBI investigation ultimately layed the blame on Ivins, a microbiologist studying anthrax vaccines who committed suicide just days before the charges were made public, in August 2001. A month later, the FBI asked the NRC to review the science behind the case.
The report concluded that the evidence is “consistent with and supports an association” between the anthrax found in Ivins’ laboratory flask and the spores contained in the mailed letters. But genetic analyses “did not definitively demonstrate” that the bacteria used in the attacks came from Ivins. Thus, other laboratory sources could not be ruled out.
The 15-member NRC panel also faulted the FBI with not taking advantage of newer genetic tools that became available over the past decade.
In a joint statement, the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) stood by their conclusions that Ivins perpetrated the attacks even in the face of mixed scientific evidence: “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.” According to the FBI, DOJ and the US Postal Inspection Service, the case remains closed.
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