Scientists who worked with Ivins still question government's methods

By Courtney Mabeus News-Post Staff

"Scientists who worked with Bruce Ivins said it would have been impossible for him to produce the amount of spores necessary to carry out deadly anthrax attacks given the time frame and equipment available to him at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.

Ivins died five years ago today as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice prepared to formally charge him with carrying out the 2001 anthrax mailings that killed five and injured 17 others in the wake of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He had worked as a top government anthrax researcher at USAMRIID since December 1980.
Ivins died from an apparent suicide as the result of acetaminophen overdose.

A National Research Council committee in 2011 said conclusions reached by the FBI about the 2001 anthrax attacks were not fully supported by science.
The committee said that “it is not possible to reach a definitive conclusion about the origins of the anthrax in letters mailed to New York City and Washington, D.C., based solely on the available scientific evidence.”

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