Anthrax DNA Matches That of Five Labs
NewsMax.com Wires
Sunday, December 16, 2001
WASHINGTON -- Genetic fingerprinting indicates that the anthrax spores mailed to Capitol Hill are identical to stocks of the bacteria maintained by the U.S. Army for more than two decades, according to a published report Sunday.
The Washington Post, citing scientists familiar with the most recent tests, reported that although many laboratories possess the Ames strain of anthrax involved in the recent attacks only five laboratories have spores with perfect genetic matches to those in the Senate letters.
And all those labs can trace back their samples to a single U.S. military source: the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease at Fort Detrick, Md.
Those matching samples are at Fort Detrick; the Dugway Proving Ground military research facility in Utah; a British military lab called Porton Down; and microbial depositories at Louisiana State University and Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.
Dugway is also the only facility known in recent years to have processed anthrax spores into the powdery form that is most easily inhaled.
The FBI's investigation into the anthrax attacks is increasingly focusing on whether U.S. government bioweapons research programs, including one conducted by the CIA, may have been the source of the deadly anthrax powder sent through the mail, sources with knowledge of the probe said to the Post.
According to the newspaper, the FBI is focusing on a contractor that worked with the CIA. But it's still unknown which lab may have lost control of the material that apparently ended up in terrorist hands.
Copyright 2001 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
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