On September 11, 2001,
foreign terrorists attacked the United States. Citizens of the United States
were shocked, scared and grieving. It was a time of paranoia and distrust.
People wondered when and if the country would be attacked again. Then, a matter
of days later, something happened that caused nearly everyone to believe that
the U.S. was still under attack. A number of letters containing spores of the
bacteria that causes anthrax were sent to public figures. People who had been
exposed to these letters, or letters that had come into contact with the
anthrax letters, began falling ill.
Anthrax is a disease
that is caused by the bacteria Bacillus anthracis. It typically affects
herbivorous mammals, but can infect any mammal, as far as we can tell, including
humans. Most human anthrax infections are caused by contact with infected
animals or infected animal byproducts. There are three ways to contract the
disease, through open skin, breathing in spores or eating the bacteria. It is
not contagious, meaning it cannot be spread from one infected human to another.
The bacterium is tasteless, odorless and the amount needed to kill a person is
invisible to the naked eye.
Anthrax that is
contracted through the skin, or cutaneous anthrax, causes necrosis. It starts
as a small bump that escalates into a painless ulcer. This form of anthrax is
highly treatable. Only one percent of treated cases of cutaneous anthrax will
cause death. The mortality rate is 20 percent for untreated cases.
Anthrax that is
contracted through the digestive system can cause a painful death. The symptoms
are nausea, vomiting and loss of appetite. Later symptoms include bloody vomit
and diarrhea. Twenty-five to fifty percent of people who contract anthrax in
this manner will die.
Anthrax that is
contracted through the lungs is the deadliest form of the disease. Symptoms
start like the common cold and progress to severe difficulty breathing.
Eventually it becomes so bad that victims have described the sensation as
having your head held under water. Shock is very common in this form of
anthrax. Roughly 75 percent of people who contract anthrax through their lungs
will die. The Anthrax letters of 2001 caused five deaths. All of them occurred
in individuals who had inhaled the bacteria.
According to the F.B.I.,
there were four letters (there are claims of more, however). The first two were
sent on September 18, 2001. Their intended recipients were Tom Brokaw of NBC
and the New York Post. Two more were sent October 9, 2001. The intended recipients
of these letters were Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. All of the
letters were mailed from a box in Newark, New Jersey. According to the CDC, 23
people contracted anthrax as a result of these letters; one of them was a baby.
Obviously, the person or group was sending these letters did not care who got
hurt.
Through handwriting
analysis, the F.B.I. was able to conclude that the same person wrote each of
the letters. Of course, this did not rule out the possibility that a group
planned the attack. The popular (and logical) thinking, initially, was that a
foreign terrorist group was responsible for the attack. Authorities knew that
they had to uncover the person responsible and fast. Terrorists who are capable
of using biological weapons and are not afraid to use them are a scary
prospect. However, authorities did not uncover a foreign terrorist group. When
it was found that the anthrax came from an American source, the F.B.I. turned
their attention to possible domestic terrorists.
The first public
"person of interest" in the anthrax letters case was Doctor Steven
Hatfill. Hatfill was an Army doctor. He was closely scrutinized by the F.B.I.
for quite some time. He was eventually found innocent of any wrongdoing.
However, he had been so closely watched that he felt it had damaged his career.
He sued the government for invasion of privacy and won.
The next noteworthy
"person of interest" in the anthrax letters case was an unassuming
Army biodefense expert, Doctor Bruce Ivins. The F.B.I. had concluded that the
anthrax causing bacteria had come from his laboratory (experts have since
claimed that the F.B.I.'s evidence for this was not conclusive). They subjected
Bruce to the same scrutiny that they subjected Steven to. However, they found
many things that led them to believe that Bruce was their guy. Bruce had a
number of photos of blindfolded women in his computer (circumstantial); later
in the investigation, they found correspondence of Bruce's in which he claimed
to have multiple personalities (circumstantial); the F.B.I. discovered that
Bruce was obsessive about women (circumstantial) and they also listened in on a
conversation in which Bruce said that he couldn't remember having mailed any
anthrax letters and that he thought (hoped) he wasn't capable of such a thing
(decidedly not a confession). Dr. Bruce Ivins committed suicide by ingesting an
overdose of Tylenol in 2008. He never confessed to the crimes, nor has direct
evidence been found linking him to the anthrax letters.
In February of 2010, the
F.B.I. officially closed their investigation into the anthrax letters of 2001.
They concluded that Dr. Bruce Ivins was responsible for the letters and that he
acted alone. Many people believe that the F.B.I. closed the case prematurely and/or
that they based their investigation on preconceived notions. Lawrence Sellin
Ph.D., and others, believes that, while it could have been Ivins, the case has
yet to be thoroughly investigated. Furthermore, it is the belief of some that
Ivins' mental issues (apart from his obsession with women, which hardly makes
him a murderer), including his suicide, were a direct result of the
investigation.
Read more from the
F.B.I.'s investigation here.
Sources
Council on Foreign
Relations, The Anthrax Letters, retrieved 5/1/10, cfr.org/publication/9555/#p1
Shane, Scott, F.B.I.,
Laying Out Evidence, Closes Anthrax Case, retrieved 5/1/10,
nytimes.com/2010/02/20/us/20anthrax.html
Questions and Answers
About Anthrax, retrieved 5/1/10, bt.cdc.gov/agent/anthrax/faq
