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ANTHRAX INTERROGATORS Sandia National Laboratory material characterization analysts (from left to right) Joseph Michael, Paul Kotula and manager Ray Goehner have since 2002 been working with the FBI on the agency's anthrax investigation.
Image courtesy of Randy Montoya

When materials scientist Joseph Michael and his team at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., trained their high-powered electron microscope on anthrax spore samples the FBI had sent them in February 2002, they made two crucial discoveries: The first confirmed previous findings that the Bacillus anthracis spores mailed to U.S. Senate offices and various media outlets (shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks) contained silicon, a substance used to turn anthrax-causing spores into a biological weapon.

But it was Sandia's next discovery that marked a critical turning point in the feds's probe of the mysterious mailings, which killed five people, injured 17 and prompted thousands more who were potentially exposed to the deadly spores to take potent antibiotics—in particular, Ciprofloxacin (known to irritate the gastrointestinal tract and cause joint swelling). Using highly sensitive transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), the researchers came to a startling realization: The silicon had grown organically inside the Bacillus anthracis samples, nothing had been added to weaponize the spores. "The silicon was not on the outside of the spore," says Michael, who headed up Sandia's investigation, "but rather incorporated on the inside."

It was this key information that helped the FBI to rule out the likelihood that a terrorist organization was behind the anthrax mailings and prompted the agency to turn its attention to U.S. government labs as the possible source of the anthrax. This move eventually led the agency to conclude that Bruce Ivins, a scientist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), a federal biodefense research laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., who initially assisted with the investigation, was the culprit. Ivins, 62, two months ago committed suicide as prosecutors prepared to charge him in connection with the mailings.

Post-9/11 Scare
FBI Director Robert Mueller, III, this week told a House panel that he plans to commission the National Academy of Sciences to review evidence compiled by the agency's Amerithrax Task Force to erase any remaining doubts that the mailed anthrax came from Ivins's lab—and close a case that began seven years ago when a batch of letters containing Bacillus anthracis, the bacterium that causes the disease anthrax, were sent to several news outlets, including the New York Post and NBC News. Although only the letters to the Post and NBC were discovered, the FBI concluded that contaminated letters were also responsible for anthrax infections at ABC News, CBS News and for the October 5, 2001, death of Robert Stevens, a photo editor for the National Enquirer publisher American Media, Inc., based in Boca Raton, Fla.

Anthrax infection begins within a week of exposure with a few days of fever, chills, chest heaviness, malaise and cough as the spores are absorbed by the lungs. Ultimately the bacteria produce toxins that damage the lungs and poison the blood, potentially sending the victim into septic shock that leads to organ failure and, in many cases, death.