Anthrax May Be Domestic, U.S. Believes

The White House said Monday that it is “increasingly looking like” anthrax sent through the mail system came from a source in the United States, a clue that may signal a new phase in the investigation.

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said the belief that the anthrax came from a domestic supply was based on “scientific means,” but declined to elaborate.

If the anthrax used in the attacks is confirmed to have come from a domestic source, it would buttress previous FBI assertions that the sender is likely a “lone wolf” living in the U.S., and not a foreign terrorist.

The Army acknowledged this week that anthrax used in its experiments is a genetic match for the strain, identified as Ames, which was found in tainted letters sent to Capitol Hill.

But Army officials have denied reports that the match points to government supplies as the source.

“The Ames strain was shared among researchers in several countries,” Army spokeswoman Nancy Ray said Monday. “I would say that source would have come from any one of a number of places and that’s why the FBI is conducting an investigation. I would not even consider us a likely source.”

After weeks with little progress in the anthrax investigation, ongoing scientific research into the makeup of the deadly spores used in the attacks appears to be helping investigators narrow their focus.

Five people have died and at least 13 others have been sickened by the rare disease since an anthrax attack by mail was launched about three months ago. But scant research to date into anthrax has hindered the public health response and the criminal investigation.

There also have been repeated instances of miscommunication between government officials. Most recently, some top federal health officials and anthrax researchers said they were stunned to learn that the military had produced anthrax in a powder form for defensive biological weapon testing.

Dr. D.A. Henderson, director of public health preparedness for the Department of Health and Human Services, said Saturday at an anthrax conference here that he had no knowledge of the military’s production of powdered anthrax before a news report last week in the Baltimore Sun.

Asked if he was aware of any research done at Dugway Proving Grounds--the remote Utah site where the powdered anthrax was produced--that might have aided in the public health response, Henderson said: “I don’t know anything about the Dugway program.”

All known clinical research into the potency of anthrax spores has been done using a wet aerosol version of bacteria--a factor Henderson and others have said is troubling. Spores that were first dried and milled into a fine powder like the ones used in the mail attacks could potentially behave differently from the wet variety used in tests.

Dr. Philip Brachman, one of the pioneer researchers in anthrax disease the U.S., said potential differences in the spores that caused the infections had serious implications.

Brachman, a professor at Emory University in Atlanta, said the tiny size of the spores used in the attacks might make them far more potent than spores typically used in experiments. And he said there also are questions about whether the way they were processed might make them even more capable of lying dormant in a person’s lungs for long periods of time before causing the illness.

“There is definitely a cause for concern about the differences,” he said.

A spokesman for the U.S. Army Development Test Command, which oversees the Army’s bioterrorism research, declined to comment about the type of research that had been done on the powdered anthrax or whether military officials had approached any federal health officials with information about their program after the bioterrorist attacks began.

Citing the ongoing FBI investigation into “research, medical and university facilities and programs that work with the Ames strain of anthrax,” spokesman Gary Holloway said the Army “will not comment any further on aspects of its biotesting program until the time that the FBI investigation is complete.”

The FBI declined to comment Monday about their investigation.

Law enforcement officials working in the U.S. and in Britain have questioned at length scientists in labs where the Ames strain is known to be housed--including issuing subpoenas for the records of lab employees and visitors over the last several years.

But some top research scientists question whether the list of facilities is comprehensive. It has only been in recent years that the transfer of anthrax specimens from lab to lab has been closely monitored. Under the old system, strains could be transferred with little or no record, making it difficult to know for sure how many labs have a strain that matches the type used in the attacks.

“You’d get to know someone doing research and say: ‘Can I have selection of what you’ve got?’ and it turned up in the mail,” said one anthrax researcher who has knowledge of the scientific aspects of the investigation and who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Researchers now are rushing to complete complex scientific analyses of the anthrax contained in the letters--work that has enabled the match with the U.S. military supplies. And top federal public health officials also have hurried to launch much-needed experiments concerning the risks posed by exposure.

Fear that antibiotics alone may not be enough to protect those who were nearby when the anthrax-filled letter was opened Oct. 15 in the office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) has led federal health officials to seriously consider making the anthrax vaccine available for treatment purposes for the first time.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson is expected to announce a decision as soon as today about releasing the vaccine for civilian use. If approved, the vaccine would be made available on a voluntary basis to about 3,000 people on Capitol Hill and at tainted mail facilities who are considered to be at high risk.

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Times medical writer Rosie Mestel in Los Angeles contributed to this report.