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2001 anthrax attack

The 2001 anthrax attacks occurred over several weeks in September and October 2001. Cases of anthrax due to bioterrorism broke out at various locations. Due to the fact that this immediately followed the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks there has been speculation of linkage between the two events. It is alleged that a "skin lesion" found on Ahmed al-Haznawi, one of the September 11 hijackers who sought treatment at Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was cutaneous anthrax. However, two sets of anthrax letters were mailed after the suicidal attacks on 911. It is difficult to see how the hijackers were responsible for the anthrax attacks unless they had surviving comrads who continued their terrorist campaign.

The first set of anthrax letters are believed to have been mailed from Trenton NJ on September 18, 2001, exactly one week from the attacks on 911. Five letters are thought to have been mailed at this time and addressed to media outlets, mostly in the New York City area. The recipients of these letters were ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, and the New York Post--all located in New York City. The other letter believed to have been mailed around this time was addressed to The National Enquirer's old mailing address and later forwarded to their new offices at American Media Inc. in Florida. AMI also publishes the tabloid Sun where one of the anthrax victims, Robert Stevens, died. A note was found in the New York Post letter which read, "09-11-01, THIS IS NEXT, TAKE PENACILIN NOW, DEATH TO AMERICA, DEATH TO ISRAEL, ALLAH IS GREAT." Some believe this note represented a benign form of bio-terrorism since medical advice was included in the letter: "take penacilin now." It has been suggested the mailer of the New York media anthrax really did not want to harm anyone. A more convincing argument points to the fact that the anthrax in the New York media letters could have caused only skin infections, cutaneous anthrax, and not death. In contrast, the second batch of anthrax letters were mailed three weeks later on October 9 from Trenton NJ and addressed to two Democrat Senators in Washington DC. The two letters had identical notes which read, "09-11-01, YOU CAN NOT STOP US. WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX. YOU DIE NOW. ARE YOU AFRAID? DEATH TO AMERICA. DEATH TO ISRAEL. ALLAH IS GREAT." These anthrax letters addresed to the Seante certainly were designed to cause harm. Within them was a modern "weaponized" form of anthrax; until now unseen by bioweapons experts.

There were numerous exposures and 22 actual infections, including five fatalities. Thousands were tested. 10,000 people in the United States took a two-month course of antibiotics after possible exposure. Hundreds or thousands of unexposed persons acquired the antibiotic Cipro through their doctors or over the Internet. Later statistical analysis claims that approximately 5 deaths and 25 non-fatal cases of anthrax were prevented by prompt antibiotic use.

The letters did not contain the same type of anthrax. At least two different grades of anthrax material were sent in what is believed to be a total of seven letters. However, all of the letters were of the same strain. This strain, known as the Ames strain, is one that the U.S. military used for study at USAMRIID and distributed to at least fifteen bio-research labs within the US and six overseas. The FBI claims the anthrax attack was a form of domestic terrorism. It is unclear if the FBI is being honest in this assessment.

List of related events

• Boca Raton, Florida
  • Robert Stevens, 63, photo editor at the supermarket tabloid The Sun, published by American Media Inc., died on October 5, 2001 from contracting pulmonary anthrax from an envelope. Stevens was a British-born outdoorsman and gardener who resided in Lantana, Florida. Ernesto Blanco, 73, mail supervisor at The Sun, contracted pulmonary anthrax as well, but responded to treatment. (See Timeline of the 2001 anthrax attacks in Florida)

• New York City and New Jersey
  • Four people—Erin O'Connor, an NBC Nightly News employee; the 7-month-old child of an ABC World News Tonight employee; a female CBS News employee who handles mail; and Joanna Huden, a writer at the New York Post— contracted cutaneous anthrax. Only the New York Post anthrax was found and later analyzed. One expert said the Post anthrax appeared to be similar in appearance to "Purina Dog Chow."

• Washington, D.C.
  • Anthrax was sent to two Democratic Senators, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, and Patrick Leahy of Vermont. The anthrax in the Daschle letter was like a fine powder. In comparison, the Daschle material was ten times denser in anthrax spores when compared to the retrieved New York Post sample. The Daschle anthrax consisted of nearly pure spores, with a concentration of a trillion spores per gram. The anthrax from the Leahy letter was also like a fine powder. However, the Leahy anthrax powder had particles that were smaller and more uniform in size when compared to the Daschle anthrax. It is not known if bio-defense experts have been able to duplicate the anthrax material found in the Senate letters through reverse engineering processes. It has been suggested the material in the Senate letters was a "weapons-grade" form of anthrax. Some believe this could only be produced with sophisticated knowledge and equipment, possibly by a state-funded organization. One possible source would be from a secret CIA bio-research facility. Another would be the former Soviet Union or the Israeli bio-weapons site located at the Israel Institute of Biological Research in Ness Ziona. Others say--perhaps in an attempt to spread disinformation--the powder is not an industrial product, it was "simply made", and could have been created in almost any microbiology lab.
  • October 17, 2001, 31 Capitol workers (five Capitol police officers, three Russ Feingold staffers, 23 Tom Daschle staffers), test positive for the presence of anthrax (presumably via nasal swabs, etc.). Feingold's office is behind Daschle's in the Hart Senate Building. Anthrax spores are found in a Senate mailroom located in an office building near the Capitol. There are rumors that anthrax was found in the ventilation system of the Capitol building itself. The House of Representatives announces it will adjourn in response to the threat.
  • October 22, 2001: Federal officials announce that two D.C. area United States Postal Service workers have died from what appears to be pulmonary anthrax contracted from handling mail.
  • October 23, 2001: It is confirmed that the two postal handlers died of pulmonary anthrax. The men were identified as Joseph P. Curseen, 47, and Thomas L. Morris Jr., 55.
  • December 14, 2002: The U.S. Postal Service begins to decontaminate the Brentwood mail facility 14 months after it was closed. It reopened to the public on December 22, 2003, 26 months after the anthrax attack. It was not expected to be fully staffed until February, 2004.

The State Department mail facility expects to begin decontamination in the summer of 2003.

• Texas
  • In March 2002, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that a Texas lab worker had contracted the skin form of the disease. This is the first new case related to the anthrax letters since November 2001. The worker worked in a lab contracted by the CDC to help analyze the large number of samples from the anthrax investigation. Since this was not a lab that normally worked for the CDC, there are questions of whether workers were vaccinated for anthrax.

• Frederick, Maryland
  • May 11, 2003, Ponds on the north side of Catoctin Mountain, near Gambrill Park Road and Tower Road in Frederick, Maryland, are under investigation by the FBI, in connection with the 2001 anthrax attacks. FBI investigators found anthrax spores and other evidence in their search of ponds in the area during December and January, 2002. Divers retrieved a "clear box" with holes that could accommodate protective biological safety gloves, as well as vials wrapped in plastic from a pond in the Frederick Municipal Forest. A new theory has been developed suggesting how a criminal could have packed anthrax spores into envelopes without harming (him/her)self. Officials from Fort Detrick have stated that the water is safe because once in water anthrax spores cluster together and descend to the bottom. The water in the pond has been tested several times over the course of the investigation, and all indications are that the water is safe.
  • June 9, 2003, The FBI begins to drain the Frederick, Maryland pond which contained the box found by divers, hoping to uncover more evidence.
  • June 28, 2003, The FBI finishes its investigation of the pond in Frederick, Maryland. Items found in the pond include a bicycle, some logs, a street sign, coins, fishing lures, and a handgun. The FBI takes soil samples from the bottom of the pond for testing.

Anthrax scares, rumors, news

• October 10, 2001: An office building in Montreal is evacuated after Globe International receives an envelope from American Media in Boca Raton (see above). The envelope is not opened, is recovered by firefighters, and is later found to be harmless.

• October 12: The New York Times briefly closes its offices after Judith Miller, a reporter who coauthored "Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War", receives an envelope postmarked October 5 from St. Petersburg, Florida containing a white, sweet-smelling powder. The letter was addressed with crude handwritten block letters, with no return address. She opens it at 9:15 a.m. EDT and the powder coats her face and hands. It is later found not to contain anthrax. 32 employees were tested, and none were found to have been exposed to anthrax.

• October 17: The FBI arrests a third person for sending a hoaxed anthrax letter. The Rhode Island man mailed it to his friend, who called 9-1-1.

• October 18: In Nairobi, Kenya, the Kenyan health minister announces that a letter sent from Atlanta to a Kenyan citizen tested positive for anthrax spores. Two other suspicious envelopes, one of which was sent to a Nairobi United Nations office, are being tested. These all test negative.

• December: Clayton Lee Waagner, 45, was arrested for sending more than 550 letters which claimed to contain anthrax to women's health clinics.

• March 13, 2002: The FBI announces that 10 fake anthrax letters were mailed to various Hispanic organizations in the past two days. These letters all contained a white powder that was not anthrax. Although no one is arrested yet for this crime, at least 35 others have been arrested in the U.S. for similar hoaxes.

• May 11, 2003: FBI announces find of anthrax evidence in Frederick, MD (see above).

• October 21, 2003 It is announced that decontamination of the Trenton, New Jersey post office should begin this week. It should reopen sometime in late 2004.

Political impact

Although the physical impact of the event was small relative to other acts of war or terrorism, the political impact of these events was tremendous. Many states across the globe passed laws making hoaxes more serious crimes than they were previous to the attack. Attention focused on biowar and bioterrorism and other less active measures to promote biosecurity (e.g. toughened U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations to protect the United States supply of imported food from both accidental and human-introduced toxic substances). Also, research to identify genetically-modified bacteria (e.g. E. coli) with toxic genes (e.g. from the anthrax bacterium) introduced by human effort, was well underway by late 2002. This research would help identify a deliberate (versus accidental) attack more quickly. The slow and often confused response by U.S. government officials, who often contradicted themselves during the 2001 attacks, was in part due to a lack of clear answers about anthrax and its use as a weapon. Accordingly a great effort has focused on getting answers in advance of another attack, and anticipating vectors (such as genetically modified E. coli) which would be far less traceable to source than any mailed letter.

So far, no individual or group has been charged with the attacks themselves. The FBI has named former government scientist Steven Hatfill a "person of interest" but has not sought charges. Hatfill has maintained that he is innocent and sued the government for destroying his life. Many assume that since no other suspects have been identified or questioned, that Hatfill is the perpetrator, but that the FBI lacks the evidence to successfully prosecute him.

See also

• Ricin in Washington, D.C.