Interview w/ Anderson

Ivins colleague rejects therapist’s description
Originally published August 04, 2008

By Marge Neal
News-Post Staff


While counselor Jean Duley said the late Bruce E. Ivins expressed homicidal intentions, threatened her and said he "would go out in a blaze of glory" in the face of a pending FBI indictment, as least one former colleague believes the Fort Detrick scientist is being used as a scapegoat in the high profile anthrax poisoning case that paralyzed the nation -- again -- shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Arthur O. Anderson, a medical doctor and scientist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease at Fort Detrick, said Duley's description of Ivins doesn't match his impressions of a man with whom he worked for many years.

Ivins, who was about to be indicted by the FBI in the anthrax mailings that killed five people and injured 17 others, was described by Anderson as a hard-working individual with a high level of integrity and pride in both his workplace and his individual work.

The only perceived weakness that Anderson could discern, and not all people would consider it a weakness, he said, was that Ivins "had relatively thin skin."

"His personality style was such that he was sensitive to public opinion," Anderson said Sunday. "There are individuals in our community whose lives are centered around protesting government programs. They're not necessarily interested in facts, but pushing an agenda."

Ivins would take it personally when seemingly unfounded criticism was aimed at something he believed in, Anderson said.

"He was concerned with how the Institute was perceived and how he was perceived," Anderson said. "That manifested itself in the care he took in conducting his research."

As a health care professional and bioethicist -- he heads USAMRIID's Office of Human Use and Ethics -- Anderson said he takes issue with what he views as Duley's professional betrayal of Ivins.

"I can tell you very clearly that the minute a conflict of interest occurs in the caregiver-client relationship É she has to withdraw as the caregiver," he said. "She can't ethically continue to gather information or share information -- betray that trust -- without disclosing to her client that she is sharing what he believes is confidential, privileged information."

Anderson said that if he was to betray a patient's trust in such a manner, he would be subject to medical disciplinary procedures.

In commenting about remarks made by Duley when she applied to the District Court of Maryland for a Peace Order, Anderson said he was amazed that a judge would allow hearsay to be entered on the record.

Duley referred to comments allegedly made by Ivins' psychiatrist about Ivins' homicidal and sociopathic tendencies, without confirmation to the court that the doctor actually made the comments.

"The remaining allegations about murderous ideas and plans sound so foreign to me that in the absence of contemporaneously documented evidence I would have to consider them items of Ms. Duley's vivid imagination or information fed to her by the people she communicated with outside the therapeutic environment," Anderson wrote in an e-mail to the News-Post. "It is not at all surprising to me that a patient whose therapist is serving as a double agent 'therapist' and 'accuser' would become very angry with the therapist and might make some rather dramatic expressions of that anger."

The doctor and scientist paused briefly after being asked if he believes Ivins committed suicide.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "I think all of the circumstances put him in a place where he felt he had no place to go."

Anderson said he became aware in June that the FBI had taken items out of Ivins' lab.

"The FBI took all of the stored things in his lab freezer," Anderson said. "They basically destroyed his life's work. I think that's what upset him the most."

Anderson said it is "highly incomprehensible" to him that Ivins would be regarded as the perpetrator in this case simply because he had access to anthrax.

He said he last saw Ivins around July 6. Ivins told him the FBI was stalking him, following him everywhere, Anderson said.

"He was animated and appropriately concerned, but certainly not out of control."

Anderson does not believe Ivins is responsible for the 2001 anthrax deaths.

"Now that he can't defend himself against the allegations, this will play out the way it will play out," he said.

But he firmly believes it wasn't guilt that killed his colleague and friend.

"I think it was the sense of betrayal and complete abandonment by those around him," Anderson said. "He cared so much and had so much pride in the work he did -- I don't think he could handle that sense of abandonment."