What's going on in Frederick Md?

Dr. Bruce Ivins is dead. Dr. Ivins probably killed himself by an overdose of Tylenol. What makes this newsworthy is that Dr. Ivins was repotedly about to be indicted for the murders iof 5 people by Anthrax poisoning. Yep, he is the one.

The anthrax attacks started 2 weeks after 9/11. Someone sent letters containing powdered anthrax, from a New Jersey post office to various media outfits. Five letters are believed to have been mailed although only 2 were actually found. The other three were assumed because of anthrax infections elsewhere.

Three weeks later, two more letters were sent, also from NJ, addressed to Sen. Tom Daschle (D- SD) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D - VT). The letter to Daschle made it to his office and was opened by an aide. Leahy's letter was discovered in a mailbag before it could be delivered.

At least 22 people developed anthrax infections and five died.

The anthrax was determined to be a specific strain - called the Ames strain, and it was first researched in Fort Detrick, in Frederick MD. Ft. Detrick is home to the "United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases" (USAMRIID). According to reports the Ames strain anthrax was distributed to as many as fifteen bio-research labs within the U.S. and six locations overseas.

In 2002, one of Fort Detrick's employees, Steven Hatfill, was publicly called a "person of interest" in the case. Hatfill vehemently denied the charges, and refused to cave in to the intense pressure of FBI harassment. He later sued everyone and their brother, and recently was awarded a reported $5.8 million settlement. I doubt if what he went through was worth even that chunk of money. Regardless, after years of horror, he was finally cleared.

Fast forward to last week. Another scientist at the Ft. Detrick lab passed away in a local hospital. The cause of death was listed as suicide, by ingestion of Tylenol (possibly with codeine). This scientist was Dr. Bruce Ivins. Once the FBI had finished running Hatfill through the wringer, they apparently decided that THIS TIME they knew it was Ivins. For sure. Absolutely. No questions. So they started the same harassment techniques on him that hadn't worked on Hatfill. They staked out his home to the point that all of the neighbors were aware of it. (Not who or why someone was watching, but they knew that someone was being watched.) The FBI questioned and re-questioned Ivins. They searched everything. And they got some super-cool new equipment that supposedly was able to test the DNA of the mailed anthrax, and match it to a flask that Ivins "had" in the lab.

Mind you, dozens of people had access to this stuff. That was one of the problems that was discovered during the beginning of the investigation - security was pretty lax back then.

Since Ivins suicide, he has been villified by the media. The finger is very strongly pointing in his direction, and the FBI is talking about closing the file. Blaming the dead guy who can't defend himself. He killed himself from a guilty conscience, right? Or maybe not.