Scientists’ Analysis Disputes F.B.I. Closing of Anthrax Case

WILLIAM J. BROAD and SCOTT SHANE

The New York Times

October 10, 2011 ET

A decade af­ter wisps of anthrax sent through the mail killed 5 people, sickened 17 oth­ers and terror­ized the nation, biol­o­gists and chemists still dis­agree on whether fed­eral inves­tigators got the right man and whether the F.B.I.’s long inquiry brushed aside important clues.
Now, three sci­entists argue that dis­tinctive chem­icals found in the dried anthrax spores — including the un­expected pres­ence of tin — point to a high degree of manufac­tur­ing skill, con­trary to fed­eral re­assur­ances that the attack germs were unso­phis­ticated. The sci­entists make their case in a com­ing issue of the Journal of Bioterror­ism & Biodefense.
            

F.B.I. doc­u­ments reviewed by The New York Times show that bu­reau sci­entists focused on tin early in their eight-year inves­tigation, call­ing it an “el­e­ment of inter­est” and a po­tentially crit­ical clue to the crim­inal case. They lat­er dropped their lengthy inquiry, nev­er mentioned tin publicly and nev­er offered any detailed account of how they thought the pow­der had been made.
The new paper raises the prospect — for the first time in a se­rious sci­entif­ic fo­rum — that the Army biodefense expert identi­fied by the F.B.I. as the per­pe­trator, Bruce E. Ivins, had help in obtain­ing his germ weapons or conceivably was inno­cent of the crime.
Both the chairwoman of a National Academy of Sci­ence pan­el that spent a year and a half review­ing the F.B.I.’s sci­entif­ic work and the             

di­rector of a new review by the Govern­ment Account­ability Office said the paper raised important questions that should be addressed.

Alice P. Gast, pres­ident of Lehigh Uni­versity and the head of the academy pan­el, said that the paper “points out connections that deserve fur­ther consid­eration.”
Dr. Gast, a chem­ical en­g­i­neer, said the                         

“chem­ical signa­tures” in the mailed anthrax and their po­tential val­ue to the crim­inal inves­tigation had not been fully explored. “It just wasn’t pursued as vig­or­ously as the microbiology,” she said, alluding to the anal­ysis of micro-organisms. She also noted that the academy pan­el suggested a full review of classi­fied govern­ment research on anthrax, which her pan­el nev­er saw.

In inter­views, the three au­thors said their anal­ysis suggested that the F.B.I. might have pursued the wrong suspect and that the case should be reopened. Their po­sition may embold­en calls for a national commis­sion to inves­tigate the first major bioterror­ist attack in American history.
But oth­er sci­entists who reviewed the paper said they thought the tin might be a random