"Concentrated anthrax spores were used for bioterrorism in the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States, delivered by mailing postal letters containing the spores.[91] The letters were sent to several news media offices and two Democratic senators: Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Patrick Leahy of Vermont. As a result, 22 were infected and five died.[24] Only a few grams of material were used in these attacks and in August 2008, the US Department of Justice announced they believed that Dr. Bruce Ivins, a senior biodefense researcher employed by the United States government, was responsible.[92] These events also spawned many anthrax hoaxes." - Wikipedia

anthrax

The Anthrax Attacks 10 Years Later

Larry M. Bush, MD; Maria T. Perez, MD

The 2001 anthrax attacks also opened what was perhaps the largest epidemiological investigation of an infectious diseases outbreak in the history of U.S. public health


smallpox

USG stockpiles Anthrax vaccine

Finally, the government ordered from a private company, Acambis, an additional 155 million vaccine doses. Hence, the drive was accelerated to obtain, store, and use smallpox vaccine.

UPDATE 3-Sanofi to buy vaccine maker Acambis for $548 mln - Reuters https://www.reuters.com/.../acambis.../update-3-sanofi-to-buy-vaccine-maker-acambis... Jul 25, 2008 - Sanofi-Aventis SA (SASY.PA)agreed on Friday to buy British vaccine maker Acambis PlcACM.L for 276 million pounds ($547.8 million), in a dealhighlighting big drug companies' hunger for biotech assets.


boyle

"...shut down the workings of Congress at a critical moment..."

Repeatedly, you will say to yourself, “I missed that,” as Boyle deconstructs the underpinnings of various government policies and doctrines. For example, I thought the anthrax letters were designed to increase anti-Arab hysteria; bring back the anthrax vaccine program, which a high level military review had recommended ending in August 2001; and push a scared Congress into jumping on the biodefense bandwagon. But Boyle saw that the letters also shut down the workings of Congress at a critical moment, ushering through the passage of the Patriot Act and related legislation in the absence of normal Congressional oversight. Was this a coup d’etat, the author poses?


"More than 8 years later, on 19 February 2010, the 92-page “Amerithrax Investigative Summary,” based on some 2700 pages of documents, was finally published. It officially closed the FBI's investigation.

It concluded that Bruce Ivins, a microbiologist and leading research scientist studying vaccines and cures for exposure to anthrax at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), was the sole perpetrator, acting alone in planning and executing these acts of terrorism.

The Bureau reported that the anthrax spores in the letters were genetically connected to unique anthrax spores that Ivins had developed and maintained in his laboratory at USAMRIID.

Although the FBI stated that its investigation went beyond scientific evidence and included interviews and other information as part of what it considers a firm case incriminating Ivins, on 15 February 2011 a panel of scientific experts assembled by the National Academy of Sciences, at the request of the FBI, independently evaluated the Bureau's genetic analysis of the anthrax spores.

In doing so, this group of highly trained personnel advised that the scientific evidence put forth by the FBI was insufficient to prove that Ivins was the culprit.

Furthermore, recently filed official papers have acknowledged that the “hot zone” sealed area in Ivins' laboratory did not contain the equipment needed to turn liquid anthrax into the refined anthrax powder that was present in the letters, and that the laboratory lacked the facilities in 2001 to manufacture the kind of spores found in the letters.

Bruce Ivins' suicide in 2008 precluded a legal resolution of his guilt or innocence."
Larry M. Bush, MD; Maria T. Perez, MD



anthrax: The Anthrax Attacks 10 Years Later
http://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/1033261/anthrax-attacks-10-years-later

boyle: "...shut down the workings of Congress at a critical moment..."
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0932863469