Co-worker: Ivins Didn't Make the Anthrax

[spooked911]

http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?StoryID=104046

It is absolutely impossible that Bruce Ivins, accused of mailing anthrax and killing five people in 2001, could have created and cleaned up anthrax spores in the timeline and manner the FBI alleges, Ivins' former co-worker said Thursday.

The National Academy of Sciences brought in former USAMRIID microbacteriologist Henry Heine to explain spore preparation to the panel, which is tasked with investigating the science the FBI used to accuse Ivins, also a former microbacteriologist for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.

And though Heine discussed only scientific methods and technologies before the panel, he said afterward he firmly believes Ivins did not and could not have grown and prepared the anthrax.

Heine told the panel that the most common way of growing bacteria at USAMRIID is in flasks. Based on the number of envelopes mailed out (eight to 10), the concentration of spores in the powder (10 to the 12th power spores per gram) and the number of grams of anthrax per envelope (1 to 2 grams), he calculated there were at least 10 to the 13th power anthrax spores in the attacks. Under ideal conditions, growing anthrax in a flask could produce only 10 to the 11th power spores -- one hundredth of the total needed.

"At absolute best, if he pushed it, he could have possibly done it in a year," Heine said of Ivins, after the meeting.

Glenn Greenwald has some additional comments:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/23/various_matters/index.html