Seems you really hit a big nerve with the Criminal Crew! For my 2 cents, you’ve nailed the *@s. Really great work, keep it up.

I think Senator Patrick Leahy should have the advantage of your research; then I don’t think he would buy their BS. Please communicate with him through his senate site.

I’m very grateful for people like you. Thank you.

Cipro and all the other drugs in the Quinolone family are notorious for allowing bugs to get resistant to them quickly. They are near the top of the list of inappropriately Rx’d meds in the US and other countries, and particularly inappropriately, promiscuously prescribed by surgeons as a group for all kinds of ailments in which they are not needed.

True. Worse yet is that Pharma profiteer in the third world by promiscuous sale of antibiotics. I bought Cipro over the counter in Bolivia and was told I could buy one or two if I wished, a dosage that would have little effect other than to enrich drug resistant pathogens. I guess many folks there don’t have enough money to buy a full course of pills — what is it, 8-10 days worth? — something like that. So, even if US doctors were smart (or do we really mean public-spirited), we will be screwed world-wide in the near future. Hard not to see that it will come back on us.

After the Anthrax mailings, in a very few days Cipro was completely sold out in pharmacies in large cities. Pharmacists thought it was insane, and I did too. Guess who the major purchasers were? MDs who were thinking with something besides a brain or an infectious disease background.

Cipro and all the other drugs in the Quinolone family are notorious for allowing bugs to get resistant to them quickly. They are near the top of the list of inappropriately Rx’d meds in the US and other countries, and particularly inappropriately, promiscuously prescribed by surgeons as a group for all kinds of ailments in which they are not needed.

But hey some states in the Bannana Republic have stupidly purchased Tamiflu and stocked up on it delusionally thinking it would make a nanodent in pandemic H5N1 when the literature is replete that it builds resistance. The four drugs in the Tamiflu with the first one Symmetrel approved in the US for over 20 years would only help build resistance to pandemic flu, and would not touch it.

As it is they cost about $65/week, and have a 30-35% side effect profile of symptoms that are the same as, and more intense than those of the flu they are targeting and marketing to treat.

To take the darkest view, just to test the hypothesis: If they got Ivins to mail the spores for them in 2001 (or else provide the spores for whoever else did the letters and mailing), and then kept him on staff and quiet for all these years, then why was the DoJ/FBI investigation in a compromised DoJ ever allowed to narrow in on him? Either some investigation team was actually somehow doing their job in there — unlikely, we would have to conclude on the basis of all the other stalled investigations — or else it was random (also unlikely), or else some interest was directing this, and something changed after all this time.

One odd thing I noticed in the CNN online coverage was that Ivins had a restraining order slapped on him last week. The hearing would have been yesterday and Federal grand jury testimony was to have occurred today:

Court documents show that a judge issued a restraining order against Ivins on July 24, days before his suicide.

A woman sought the order against “Dr. Bruce Edward Ivins,” whom she accused of making threats of violence, harassment and stalking in the previous 30 days.

In the order, Ivins is told not to contact the woman — whom CNN is not identifying — by telephone or other means, and to stay away from her place of employment.

A hearing on the order had been scheduled for Thursday, and according to court documents, she had been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury in Washington on Friday.

One can’t help wondering whether Team Dick got nervous either that their boy, always a bit of the eccentric genius type, was going astable on them and in danger of spilling the beans, or else that something would come out in the GJ.

Then I suppose there’s the even darker view that now that they know they’re losing the Presidency and the DoJ, they won’t be able to use their boy any more, so despite his invaluable service and loyalty it’s time to tie off that particular loose end, lest it unravel after 1/20/09 when the new blood starts flowing into DoJ.

This would I guess imply that if Hatfill weren’t innocent (and I’m not concluding he’s not, just working out the logic of the scenario), then they at least believe the silence they bought from him looks to them like a more reliable silence than Ivins’ turned out to have been.

Crazed, lone nut. Of course.

And now on topic:

The anthrax attack is especially interesting to me, not only because I spent most of my adult life working as a microbiologist (I think about 34 years), and because starting as a student in the mid-50s and continuing through to the end of my career I met a fair number of scientists who self-identified their associations with Fort Detrick/USAMRIID. My interest also stems from amateur “sociologist” pretensions — as an indicator of the rising acceptance of secret conspiracy in explanations of major events in our collective history.

Pleased to see the rise in skepticism about the motives of the Dark Side (in which FtD is qualified — in my book, anyway). I understand the reasons why, but take exception to the tin-foil hat references. Conspiracies exist. No need to apologize for saying it. It seems to me far more plausible as a starting hypothesis that more than one person would be involve in the anthrax attack. What really puzzles me is why, and how did it come about that the FBI announced their conclusion that the attack was home grown? It suggests that someone(s) had/were ready to spill the beans – people who couldn’t easily be discredited/neutralized – that the cover of the operation was blown. You have discussed this topic here before and probably hashed over the role of Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, but as I recall she announced – very early on – her belief that FBI knew the identity of the perp and and belief that they probably wouldn’t “solve” the case. At the time I figured this was probably because too many prominent people — at FtD — were involved. Rosenberg’s scientific credentials were respectable which made her a highly credible authority. I’ve not followed her history since then but a quick google tells me that a certain amount of criticism and character assassination followed her announcement. Chalk it up to neutralization, I’d say, but I really have to look into it.

As for Ivins death, the things suggested and hinted in the blog and those comments that I’ve read, seem plausible. Very good discussion. High powered scientist or not, Ivins like many of us older folks with a smattering of apothecary lore would probably know that one of the most practical and painless ways to off oneself is with barbiturates and booze (reminds me of a joke, but I’ll spare you). In his work Ivins would probably have easy access to the former. But then people don’t always want the easy way out. I had a colleague who killed himself by mainlining cyanide. We have two other plot possibilities: FIRST He could have been killed and the murder disguised as suicide. This would be risky but not unthinkable. It would depend, I suppose, on the severity of hypothetical transgression against hypothetical conspiracy. Are there people who actually do these things? RQ Only in other countries?? RQ SECOND He committed suicide and the FBI and DOJ figured it was safer to hang it on a dead guy than a live one. That of course remains to be seen.

before coming to U.S. the man worked for citibank in saudi arabia in mergers & acquisition.

didn’t hear the source she’s citing, wondered if anyone else caught it.