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Title: The Killer Strain: Anthrax and a Government Exposed by Marilyn W. Thompson ISBN: 0-06-052278-X Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.75 (12 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Fine recapitulation of the anthrax mailings story
Comment: This is a very carefully written account of the anthrax mailings with an emphasis on the victims and the governmental response. It sheds little new light on the investigation which to this day has still not turned up a suspect.
Marilyn W. Thompson, who is an editor at the Washington Post, and her research assistants, Davene Grosfeld and Maryanne Warrick, interviewed scores of people from Leroy Richmond, a postal employee who almost died from inhalation anthrax, to Dr. Jeffrey P. Koplan, then director of the Centers for Disease Control, in putting together the story. But apparently they were not able to interview anybody in the FBI, nor did they talk to Steven J. Hatfill, who was dubbed by Attorney General John Ashcroft as "a person of interest" in the investigation and was prominently in the public eye as a possible suspect. Much of the material was culled from news sources and public records. Consequently, what we have here is a presentation of what is publically known about the case and a record of events.
One of the aspects that Thompson concentrates on is the differential between the public health response to the anthrax found on Capitol Hill and the response to that found at the Brentwood Mail Processing and Distribution Center in Washington, D.C. with the suggestion that there was a dual standard at work, one for the white and powerful and another for the black and blue collar. This may be so, but the most damaging criticism she presents--against the CDC at least--is their failure to realize that anthrax could escape a sealed envelope. However it could, and did, especially in the Brentwood Center.
Thompson does get into "who done it," hinting that Al-Qaeda may be responsible as she recalls the pre-9/11 activities of Mohammed Atta, alleged ringleader of the hijackings, who is reported to have met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague where he accepted "a glass container" that may have contained an anthrax sample. (pp. 53-54) She also recalls Atta's interest in crop dusters and his visits to a south Florida rural airstrip to check out an Air Tractor AT-502 crop duster. (p. 54)
Even more sensational (to me at least) is the write up of "a textbook description of cutaneous anthrax" by Dr. Christos Tsonas of Fort Lauderdale, Florida after treating Ahmed Ibrahim al-Haznawi, one of the hijackers who went down with United Airlines Flight 93 in Somerset County Pennsylvania, for a "dry, blackish scab covered wound" on his leg. As Thompson remarks, "skin anthrax could be acquired in only one way: through direct contact with anthrax spores." (pp. 51-52)
A lot of ink is also spent on Hatfill, although Thompson is careful not to propose that he is the culprit. What she does is give a report on his background including his partially falsified resume, including a false claim that he has a Ph.D in microbiology (p. 191) and a report on his soldier of fortune persona. She also quotes scientist Barbara Hatch Rosenberg's "likely portrait of the perpetrator," a portrait that fits Hatfill very well. (See pages 202-205.) However, Rosenberg also refused to name Hatfill. The way Thompson organizes this information in Chapter 15, "A Person of Interest," with the juxtaposition of the characterizations and the profiling and Hatfill's grand-standing insistence that he is innocence, suggests that he is, if nothing else, a prime suspect. Of course, this is nothing new. Since his name first surfaced he has been "a person of interest" in the media and in the minds of many people. But the FBI, despite investigating every aspect of his life, has failed to arrest him.
The big question here is why the FBI has not solved this case. As reported here and elsewhere the number of people who could have the expertise, the opportunity, and some kind of motive for this crime (involving "weaponized" anthrax, remember) probably can be counted without taking off our shoes. I have speculated that either the FBI has somehow compromised the evidence and is stuck without enough for an indictment, or the identity of the culprit (or the details of the investigation) would somehow embarrass the administration--or (that old standby) compromise the investigation of other, perhaps larger crimes or even crimes being planned. Thompson allows Rosenberg to add a third possibility, namely that the perpetrator "participated in the past in secret activities that the government would not like to see disclosed." (p. 204)
I have one small question. On page 174 and page 185 it is suggested that "over irradiation" of the mail (to kill possible anthrax spores) could cause those opening such letters to feel sick to their stomachs or feel some other illness. From what I know about the use of radiation to kill germs, whatever is radiated contains no residue of radiation (how could it?) and poses no health hazard whatsoever. Thompson's suggestion of the "post-traumatic stress of returning" to the once contaminated mail facility is the more likely reason for illness.
Bottom line: this is a thoroughly professional tiptoe through the tulips that allows Thompson to maintain a journalistic objectivity while pointing an accusatory finger at governmental incompetence in the face of the first bioweapons attack ever in the United States.
Rating: 3
Summary: A compilation of stories with mistakes
Comment: Despite the attention-grabbing subtitle, "The killer strain: anthrax and a government exposed," this book is no more than a compilation of newspaper-type stories with the same sorts of howlers that one expects in The Daily Bugle. There is certainly nothing new here. But how could there be anything new on a such a thoroughly reported topic? There is, however, fairly good organization, reasonable thoroughness, and at least an attempt at objectivity. I appreciated the book because it answered, for me, two questions that have nagged me: (1) Did CDC officials really fail to do their job properly or were they, like Ms Lundgren and Ms Nguyen, just exceptionally unlucky, and (2) Is Hatfill justifiably a "person of interest" or is he just a scapegoat for investigators who have failed to find the real culprit?
As for CDC culpability, Marilyn Thompson's leisurely account seems to confirm what I had suspected from less complete accounts in the newspapers: the CDC wasn't just unlucky, the CDC failed to do what the CDC does best, to thoroughly investigate the factors that have led to sickness or death and, by impartially analyzing those factors, to provide the public with recommendations that can be used to reduce future sickness and death from the same cause. What the CDC investigators apparently failed to do in this case was to thoroughly examine the operations of the mail handling facilities early on in the investigation. Had they seen the sorting machines in action they would have realized that these things can aerosolize bowling balls. Instead, they evidently remained convinced that anthrax in a sealed letter would remain in the letter through the sorting process. And if they had seen how the sorting machines were cleaned with compressed air, they would have seen that their concept of "no re-aerosolization of anthrax spores" was inapplicable in the automated mail handling environment.
The other issue of interest to me was the evidence against Hatfill. I couldn't tell from what I have read in the papers how strong it is. Now, from Thompson's book, I can see that it is only circumstantial, yet compelling. (It is certainly clear that Thompson believes Hatfill was the perpetrator.) I can understand why the FBI has had Hatfill under surveillance for two years. (On the other hand, the FBI seemed equally justified in their suspicion that Richard Jewell was the Olympic Park bomber and look how that case turned out.)
What's wrong with "The Killer Strain"? It's too long for one thing. Thompson goes on at length about a few characters, describing in more detail than I care for aspects of their home decor and personal grooming. More important are the factual errors which are so egregious as to make the entire text suspect. One Amazon customer reviewer already pointed out that Thompson has Trent Lott as a representative from Louisiana. My favorite is on p. 184 where she refers to the "notorious Tuskegee syphilis study...performed...in Macon County, Georgia. The Tuskegee study was performed in Tuskegee, for heaven's sake! Tuskegee is in Alabama. Would we tolerate a historian who wrote that Lincoln was buried in Grant's tomb?
In summary, Thompson has produced a "newspaper quality" account of the anthrax attacks that will probably be of interest to people who slept through the winter of 2001-2002. For this she deserves three stars. But there's nothing new in the account and the factual errors numerous and substantive enough that three stars is all she deserves.
Rating: 3
Summary: Well reported, but a (mostly) slow read
Comment: This book is a little dense and sometimes repetitive. For those looking for a medical mystery this book will probably not be very satisfying. The point of this book, which is made several times and then some, is that the response from federal agencies to the 2001 anthrax attacks was not perfect. And those mistakes cost lives.
The history of US anthrax production was interesting and offered perspective, and the chapter on the US Justice Departments attack and smear of a scientist was good and should have been developed more.
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Title: Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak by Jeanne Guillemin ISBN: 0520229177 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 05 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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