The Anthrax Letters: The Attacks That Shocked America (25 page)

Although the initial proposal for destruction came from the U.S. administration, in the mid-1990s opinions among government scientists and medical officials were divided. Those from HHS tended to support destruction while those from the Department of Defense favored retention. D. A. Henderson, who in 1993 had become deputy assistant secretary for health at HHS, had joined in advocacy for destruction at interagency meetings. And he continued his advocacy after leaving the government in 1995. Henderson based his position both on scientific and ethical arguments. He believed that adequate research could be done with preserved
variola
DNA and with other poxviruses (for example, the viruses that cause cowpox or monkeypox.) He also believed that destruction of the declared stocks would make an important moral statement. But at the end of the decade, the scientific underpinnings of his argument came under assault.

In March 1999, at a meeting of the Institute of Medicine, Stephen S. Morse, director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness at Columbia University, was sitting near Henderson. A committee of the institute that had been established to assess “future needs” for the smallpox virus was giving its report. The report concluded that “preserving the live virus may provide important scientific and medical opportunities that would not be available if it were destroyed.” A live virus could help to develop new antiviral agents, new vaccines, and new insights into the immune system.

Henderson sat in dejected silence. “It was difficult to watch him at that meeting,” Morse said. In effect, the report was saying that destroying the remaining smallpox stocks might
never
be feasible. There would always be a need for new antiviral agents and new insights into immune responses. Years later Morse winced as he recalled his own feelings at that meeting: “It was painful for me to see D. A. in a position where all that ammunition was being presented not to destroy the remaining repositories of the virus.”

By early 2003, as the United States was preparing to engage Iraq militarily, worries heightened about Iraq’s biological arsenal. Intelligence reports suggested that Saddam Hussein might be harboring secret stocks of smallpox virus. The information accelerated movement toward a new national position on vaccinations. In December 2002, President Bush had directed that vaccinations be administered to 500,000 military personnel and, over time, to 10 million civilian emergency responders. (Twenty-odd people per million who receive vaccinations may suffer serious side effects, and one or two might die. Some people and institutions expressed reluctance to participate in the vaccination program, and by mid-2003 there was talk of scaling back the effort.)

Anthrax spores: an inactive form of the bacteria that may lay dormant indefinitely.

 

Anthrax bacilli
: an active form of the bacteria that reproduces and releases toxin.

 

Gruinard Island, UK. Following testing there with anthrax during World War II, the island remained contaminated until 1990.

 

Secretary of State Colin Powell at the UN Security Council in February 2003, showing the small volume of anthrax powder (simulated) that closed down much of official Washington in 2001.

 

Two grams (less than ½-teaspoon) of simulated anthrax powder, the estimated volume in each letter.

 

Identical message in the two recovered anthrax letters whose envelopes were postmarked September 18, 2001.

 

Again, these two recovered anthrax letters, postmarked October 8, 2001, have identical messages.

 

Opening the anthrax letter addressed to Senator Patrick Leahy.

 

Anthrax spores were found in the middle mailbox on Nassau Street, Princeton, NJ, where the letters were presumed to have been deposited.

 

Robert Stevens, photojournalist for the
Sun
(an American Media tabloid). He died of inhalation anthrax on October 5, 2001, the first identified victim of the outbreak.