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The Killer Strain: Anthrax and a Government Exposed Hardcover – April 1, 2003

by Marilyn W. Thompson (Author)
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 11 ratings
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A lethal germ is unleashed in the U.S. mail. A chain of letters spreads terror from Florida to Washington, from New York to Connecticut, from the halls of the U.S. Congress to the assembly lines of the U.S. Postal Service. Five people die and ten thousand more line up for antibiotics to protect against exposure. A government already outsmarted by the terrorist hijackers of 9/11 stumbles, leaving workers vulnerable and a diabolical killer on the loose.

The Killer Strain is the definitive account of the year in which bioterrorism became a reality in the United States, exposing failures in judgment and a flawed understanding of the anthrax bacteria's capacity to kill. With the pace and drama of fiction, this book goes behind the scenes to examine the confused, often bungled response by federal agencies to the anthrax attacks of 2001. It shows how the Bush administration's efforts to control information and downplay risk led to mistakes that ultimately cost two postal workers their lives.

Based on hundreds of hours of interviews and a review of thousands of pages of government documents, The Killer Strain reveals unsung victims and heroes in the anthrax debacle. It also examines the FBI's slow-paced investigation into the crimes and the unprecedented scientific challenges posed by the case. It looks into the coincidences of timing and geography that spurred the FBI's scrutiny of Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, a key "person of interest" for the authorities. Hatfill, a medical researcher turned "bioterror expert," proclaimed his innocence but spent most of 2002 under round-the-clock FBI surveillance.

The Killer Strain is more than a thrilling read. It is a clarion wake-up call. It shows how billions of dollarsspent and a decade of elaborate bioterror dress rehearsals meant nothing in the face of a real attack.

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  1. Print length
    256 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Harper
  4. Publication date
    April 1, 2003
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 0.79 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    006052278X
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0060522780
  8. See all details
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  • Kyle Maxwell
    3.0 out of 5 stars Quick summary of the attacks
    Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2003
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    I read this book after hearing the author interviewed on NPR. While the author evidently knows the subject matter well, the book reads as if it were written to be read aloud rather than just read. Confusingly, it's not really written chronologically, either.
    But it's pretty good anyway, and offers an excellent, though brief, summary of the events of fall 2001 without dwelling overly long on subjects (like September 11) that we're all quite familiar with. The author also spends some time reviewing the "person of interest", Stephen J. Hatfield, and his background. It's a short read (I read it cover to cover in about a day), but it's worth it.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Dennis Littrell
    4.0 out of 5 stars Fine recapitulation of the anthrax mailings story
    Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2003
    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.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • Paul F.
    1.0 out of 5 stars Connections to al Qaeda???? Not credible
    Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2007
    I cannot believe that a Washington Post investigative writer would include allusions to "connections to al Qaeda" in a book on the anthrax attacks. Why do we find this in the offical book description? Why would an author or publisher want that as part of the official description, unless they're pandering to the neocons and collaborating with damage-control propaganda?

    These connections were "hinted," of course, by the bogus letters talking about Allah, which were sent along with the anthrax. And the Bush administration and its fans are working very hard to get the public (and the FBI) to stop thinking, and claiming, that the profile of the perpetrator points to a domestic, right-wing, inside job.

    Surveys have shown that a high percent of US citizens, never much lower than 50%, have believed for years that Iraq and al Qaeda were in league with each other for the 9-11 attacks. This has been disproved, and Bush has even admitted as much--but then Cheney keeps talking as if the connection is there.

    Give it up. It was the Easter Bunny. It was Santa Claus. It was the Great Pumpkin who sent the Anthrax letters, cooking up and weaponizing the anthrax in the pumpkin patch, weaponizing it by a process known only to a relatively small group inside the US military-intelligence community. That makes as much sense as any speculation about al Qaeda, which only serves to deflect attention from the FBI's findings, that it was an inside job.

    Read the news stories since the events first unfolded, and you will notice the damage control, the effort to blame al Qaeda or Iraq, and to turn public opinion away from the FBI's original findings.

    A government exposed? Not quite, not enough, not in their propaganda-producing role, and not in their ability to compromise the journalistic integrity of some investigative reporters by suspending their disbelief in the Bush myth that dark-skinned, middle-eastern extremists were behind the anthrax attacks.
    4 people found this helpful
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