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Apparent Suicide In Anthrax Case
penguin_dance passes along the news that a respected anthrax researcher, about to be indicted, has committed suicide. The FBI has been investigating the case since anthrax-contaminated letters were sent to the media and various politicians in 2001. The AP's coverage mentions that prosecutors intended to seek the death penalty. The suicide was not the one you might imagine if you've been following the story. "A top government scientist who helped the FBI analyze samples from the 2001 anthrax attacks has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him for the attacks, the Los Angeles Times has learned. Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the last 18 years worked at the government's elite biodefense research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Md., had been informed of his impending prosecution... The extraordinary turn of events followed the government's payment in June of a settlement valued at $5.82 million to a former government scientist, Steven J. Hatfill, who was long targeted as the FBI's chief suspect despite a lack of any evidence that he had ever possessed anthrax."
Salon has a updated story today http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/
relating to false information provided to ABC news early on about the investigation. Really makes you wonder what was going on here.
Some of these Questions are kind of answered in this article: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/index.html It's the same as with Saddam Husseins WMDs or his link Al Quaida. Your Government and your Media lied to you.
Actualy... No.
However, when Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont announced in May 2001 that he was leaving the Republican caucus to become an independent and would caucus with Democrats, this returned control of the body to the Democrats and Daschle again became Majority Leader.
He was the Majority Leader during the anthrax attack because a Republican changed party affiliation and Daschle was the leader.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
According to the AP story, they suspect he was trying to test his vaccine.
What amazes me about that incident is that he had the time to do all of that. The article I read earlier today seemed to indicate that the other passengers noticed what was going on almost immediately and hustled off the bus pretty fast. But apparently no one tried to stop him from continuing his violence against that victim. They found weapons with which to keep him contained on the bus until the authorities arrived but there was no indication of anyone trying to stop him when he actually was in the act of killing that person.
They got the things to use as weapons from a passing trucker who stopped, it's likely no one had anything with them on the bus.
Anyway, I don't know if they knew it at the time, but it's not likely confronting him right away would have changed anything. It doesn't take too many stabs to the chest with a hunting knife to kill someone.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
It is quite possible for someone highly depressed to continue functioning in technical professions ("I've heard").
He was already a suicide risk. Whether prompted by the possibility of disgrace or by an "I can get out of all this bs" moment, we'll never know.
"Mentally ill" is well within the ballpark.