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Researchers Dispute Closing of the Bruce Ivins Anthrax Case
Stirling Newberry writes "The New York Times reports that an upcoming paper by Martin E. Hugh-Jones, Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, and Stuart Jacobsen – all of whom have long questioned the closing of the Bruce Ivins anthrax case – points to the presence of tin in the spore samples as a sign that the samples mailed had been processed beyond what Ivins alone could have done. While not disputing that the spores came from Ft. Detrick, Hugh-Jones, who has co-authored several papers on anthrax signatures, contends according to the Times: 'it appears likely that Dr. Ivins could not have made the anthrax powder alone with the equipment he possessed, as the F.B.I. maintains. That would mean either that he got the powder from elsewhere or that he was not the perpetrator.' For a good summary of the case from a medical standpoint, this paper in the Annals of Internal Medicine is an excellent place to start. A review by the National Resources Council that stated the evidence available was not sufficient to locate the source of the spores is also available."
While this may be true, it is a dangerous way to proceed. If you spend too much time focusing on suspect A, and it later turns out that A did not do what he was suspected of, you now, essentially, have no case (depending on how long you spent focused on A).
Like this particular case. Suppose that these researchers are correct - Bruce Ivins couldn't have done this on his own or he wasn't the perpetrator. There is no way to hold the responsible people accountable now, and there is no incentive to do so either - in fact it might even be career suicide to try to restart an investigation like this, simply because of the number of people who will lose face.
To some extent, police investigations fail scientific rigor. They come up with a hypothesis and try their hardest to find evidence to support it, rather than coming up with a hypothesis and trying to disprove it.
While only tangentially related it seems many in Law Enforcement are not too keen on the idea of chemistry in general.
All too often they will arrest someone who has a DIY home lab setup, for running a meth lab, despite not having the necessary supplies to make meth. All you need as far as LE goes is a few beakers and a Bunsen burner and you're making meth.
This is true. But it makes you wonder how many are wrongly convicted. I suspect the number of innocent in prison is quite a bit higher than we'd like to think.
In terrorism investigations you also have the problem today of Randy Weaver-style entrapment. I presume this was not present in the anthax case, but it's hard to rule it out.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Look at the Olympic Park Bombing in Atlanta. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Olympic_Park_bombing
The President even said we'll find the guy who did it. Not much more high profile than that.
The media made a frenzy as soon as the police found a suspect or rather a list of suspects. One of them was a hero - tried to clear others away after spotting a suspicious package. Found not guilty. Still suffers from serious harm to his reputation. I'm not mentionning the name if only to avoid another Google link to his name and the incident. I hope this would help him out. A recent interview on television just this year (15 years after the incident) and he says it still effects him - the way others view him, financial problems ....