BioterrorismFBI's investigation of 2001 anthrax attacks was flawed: GAO

In a report released Friday, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) says the FBI relied on flawed scientific methods to investigate the 2001 anthrax attacks which killed five people and sent seventeen others to hospitals.

The report raises questions about the FBI’s firm conclusion that it was Army biodefense specialist Bruce Ivins was responsible – or solely responsible – for the attacks.

The 77-page report says the FBI’s research did not offer a full explanation of how bacteria change in their natural environment and in a laboratory. The report says that this failure by the FBI researchers to understand the reason for genetic mutations which were used to differentiate between samples of anthrax bacteria was a “key scientific gap” in the investigation.

The New York Times reports that the GAO also found a lack of rigorous controls over sampling procedures and a failure to highlight the degree of uncertainty in measurement tools used to identify genetic markers.

“Although the complexity and novelty of the scientific methods at the time of the FBI’s investigation made it challenging for the FBI to adequately address all these problems, the agency could have improved its approach,” the report said.

The GAO, in its report, does not take a position one way or the other about whether Ivins, who did research on anthrax at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, was involved in making and mailing the anthrax-filled envelopes.

This is the second government report to find fault with the FBI’s methods. The National Research Council said in 2011 that federal investigators overstated the scientific case against Ivins but that the evidence was consistent with the FBI’s conclusions (see “Lawmakers, scientists question FBI’s investigation, conclusion in 2001 anthrax attacks,” HSNW, 14 August 2013).

The Times notes that the genetic markers were the basis for FBI investigators’ conclusion that the parent material of the Ames strain of anthrax spores used in the 2001 attacks came from a flask labeled RMR-1029 that was created and solely maintained by Ivins.

The GAO report does not weaken the FBI’s confidence in its decision in 2010 formally to close the investigation, FBI spokesman Christopher Allen said.

“Our conclusions weren’t based solely on the science but the full evidence before us,” he wrote in an e-mail. The FBI has acknowledged that the evidence against Ivins is circumstantial.

It said in a written response to the GAO report that in the past decade it has helped develop a national microbial forensics laboratory to conduct “validated and accredited” investigations.

Ivins committed suicide in July 2008 as the Justice Department was preparing to indict him for the attacks. He had denied any involvement in the attacks.

Representative Rush Holt (D-New Jersey), who requested the GAO report and who is retiring from Congress at the end of the year, said in a statement that Congress should demand a comprehensive, independent review of the investigation to ensure that lessons have been learned.

“The GAO report confirms what I have often said — that the FBI’s definitive conclusions about the accuracy of their scientific findings in the Amerithrax [the name the FBI gave the 2001 anthrax attacks] case are not, in fact, definitive,” Holt said.

Ivins’ attorney, Paul F. Kemp, said he hopes lawmakers act on Holt’s plea.

“There’s no evidence he [Ivins] did it,” Kemp told the Times.

— Read more in Anthrax: Agency Approaches to Validation and Statistical Analyses Could Be Improved, GAO-15-80 (19 December 2014)