Anthrax of the grade involved in the US Senate attack could not have been manufactured by terrorist organizations without some form of state-level help, leading biological weapons experts said on Wednesday.
Scientists believe that the enormous complexities involved in producing the sort of "military grade" material US official say was found in senator Tom Daschle's office offer compelling evidence that the attack was state sponsored.
The term "military grade" means that the spores had been dried and milled down to a size of between one and five microns -- the crucial range for anthrax to become an effective weapon.
Any bigger than five microns, and the spores get stuck in the victim's nasal passages and are not capable of being suspended in the air; any smaller than one micron and the intended victims would exhale it.
Jonathan Ban, a research associate at the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute in Washington, said: "If the anthrax is between one and five microns, then that is the traditional route which states have gone down to develop anthrax as a militarily efficient biological weapon.
"That raises the possibility of some state sponsorship, perhaps not in the normal sense of a government allowing the transfer of biological agents, but maybe by individuals within government or weapons programs leaking the material."
Producing weapons-grade anthrax is incredibly difficult, according to Ban, the author of a report on bioterrorism for the US center for disease control in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
First, the would-be users would have to acquire a suitably virulent strain of anthrax to use as the agent. This would have not only have to be potent enough to infect people and reproduce in their systems, it would also have to be stable enough to stand up to the manufacturing process.
Next, they would have to create the right conditions for growing the spores. Normally, they are grown in a wet slurry form, and it is extremely difficult to get the concentrations right. Even then, the manufacturers would need specialist equipment, such as bioregulators and formentors, to regulate oxygen levels, temperature and PH. Most of these are commercially available, although the supply of some is restricted.
After growth, the next hurdle would be to remove the agent from the wet slurry using a freeze drying process. Again the equipment is commercially available, but the process would require some expertise to avoid damaging the agent.
It is the next step, however, that is most important and most difficult: milling the dried spores down to the right size for inhalation infection to occur. The same equipment used in the manufacture of powdered drinks and flavorings could be utilized at this stage.
They would have to establish an airflow system to ensure that the spores cannot escape while being milled, or wear bulky protective suits which in turn would make the manufacturing process more tricky.
Scott Ritter, who used to inspect weapons in Iraq for the UN, agreed. "If this is anthrax which has been milled down to the one to five micron size ... then we have a problem because this shows that this is more than just people accessing routine stocks of vaccine quality or laboratory research quality anthrax and mailing it about," he told BBC Radio 4's Today program on Wednesday.
Investigators face an uphill struggle in establishing which state the anthrax may have originated from.
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