More follow-up on that Los Angeles Times suggestion that Dr. Bruce E. Ivins stood to gain financially from an anthrax panic, because of anthrax-related patents he held:

 
Looks thin.

 
Always bearing in mind that anything is possible . . .

 
Still, Ivins’ name appears more often in patent records as someone who supplied anthrax to other researchers, as referenced in their patent applications and successful patents (see my previous post), than as an inventor himself. Even when Ivins does show up as an inventor and would-be patent holder, moreover, it is always with other researchers. There is no sizeable financial plum in sight.

 
A total of four patent records list Bruce Ivins as inventor:

• Patent # 6316006. November 13, 2001. Ivins with Patricia Worsham and Arthur Friedlander as holder; for an “Asporogenic B anthracis expression system.”
• Patent application # 20020034512. March 21, 2002. Ivins with Worsham and Friedlander again, also Joseph Farchaus and Susan Welkos; for a method of making a vaccine.
• Patent # 6387665. May 14, 2002. Ivins with the same four other researchers, for a method of making a vaccine.
• Patent application # 20060019239. January 26, 2006. Ivins with Daniela Verthelyi; for a “Method of preventing infections from bioterrorism agents with immunostimulatory cpg oligonucleotides.”

 
However much any of these might make for a viable financial motive is at best unknown.

It should be noted, however, that Ivins applied for or received three out of these four patents under the guise of the U.S. government as assignor. Thus both the Department of the Army and the Department of Health and Human Services saw fit to sign off on Ivins’ and the other researchers’ applications.

 
So either the pertinent government agencies were completely fooled by Ivins, or they had it right, and there was no reason to deny him the opportunity. Ivins seems, btw, to have altered his focus as a researcher from anthrax ‘vaccines’ in 2002 to post-infection treatments in 2006. This makes sense. A friendly source of mine, former FDA official Col. Sam Young, pointed out to me a few years ago that one thing the anthrax attacks brought about was a new realization that vaccines might well be less effective—and more costly—than antibiotics. One advantage of the latter, of course, is that they can be used where needed—for the sick—rather than across the broad board of a whole population.

 
Two further notes.

 
Bradblog today publishes the intriguing item that Dr. Ivins, a resident of Maryland, was a registered Democrat:

 
“Bruce E. Ivins, reportedly on the verge of being indicted for capital murder in the anthrax killings, was a registered Democrat, according to the Fredrick County, MD, Board of Elections. He had been registered there since 1982 and records indicate that he voted in "every election since 1996," including Democratic primaries, according to the official who responded to a request from West Virginia-based radio host Bob Kincaid.”

 
This item raises more questions about Ivins’ purported motivation in sending anthrax to two Democratic senators.

 
Also in the news media--in a small step forward for humankind, the Washington Post today mentioned that questions surround the assumption that the anthrax mailings were perpetrated entirely by one person:

 
“Significant mysteries remain, including whether the attacks that involved letters mailed from Florida and Princeton, N.J., could have been carried out by one person.”

 
Only one sentence, and buried well down in the second page of the article, but it’s better than nothing.

 

If the unnamed government sources—and all the official sources used by the WP from Friday to date have been unnamed—were really that sure that Ivins was the mailer, you’d think they would produce evidence that he was in Florida and in Princeton, etc, on exactly the needful days.

 
Not to go out on a limb, but right now, that evidence looks unlikely to be forthcoming.

 
One last note, not to get into too much length. As everyone who followed the anthrax attacks knows, there was a difference between the first mailing and the second mailing.

 
The first mailing went to media outlets (not all ‘liberal’ outlets, but all media): the news offices of traditional television networks ABC, CBS, and NBC; the New York Post; and American Media, publisher of the National Enquirer. This must have been about a week after 9/11.

 
The second mailing went to two senators at the Capitol, Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). These were sent about three weeks after the first.

 
The two mailings also contained—as everyone knows—two different grades of anthrax. The form sent to the media outlets was cruder and less dangerous than that sent to the two Democratic senators.

 
Surely, if we’re profiling, even the basic facts suggest a starting point: 1) It is entirely a reasonable hypothesis that all the first samples were sent to media outlets because the mailer wanted to draw attention or to hype concern—in some interest. 2) Apparently that hope was disappointed. The second mailing looks pretty angry, or vengeful. Escalating, too.

 
So, a key question: what did the mailer want to accomplish with that first mailing, that was not accomplished? And whose failure could plausibly (if irrationally) be blamed on two Democratic leaders in the Senate?

 
Could the aim just possibly have been to ignite war with Iraq, with spurious accusations that Saddam sent the anthrax? To intensify antagonisms for the ‘war on terror’? To generate new, bigtime bioweapons programs?

 
To benefit some person or persons unknown, who stood to receive things of material value if our large U.S. population started frothing at the mouth about anthrax and other bioweapons?