2001 anthrax attacks facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

Quick facts for kids 2001 anthrax attacks
Laboratory technician holding an anthrax-laced letter sent to Senator Patrick Leahy
Location	Washington, D.C. West Palm Beach, Florida New York City Oxford, CT Princeton, NJ
Date	September 18, 2001 (2001-09-18) – October 12, 2001 (2001-10-12)
Target	U.S. senators, media figures
Attack type	Bioterrorism
Weapons	Anthrax bacteria
Deaths	5 (Bob Stevens, Thomas Morris Jr., Joseph Curseen, Kathy Nguyen, and Ottilie Lundgren)
Non-fatal injuries	17
Motive	Unknown

The 2001 anthrax attacks, also known as Amerithrax, were a series of scary events in the United States. They happened over several weeks, starting on September 18, 2001. This was just one week after the September 11 attacks.

Letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to news media offices and to two U.S. senators. These attacks sadly caused the deaths of five people and made seventeen others sick. Even police officers and staff working for a senator were exposed to the anthrax. The FBI called the search for the person responsible "one of the largest and most complex in the history of law enforcement." These attacks are the only deadly ones to have used anthrax outside of actual warfare.

The FBI and the CDC allowed Iowa State University to destroy its anthrax samples in October 2001. This action later made the investigation harder. In the weeks that followed, U.S. officials and news reporters tried to connect the attacks to Al-Qaeda or Ba'athist Iraq, but they were wrong.

Later, a main focus of the investigation was bioweapons expert Steven Hatfill. He was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing. Bruce Edwards Ivins, a scientist at a government lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland, became a suspect around April 2005. The FBI watched him closely. On July 29, 2008, Ivins died before charges could be officially brought against him.

Federal prosecutors announced on August 6, 2008, that Ivins was the only person responsible. They based this on DNA evidence linked to an anthrax sample in his lab. However, some lawmakers asked for more hearings into how the FBI handled the investigation. The FBI officially closed its investigation on February 19, 2010.

In 2008, the FBI asked the National Academy of Sciences to review the scientific methods used in their investigation. The Academy's report in 2011 made people question the government's findings. It confirmed that the anthrax was the correct type, called the Ames strain. But it said there wasn't enough scientific proof that it came from Ivins' lab.

The FBI responded by saying that science alone couldn't give a final answer. They stated that many different clues led them to believe Ivins was the person responsible. Some information about the case and Ivins' mental health is still kept secret. The government settled lawsuits filed by the family of the first anthrax victim, Robert Stevens. They paid $2.5 million to avoid more legal trouble, without saying they were at fault.

Understanding the Attacks

The anthrax attacks started just one week after the terrible 9/11 attacks. Those attacks destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City, damaged the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and caused a plane crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The anthrax attacks happened in two main parts.

First Wave of Letters

The first set of letters with anthrax had a Trenton, New Jersey, postmark from September 18, 2001. It's believed that five letters were sent to news offices like ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, and the New York Post in New York City. Another letter went to the National Enquirer in Boca Raton, Florida.

The first person known to get sick from these attacks was Robert Stevens. He worked at a magazine called the Sun. He died on October 5, 2001, after getting sick with an illness doctors couldn't figure out right away. The letter that likely caused his illness was never found. Only the letters to the New York Post and NBC News were actually identified. The other letters are guessed to have existed because people at ABC, CBS, and the magazine company got anthrax infections. Scientists who looked at the anthrax from the New York Post letter said it was a lumpy, brownish, grainy material.

Second Wave of Letters

Two more anthrax letters, with the same Trenton postmark, were dated October 9. This was three weeks after the first mailing. These letters were sent to two U.S. senators: Tom Daschle from South Dakota and Patrick Leahy from Vermont. At that time, Senator Daschle was a top leader in the Senate. Senator Leahy led an important Senate committee.

The Daschle letter was opened by an aide on October 15, and the government mail service was immediately shut down. The unopened Leahy letter was found later, on November 16, in a mailbag. It had been sent to the wrong place because a ZIP Code was misread. A postal worker there, David Hose, got sick with anthrax from breathing it in.

The anthrax in the Senate letters was much stronger than in the first letters. It was a very fine, dry powder of nearly pure spores. There were some confusing news reports that claimed the powders had been "weaponized," meaning made more dangerous for attack. However, experts who later saw pictures of the anthrax said there was no sign of this. Tests in 2002 confirmed the powders were not weaponized.

In total, at least 22 people got anthrax infections. Eleven of them got the more dangerous type that you breathe in. Five people died from this type of anthrax: Robert Stevens; two postal workers in Washington, D.C. (Thomas Morris Jr. and Joseph Curseen); Kathy Nguyen, a woman from New York City; and the last known victim, Ottilie Lundgren, a 94-year-old woman from Oxford, Connecticut. The source of exposure for Kathy Nguyen and Ottilie Lundgren is still unknown.

Because it took so long to find the person responsible, the 2001 anthrax attacks have been compared to the Unabomber attacks that happened from 1978 to 1995.

The Anthrax Letters

Authorities believe the anthrax letters were mailed from Princeton, New Jersey. Investigators found anthrax spores in a city street mailbox near the Princeton University campus. They tested about 600 mailboxes, and this one was the only one that tested positive.

The note sent to Tom Brokaw (NBC)

The letters sent to the New York Post and NBC News contained this note:

09–11–01
THIS IS NEXT
TAKE PENACILIN NOW
DEATH TO AMERICA
DEATH TO ISRAEL
ALLAH IS GREAT

The second anthrax note

The second note, sent to Senators Daschle and Leahy, read:

09–11–01
YOU CAN NOT STOP US.
WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX.
YOU DIE NOW.
ARE YOU AFRAID?
DEATH TO AMERICA.
DEATH TO ISRAEL.
ALLAH IS GREAT.

All the letters were copies made by a copy machine, and the original notes were never found. Each letter was cut to a slightly different size. The Senate letter used punctuation, but the media letter did not. The handwriting on the media letter and envelopes was about twice the size of the handwriting on the Senate letter and envelopes. The envelopes sent to Senators Daschle and Leahy had a fake return address:

4th Grade
Greendale School
Franklin Park NJ 08852

Franklin Park, New Jersey, exists, but the ZIP Code 08852 is for nearby Monmouth Junction, New Jersey. There is no Greendale School in Franklin Park or Monmouth Junction.

Following False Clues

The Amerithrax investigation involved many clues that took time to check out. Some letters seemed related to the anthrax attacks at first but were never truly connected.

For example, before the New York letters were found, fake letters mailed from St. Petersburg, Florida, were thought to be the anthrax letters. Another letter received at Microsoft offices in Reno, Nevada, gave a test result that seemed positive for anthrax but wasn't. Later, because the letter came from Malaysia, some people tried to connect it to Steven Hatfill. However, the letter only had a check and was not a threat or a trick.

A copycat fake letter with harmless white powder was opened by a reporter at The New York Times.

Another large envelope, not connected to the anthrax attacks, was received at American Media, Inc., in Florida (one of the attack victims). It was addressed to "Jennifer Lopez" and contained a metal cigar tube, an empty can, a small detergent carton, pink powder, a Star of David pendant, and a handwritten love letter to Jennifer Lopez. Another letter, which looked like the original anthrax letter to Senator Daschle, was mailed to him from London. Also, before the anthrax letters were found, someone sent a letter to authorities saying, "Dr. Assaad is a potential biological terrorist." No connection to the anthrax letters was ever found.

In the early years of the FBI's investigation, a professor named Don Foster tried to link the anthrax letters and other fake letters to Steven Hatfill. Foster's ideas were published in magazines. Hatfill sued and was later cleared of blame. Some of these lawsuits were settled, meaning they reached an agreement outside of court.

The Anthrax Material

Envelope addressed to Senator Thomas Daschle, postmarked October 9, 2001

The letters sent to news media contained a coarse, brownish material. The letters sent to the two U.S. Senators contained a fine powder. The brownish anthrax mostly caused skin infections (9 out of 12 cases). However, Kathy Nguyen's case of anthrax from breathing it in happened around the same time and place as two skin cases. The letter to American Media, Inc., which caused breathing-in cases in Florida, seems to have been mailed at the same time as the other media letters. The fine powder anthrax sent to Daschle and Leahy mostly caused the more dangerous form of infection, known as inhalational anthrax (8 out of 10 cases). Two postal workers got skin anthrax from the Senate letters.

All the anthrax came from the same type of bacteria, known as the Ames strain. The Ames strain is a common type first found in a cow in Texas in 1981. It got the name "Ames" by mistake because of a mix-up with a mailing label in 1981. This strain was first studied at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. It was then shared with sixteen bio-research labs in the U.S. and three labs in other countries (Canada, Sweden, and the United Kingdom).

Scientists at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) began studying the DNA sequencing of the anthrax from Robert Stevens (the first victim) in December 2001. They finished the sequencing within a month, and their findings were published in a science journal in early 2002.

Radiocarbon dating, a method to determine age, was done in June 2002. It showed that the anthrax was grown in a lab no more than two years before the letters were mailed.

Anthrax Mutations

RMR-1029, the anthrax flask believed to have been used in the attacks, pictured in Ivins' office

In early 2002, an FBI microbiologist noticed small changes or mutations in the anthrax grown from the powder in the letters. Scientists at TIGR studied the complete genetic information from 21 of these samples between 2002 and 2004. They found three relatively large changes in some samples, where parts of the DNA had been copied two or three times. These changes became the basis for special tests used to find other samples with the same mutations. These tests were checked over many years, and a collection of Ames samples was also built. By 2006, the collection and screening of 1,070 Ames samples were finished.

The Investigation

FBI divers searching for evidence in a pond near Frederick, Maryland during their Amerithrax investigation

A reward of $2.5 million was offered for information by the FBI, U.S. Postal Service, and ADVO, Inc.

Authorities traveled to six continents, interviewed over 9,000 people, conducted 67 searches, and issued over 6,000 official orders for information. Hundreds of FBI personnel worked on the case at the beginning. They tried to figure out if the 9/11 attacks and the anthrax murders were connected, eventually deciding they were not.

Anthrax Archive Destroyed

The FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) both allowed Iowa State University to destroy its collection of anthrax samples. This collection, gathered over more than seven decades, was destroyed on October 10 and 11, 2001.

Many scientists believe that quickly destroying this large collection of anthrax samples made the investigation harder. A perfect match between the anthrax used in the attacks and a sample in the collection could have given clues about when the bacteria were found and how widely they had been shared with researchers. Such genetic clues could have helped investigators find the people responsible.

Al-Qaeda and Iraq Blamed

Right after the anthrax attacks, officials at the White House pushed FBI Director Robert Mueller to publicly blame al-Qaeda, especially after the September 11 attacks. According to a former aide, Mueller was pressured for not finding proof that Osama bin Laden was behind the anthrax. "They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East," a retired senior FBI official said.

The FBI knew early on that the anthrax used was very fine and needed advanced machines to produce. It was unlikely to have been made in "some cave." At the same time, President Bush and Vice President Cheney publicly guessed about a possible link between the anthrax attacks and al-Qaeda. News reports suggested Iraq as the source of the anthrax, and some newspapers wrote that al-Qaeda did the mailings with anthrax from Iraq.

However, statements from the White House and other officials quickly said there was no special substance, like bentonite, in the attack anthrax. "No tests ever found or even suggested the presence of bentonite. The claim was just made up from the start. It just never happened." Even so, some journalists repeated the bentonite report for several years, even after the war in Iraq showed there was no involvement. Osama bin Laden himself denied knowing about the anthrax attacks.

Steven Hatfill, a "Person of Interest"

Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a scientist who studies tiny living things, began saying in October 2001 that the attack might be the work of a "rogue CIA agent." She told the FBI the name of the person she thought was "most likely." She later published her ideas, claiming the attacks were done with help from a government program, even if the program didn't know it. She believed the person responsible needed special skills, experience with anthrax, and access to government labs.

In January 2002, a newspaper columnist wrote, "I think I know who sent out the anthrax last fall." For months, Rosenberg shared her theories with reporters. The FBI responded by saying, "There is no prime suspect in this case at this time." The Washington Post reported that "FBI officials... have flatly discounted Dr. Rosenberg's claims."

On June 25, the FBI publicly searched Steven Hatfill's apartment, and his name became widely known. The FBI said Hatfill had agreed to the search and was not considered a suspect. In August 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft called Hatfill a "person of interest," meaning someone the police were looking at closely, but no charges were brought against him. Hatfill, a scientist who studies viruses, strongly said he had nothing to do with the anthrax mailings. He sued the FBI and others for breaking his rights and privacy. In June 2008, the Department of Justice announced it would settle Hatfill's case for $5.8 million.

Hatfill also sued some newspapers and magazines for writing things he said were untrue. Some of these lawsuits were settled, meaning they reached an agreement outside of court.

Bruce Edwards Ivins

Bruce E. Ivins worked for 18 years at the government's biodefense labs at Fort Detrick. News reports on August 1, 2008, said he had died at age 62. It was widely reported that the FBI was about to bring charges against him. However, the evidence was mostly based on clues, not direct proof, and a grand jury had not yet formally accused him. Rush D. Holt Jr., a congressman from the area where the letters were mailed, said that clues were not enough. He asked the FBI director to explain the investigation to Congress. Ivins' death left some questions unanswered. Scientists familiar with germ warfare said there was no evidence he had the skills to turn anthrax into a powder that could be breathed in. One expert said, "This is aerosol physics, not biology."

W. Russell Byrne, who worked at the Fort Detrick research facility, said that Ivins was "bothered a lot" by FBI agents who searched his home twice. Ivins was in the hospital for mental health reasons during that time. According to Byrne and local police, Ivins was removed from his workplace because of fears he might harm himself or others. "I think he was just mentally very tired by the whole process," Byrne said.

On August 6, 2008, federal prosecutors declared Ivins the only person responsible for the crime. They stated that the "genetically unique parent material of the anthrax spores... was created and solely maintained by Dr. Ivins." But other experts disagreed. Meryl Nass, an expert in biological warfare and anthrax, said, "no matter how good the microbial forensics may be, they can only, at best, link the anthrax to a particular strain and lab. They cannot link it to any individual." At least 10 scientists had regular access to the lab and its anthrax, and possibly more, including visitors and workers from other labs. The FBI later said they identified 419 people who had access to the lab where the anthrax sample, called flask RMR-1029, was stored.

Mental Health Struggles

Investigators also learned that Ivins had struggled with mental health issues.

Actions Suggesting Guilt

According to a report on the Amerithrax investigation, Ivins did things and made statements that suggested he knew he was guilty. He took environmental samples in his lab without permission and cleaned areas where he had worked without reporting it. He also threw away a book about secret codes, which described methods similar to those used in the anthrax letters. Ivins threatened other scientists, made unclear statements about his possible involvement, and created strange ideas to try and make other people look guilty for the anthrax mailings.

The FBI said that Ivins' reasons for his actions after taking samples, and his explanations for later sampling, didn't match what he said his motives were.

According to the Department of Justice, flask RMR-1029, which Ivins created and controlled, was used to create "the murder weapon" (the anthrax used in the attacks).

In 2002, researchers didn't think it was possible to tell the difference between types of anthrax. In January 2002, Ivins suggested that studying DNA changes could show differences in the anthrax's genetics, which would help identify the source. Even though researchers told the FBI this might not be possible, Ivins taught agents how to recognize these differences. This technique was very new at the time but is now common.

In February 2002, Ivins offered to provide samples from different types of the Ames strain to compare them. He submitted samples from four types of the Ames strain in his collection. Two of these were from flask RMR-1029. Although the samples from flask RMR-1029 were later found to be a positive match, all eight samples were reportedly in the wrong type of test tube and couldn't be used as proof in court. When Ivins was told his February samples didn't meet requirements, he prepared eight new samples. The two new samples from flask RMR-1029 that Ivins submitted in April did not contain the mutations that were later found in flask RMR-1029.

It was reported that in April 2004, Henry Heine found a test tube in the lab containing anthrax and contacted Ivins. In an email, Ivins reportedly told him it was probably RMR-1029 and to send a sample to the FBI. Doubts about the FBI tests were later raised when the FBI tested Heine's sample and another from his test tube: one tested negative and one positive.

A Department of Justice report from February 19, 2010, said that "the evidence suggested that Dr. Ivins got in the way of the investigation either by providing a submission which was not in compliance with the official order, or worse, that he purposely gave a wrong sample." Records released under the Freedom of Information Act in 2011 show that Ivins provided four sets of samples from 2002 to 2004, twice the number the FBI reported. Three of the four sets tested positive for the changes.

Ivins' Unclear Statements

Experts have suggested that the anthrax mailings included clues that the sender was trying to avoid harming anyone with his warning letters.

Examples:

None of the people the letters were meant for got infected.
The edges of the envelopes were taped to make sure the powders couldn't escape.
The letters were folded in a special way, used for centuries to safely hold powdered medicines.
The media letters gave "medical advice": "TAKE PENACILIN NOW."
The Senate letters told the recipient that the powder was anthrax: "WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX."
At the time, people generally believed that such powders couldn't escape from a sealed envelope except through the two open corners where a letter opener is inserted, which had been taped shut.

In June 2008, Ivins was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. The FBI said that during a group therapy session there on June 5, Ivins had a conversation where he made statements about the anthrax mailings that the FBI called "non-denial denials." This means he didn't directly say "no" but also didn't say "yes." When asked about the anthrax attacks and if he could have been involved, Ivins said he suffered from memory loss. He stated he would wake up dressed and wonder if he had gone out during the night. Some of his responses included:

"I can tell you I don't have it in my heart to kill anybody."
"I do not have any recollection of ever have doing anything like that. As a matter of fact, I don't have no clue how to, how to make a bio-weapon and I don't want to know."
"I can tell you, I am not a killer at heart."
"If I found out I was involved in some way, and, and ..."
"I don't think of myself as a vicious, a, a nasty evil person."
"I don't like to hurt people, accidentally, in, in any way. And [several scientists at USAMRIID] wouldn't do that. And I, in my right mind wouldn't do it ... But it's still, but I still feel responsibility because [the RMR-1029 flask containing the anthrax spores] wasn't locked up at the time ..."

In an interview on January 8, 2008, a secret source told FBI agents that since Ivins' last interview, Ivins had "on occasion spontaneously declared at work, 'I could never intentionally kill or hurt someone'."

Doubts About FBI Conclusions

After the FBI announced that Ivins acted alone, many people, including some of Ivins' colleagues, expressed doubts. Reasons for these doubts included that Ivins was only one of many people who could have worked with the anthrax sample used in the attacks. Also, the FBI couldn't place him near the New Jersey mailbox from which the anthrax was mailed. The FBI's own genetic consultant said that not finding any anthrax spores in Ivins' house, car, or belongings seriously weakened the case. Jeffrey Adamovicz, one of Ivins' supervisors, said, "I'd say the vast majority of people [at Fort Detrick] think he had nothing to do with it."

Other ideas proposed included that the FBI didn't do a good job, or that Syria or Iraq were behind the attacks. Some even suggested that, similar to some theories about 9/11, the U.S. government knew the attacks would happen beforehand. The Washington Post asked for an independent investigation, saying that reporters and scientists were finding weaknesses in the case.

On September 17, 2008, Senator Patrick Leahy told FBI Director Robert Mueller that he didn't believe Bruce Ivins acted alone. He stated, "I believe there are others involved, either as helpers before or helpers after the fact. I believe that there are others out there. I believe there are others who could be charged with murder."

In 2011, Leahy still told the Washington Post that the attacks surely involved other "people who at the very least were helpers after the fact." He also found it "strange that one person would target such an odd collection of media and political figures."

Tom Daschle, the other senator targeted, believes Ivins was the only person responsible.

Although the FBI matched the genetic origin of the attack spores to the spores in Ivins' flask RMR-1029, the spores in that flask did not have the same silicon chemical "fingerprint" as the spores in the attack letters. This suggests that spores from flask RMR-1029 were used to grow new spores for the mailings.

On April 22, 2010, the U.S. National Research Council heard from Henry Heine, a microbiologist who used to work at the Army's biodefense lab where Ivins had worked. Heine told the panel that it was impossible for the deadly spores to have been produced without anyone noticing in Ivins' lab, as the FBI claimed. He said it would have taken at least a year of hard work using the lab's equipment to make that many spores, and such an effort couldn't have escaped the attention of colleagues.

Heine also told the panel that lab technicians who worked closely with Ivins said they didn't see such work. He added that the safety rules where Ivins worked were not good enough to stop anthrax spores from floating out of the lab into animal cages and offices. "You'd have had dead animals or dead people," Heine said. However, Heine also said he had no experience making anthrax. Other scientists disagreed, saying the amount of anthrax in the letters could be made in "a number of days." Emails from Ivins stated, "We can presently make 1 X 10^12 [one trillion] spores per week."

In a scientific article published in 2011, three scientists argued that preparing the spores needed a high level of skill. This went against the government's idea that the material was simple. Their paper was based on the high amount of tin found in tests of the mailed anthrax. The tin might have been used to cover the spores, which would require processing not possible in labs Ivins had access to. This raises the possibility that Ivins was not the person responsible or didn't act alone.

Earlier in the investigation, the FBI had called tin a substance "of interest," but the final report didn't mention it or explain the high tin content. The head of the National Academy of Sciences panel that reviewed the FBI's scientific work said that the issues raised by the paper should be looked into. Other scientists, like Johnathan L. Kiel, a retired Air Force scientist, disagreed. He said the tin might just be an accidental impurity from using metal lab containers.

In 2011, the chief of the Bacteriology Division at the Army lab, Patricia Worsham, said the lab didn't have the right equipment in 2001 to make the kind of spores in the letters. In 2011, the government admitted that the necessary equipment was not available in the lab. This questioned a main part of the FBI's case: that Ivins had produced the anthrax in his lab. According to Worsham, the lab's machine for drying spores was not in a sealed-off area. So, people who hadn't been vaccinated in that area would have gotten sick. Ivins' colleagues at the lab said he couldn't have grown that much anthrax without them noticing.

A spokesman for the Justice Department said in 2011 that investigators still believe Ivins acted alone.

Congressional Review

Congressman Rush Holt, whose district in New Jersey included a mailbox believed to be used for the anthrax letters, asked for a congressional investigation or an independent commission. Other members of Congress also asked for an independent investigation.

In March 2010, a U.S. administration official said that President Barack Obama would likely reject a bill for intelligence agencies if it called for a new investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks. He said such an investigation "would undermine public confidence" in the FBI's probe.

National Academy of Sciences Review

To address ongoing doubts, on September 16, 2008, the FBI asked the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to conduct an independent review of the scientific evidence. This evidence had led the agency to suspect U.S. Army researcher Bruce Ivins. However, the FBI Director said that many non-agency scientists had already checked the scientific methods used in the investigation.

The NAS review officially began on April 24, 2009. The committee looked at facts and data from the investigation and reviewed the FBI's methods. However, the NAS committee was not asked to decide if the scientific evidence was strong enough for legal action, or to say if anyone was guilty or innocent.

In mid-2009, the NAS committee held public meetings where scientists, including those from FBI labs, shared their findings. In September 2009, scientists reported that they did not find any silica particles on the outside of the spores (meaning they were not "weaponized"). They also found that only some of the spores in the anthrax letters had silicon inside their outer coats.

In October 2010, the FBI gave NAS new materials, including results from samples collected from an overseas location. These analyses showed evidence of the Ames strain in some samples. NAS recommended reviewing those investigations.

The NAS committee released its report on February 15, 2011. It concluded that it was "impossible to reach any final conclusion about the origins of the anthrax in the letters, based solely on the available scientific evidence." The report also questioned the FBI's conclusion that a single-spore batch of anthrax kept by Ivins at his lab was the original material for the spores in the letters.

Government Accountability Office

A study by the United States Government Accountability Office found problems with the FBI's testing methods. Specifically, the GAO said the FBI's testing didn't fully understand how genetic changes happen, which is needed to tell anthrax samples apart. The FBI also failed to have strict rules for anthrax sampling and didn't include ways to measure how sure they were about their results.

Aftermath of the Attacks

Contaminated mail flow

Contamination and Cleanup

Many buildings were contaminated with anthrax because of the mailings. Companies like Bio Recovery Corporation were in charge of cleaning and decontaminating buildings in New York City, including ABC Headquarters and the New York Post offices. They used special equipment like air scrubbers, vacuums, respirators, and decontamination foam. Ninety-three bags of anthrax-contaminated mail were removed from the New York Post alone.

Cleaning the Brentwood postal facility took 26 months and cost $130 million. The Hamilton, New Jersey, postal facility stayed closed until March 2005, with its cleanup costing $65 million.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency led the effort to clean up the Hart Senate Office Building, where Senator Tom Daschle's office was located, and other places around the capitol. They used $27 million from their Superfund program for the cleanup. One FBI document said the total damage was over $1 billion.

Preparedness and Research

The anthrax attacks, along with the September 11, 2001 attacks, led to a big increase in U.S. government money for research and readiness against biological attacks. For example, funding for biowarfare research at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) increased by $1.5 billion in 2003. In 2004, Congress passed the Project Bioshield Act, which set aside $5.6 billion over ten years to buy new vaccines and medicines. These included a special medicine called raxibacumab and an Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed, both stored by the U.S. government.

Right after 9/11, even before the anthrax letters were mailed, the White House started giving ciprofloxacin to senior staff. This was the only medicine approved for treating anthrax from breathing it in.

The company that made ciprofloxacin, Bayer, agreed to sell 100,000 doses to the United States for a lower price. The Canadian government had previously ignored Bayer's exclusive right to make the medicine, and the U.S. was threatening to do the same if Bayer didn't negotiate the price. Soon after, it was suggested that doxycycline was a better medicine for anthrax exposure. Using a lot of ciprofloxacin, a medicine that fights many types of germs, also worried scientists about creating germs that medicines couldn't kill easily. Many companies offered to provide medicines for free if the Food and Drug Administration approved them for anthrax treatment.

U.S. Mail Changes

The attack led to many mail services being stopped or limited, especially to U.S. media companies. Checks, bills, letters, and packages simply stopped arriving. For many people and businesses who hadn't used email much, this was the moment that pushed them to start using it.

Policy Changes

After the 9/11 attacks and the anthrax mailings, politicians were urged to make new laws to fight future terrorist acts. Under pressure from Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, a compromise in Congress allowed the Patriot Act to move forward.

A theory that Iraq was behind the attacks, based on supposed evidence that the powder was made for warfare and some reports of alleged meetings between 9/11 plotters and Iraqi officials, may have helped lead to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Health Effects

Years after the attack, several anthrax victims reported lasting health problems. These included feeling very tired, having trouble breathing, and memory loss.

A 2004 study suggested that the total number of people harmed by the 2001 anthrax attacks should be raised to 68.

A postal inspector, William Paliscak, became very sick and disabled after removing an anthrax-contaminated air filter from a mail facility. Although his doctors believe the illness was caused by anthrax exposure, blood tests did not find anthrax bacteria or antibodies. Because of this, the CDC does not officially recognize it as a case of anthrax from breathing it in.

Media References

Television Shows

The case was mentioned in season 4, episode 24 of Criminal Minds.
The second season of the National Geographic TV series The Hot Zone focused on the attack.
Season 12, episode 13 of Unsolved Mysteries featured the anthrax attacks in detail.
Dan Krauss's The Anthrax Attacks: In the Shadow of 9/11 from Netflix and the BBC tells the story of the investigation. It first streamed on September 8, 2022.
Season 8, episode 3 of How It Really Happened covers the timeline of the attacks and investigation. It first streamed in June 2024.
Season 1, episode 13 of House, M.D., titled "Cursed," mentions Amerithrax.
Season 2, episode 23 of Law and Order: Criminal Intent used the events as direct inspiration. The episode is about a scientist falsely accused of an anthrax attack who later dies because of the accusations.