Ten Years After 9/11: ISU Recalls Anthrax Scare

Weeks after 9/11 attacks, a Florida journalist died from anthrax, a lethal livestock disease. He received a letter coated in a fine powder of inhalation anthrax spores, believed to be mailed by al-Qaida terrorists. Initial media reports said the anthrax used to make the powder came from a lab in Ames.

“That was not even close to the truth,” said Dr. James Roth, an University microbiology professor at the time.

The truth --- that the Ames strain of anthrax actually came from a dead cow in Texas and called the Ames strain because of a labeling error --- surfaced months later.

In the meantime Roth took hundreds of calls from reporters, the College of Veterinary Medicine destroyed its anthrax samples and American's eyes were opened to potential bioterrorism threats. The latter eventually led to the creation of The Center for Food Security and Public Health Roth now heads.

The anthrax scare wasn't directly tied to the 9/11 attacks, but the terrorism attack set the stage for what the country was feeling, Roth said.

Roth still remembers the day he heard that the anthrax that eventually killed five people was stolen from a lab in Ames.

“I was very concerned,” Roth said. “When you hear something in the news you tend to believe it.”

Officials searched ISU labs for anthrax

Roth wasn't doing any research on anthrax and couldn't think of who would be. However, he and Dean Norman Cheville immediately searched the department for anthrax specimens.

They knew a deceased former professor R. Allen Packer probably had some in the bacteria collection he amassed. Roth and others found more than 100 anthrax samples. None of them were unique or labeled “Ames strain.” Packer used them for teaching and identification purposes. Anthrax specimens posed little risk in the sealed vials, Roth said. The spores were in a native state nothing like the inhaled version sent to media and the U.S. Congress.

The Iowa Governor responded to reports about the Ames theft by sending Iowa State Troopers to guard the college and U.S. Department of Agriculture labs 24 hours a day. Roth worked with the Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) office at ISU that offered to send the veterinary college's samples to the Fedaral Bureau of Investigation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the USDA but none of the agencies were interested, so the Health and Safety Office asked for permission to destroy the specimens and did.

Media attention on Ames intensified

In the following weeks, media reported that there seemed to be a connection between the strain of anthrax sent in letters and Ames.

Ames laboratories were placed under intense media scrutiny and journalists from around the world called Iowa State because the USDA labs in town deferred to Washington D.C spokesmen.

Teddi Barron, of the ISU News Service, fielded 105 media requests in the month of October alone.

“I've never been through anything like it before,” Barron said.

Barron sent all the questions to Roth who dealt with media questions for the following four months.

In late January 2002, the error was discovered. A sample of an anthrax strain that killed a cow in Texas in 1980 was sent to a U.S. Army lab in Maryland in a box with an Ames return address. The researcher cataloged the Texas anthrax as the Ames strain.

Roth was relieved to finally have an explanation.

“It looked like we weren't keeping very good records but there were no records to keep,” Roth said. “It didn't come from here.”

Federal regulations on research with anthrax and other bacterial agents became more stringent in response to the scare.

“(People) were very very worried about a whole lot of things after 9/11 and anthrax,” Roth said.

Scare leads to creation of new center, but research is stymied

Roth was named to the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity and he now serves as director of The Center for Food Security and Public Health that was created in 2002. It has become his main job.

An entire hall of offices in the College of Veterinary Medicine is filled with people employed through the food security program.

The creation of the center might be seen as a positive, but the stricter regulations on working with microorganisms have stymied some research here in Ames. The vaccine virus strain that protects from hog cholera is on a list of select agents that prevents the USDA lab from testing the cholera vaccine properly.

Cholera was eradicated in the late 1970s, but it's possible that the U.S. could see a resurgence.

Roth said the lab would like to test the hog cholera vaccine used in Germany for safety but can't properly do so since the hog cholera virus is on the select agent list.

European countries have seen outbreaks of hog cholera in more recent times.

Origin of letter still unknown

Federal authorities have never identified who sent the anthrax letters. After a lengthly investigation the FBI identified one U.S. scientist as a suspect. Roth said the conclusion is controversial, and some knowledgeable people don't believe the scientist could have been responsible.

“Bioterrorism can be a difficult thing to trace,” Roth said.

According to Roth's book on foreign animal and new diseases more than 30 illnesses are emerging in livestock food animals. Roth said the number of newly discovered diseases will grow as producers increase animal numbers to meet the demand of a growing world population.

“You need to be aware of emerging diseases even if no one helps them along,” he said.