Origin of anthrax spores that killed 5, including Oxford woman, explained
FREDERICK, Md. -- A retired researcher at the Army lab believed to be the source of anthrax spores used in deadly 2001 mailings gave his views recently on how they may have been made.
John W. Ezzell, who retired in 2006 from the U.S. Army Medical Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick in Frederick, was in the audience at a conference last week in Washington.
Ezzell stood up and spoke for about 15 minutes when a technical question arose.
Ezzell said he believes the spores were removed from wet anthrax samples in a centrifuge while being dried with a speed vacuum. That would have created a brown pellet with a white cap consisting almost entirely of spores.
Investigators believe fellow researcher Bruce Ivins mailed the spores and later killed himself as investigators closed in.
Five people died as a result of the mailings including an elderly Connecticut widow living in Oxford who contracted inhalation anthrax. Ottilie Lundgren, 94, was the fifth anthrax fatality in the nation. She died one day before Thanksgiving 2001.
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