Scientist to discuss anthrax case
by SEPP JANNOTTA - Ravalli Republic
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Trying to gain a bit of needed clearance for a very wide load, a pair of workers detach a sign alongside a small bridge on Ambrose Creek Road, northeast of Stevensville. A house and additional building were moved Wednesday morning by truck to the Bitterroot from north of Missoula.
SEPP JANNOTTA - Ravalli Republic
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In the nervous weeks and months following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, a single mention to the East Coast news media about Paul Keim’s biological sleuthing on the anthrax letters case was all it took.
Almost immediately, Phoenix television networks had eye-in-the-sky helicopters airborne and swirling over the Northern Arizona University building that houses Keim’s research into the genetic fingerprints of dangerous pathogens, including those used for biological weapons. The words that splashed beneath these images were cast in the vernacular of the now ever-prevalent national nightmare: Anthrax, Terror Case, Bio Weapons.
“By that afternoon there were reporters walking up and down the halls of our building up in Flagstaff,” Keim said.
Just another day in the life of Professor Keim, a genomics researcher specializing in bacterial microbiology. His is a life in science that has seemingly merged the academic with the stuff of spy novels.
Minus the cloak and dagger, Keim will speak Friday to the valley’s scientific community, and anyone else who is interested. This free lecture is set for 7 p.m. at the Hamilton Performing Arts Center.
Keim’s talk is the latest in a series of Rocky Mountain Lab-sponsored lectures on infectious diseases. Marshall Bloom, Associate Director for Rocky Mountain Laboratories, said Keim is recognized as one of the world’s authorities in classifying bacteria, anthrax for instance.
“Anthrax has been a topic of great interest since fall of 2001, but Montana audiences understand that, although anthrax has been used as a biological weapon, we have naturally occurring anthrax in Montana,” Bloom said, referring to the 30-odd bison deaths due to anthrax infection at Ted Turner’s ranch near Big Sky.
Bloom said Keim’s work is on the cutting edge of medical forensics, a field now high in the pop culture consciousness due to television shows like “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”
With a significant body of research on the weaponized pathogens of the Cold War era, and a national security clearance that had him analyzing Saddam Hussein’s anthrax following the first Gulf War, it stands to reason that Keim was one of the scientists reviewing the FBI’s evidence on the letters case. Never mind that he was one the government’s initial suspects.
Now, the man the FBI named as the culprit, a biodefense researcher named Bruce Ivins, is dead by suicide and some skeptics smell a conspiracy. Ask Keim if he thinks Ivins was the anthrax letters terrorist and he says he just doesn’t know.
“It remains to be seen,” Keim said Wednesday, shortly after arriving in Hamilton. “I feel like in our country the only way you convict somebody of a crime is through a jury trial. And that’s not going to happen in this case.
“I really regret his suicide.”
Ivins was a colleague and Keim described him as a friend. Now that Ivins is dead and the case is seemingly moot, the FBI has given Keim the go-ahead to talk about his involvement.
In addition to never knowing the verdict in the case, Keim said it is unfortunate that he’ll never get to hear the courts weigh in on the forensic evidence that he and others in the field helped clarify in the letters case.
Keim’s history of dealing with anthrax dates to the Cold War, though he is quick to point out that the bacteria itself probably goes back at least 5,000 years to when humans first began to domesticate animals. As a scientist affiliated with Los Alamos National Laboratory, Keim was allowed to conduct research into the Soviets’ weaponized anthrax. Despite a non-proliferation treaty it signed with President Richard M. Nixon, Keim said the Soviets had as many as 30,000 scientists working on its biological weapons programs.
“The reason the Soviets didn’t [honor the treaty] was that we were beating the pants off them in the nuclear arena.”
So, they turned to anthrax and other biological agents, weapons that Keim refers to as “poor man’s nuclear weapons.”
By analyzing the bacteria’s DNA, Keim has been able to identify the different brands of the deadly agent. In the early 1990s he had a look at another strain, the anthrax recovered by the United Nations weapons inspectors who combed through Saddam Hussein’s facilities.
When the anthrax-tainted letters sent the country into a panic in 2001, Keim was contacted by the government to analyze that variety. Keim said he believes the Bush administration hoped to find an Iraq link. Had there been, Keim said the U.S. might have skipped Afghanistan and gone straight into Iraq.
“I actually tell people that I delayed the Iraq War by about two years,” Keim said.
The unassuming scientist who likes the mountain lifestyle sees the spotlight cast on his work as a chance to talk about some lofty issues such as ethics and the responsibilities placed on the science community in uncertain times.
While the anthrax letters case led some to cry out for closing infectious disease labs, Keim sees the scientific events of 2001 and beyond as something of a proof in the relevance and importance of his brand of science.
“We can’t let an isolated event stop our research into infectious diseases,” Keim said, pointing to the fact that various bacterial and viral threats loom large on an ever-smaller planet. “With diseases like SARS and HIV/AIDS… we have a challenge and the only hope is to keep doing this kind of research.”
Reporter Sepp Jannotta can be reached at 363-3300 or sjannotta@ravallirepublic.com
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Reader's Comments >>
Johnnie B. wrote on Oct 9, 2008 4:39 PM:
It really is sad that there are that many people who are so utterly miserable, that they demand that everybody subscribe to their loony theories about shadow governments and mass mind control, and mock others for not falling in-step to their ideas.
Yep. Everyone is out to get YOU. Sure. Must be nice to be the center of the universe, eh?
And by the way, "escapefrombushistan", just because I have a discerning mind, and don't believe every word I read on the internet like you "Steve" and "Hmmm" do, doesn't mean I'm uninformed. Not remotely.
I've read a great many of the conspiracy laden websites, just as you all obviously have. And unlike you, I have determined that most of them are ill-conceived and quite often very poorly written. Basically they are written by loopy people, for loopy people. So Mossad is going to sink an aircraft carrier, forcing us to invade Iran, right Steve and Hmmm?? Do you have proof? Evidence? A shred of a clue of any kind? Or is it simply I read it as gospel on blahblahblah.com.? If it is all truly a conspiracy by some shadowy cabal, and you are so motivated by that knowledge, what exactly are you doing to change the situation as you see it? (Well, other than posting loopy theories in the comments section of a small local newspaper.)
So you all loopy kool-aid drinkers go right ahead and believe what you want. Continue to relish in your collective conspiratorial misery. The other 98% of us will go on with life. "
Hmmm wrote on Oct 9, 2008 12:59 PM:
escapefrombushistan wrote on Oct 9, 2008 12:57 PM:
Your failure to be informed doesn't mack Steve a wacko. "
Kim wrote on Oct 9, 2008 12:56 PM:
Johnnie B. wrote on Oct 9, 2008 11:02 AM:
Steve wrote on Oct 9, 2008 7:33 AM:
Final link (before Google Books bends to gov't demands and censors the title):
http://www.iuniverse.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000083883 "