anthrax by mail attacks, Fall, 2001

America's mainstream press finds some stories too hot to handle. One of the most egregious examples of this is its coverage of the hunt for the perpetrator of the post-Sept. 11 anthrax letters...After an initial flurry of reports, the media inexplicably ignored the FBI's laborious search for the person who last fall mailed anthrax-laced letters... Did the US media merely lose interest after the government failed to find an Iraqi or Al-Qaeda connection...? Or was the press warned off the sensitive subject? ...in August the subject of the anthrax attacks once again hit the newspapers and network TV stations. The scientist in the spotlight, however, may be little more than a hapless "fall guy"...It's a safe bet that, had a Muslim - or Arab - American scientist been the prime suspect, press coverage would have been unrelenting....The still-unknown culprit also sought to throw suspicions on Muslim or Arab terrorists. Someone obviously hoped to focus attention on an Arab scapegoat...This August - nearly a year after the anthrax attack - the story hit the front pages again. The FBI's second highly visible examination of Steven J. Hatfill's apartment was conducted with reporters, cameras and a news helicopter hovering overhead. Although Hatfill once worked at the Fort Detrick lab,...[he] "did not do anthrax work. Steve has never worked with anthrax."..."Steve's life has been devastated by a drumbeat of innuendo, implication and speculation,"...Is Hatfill the bioterrorist or is he a stooge? Is the government protecting one of its own? Are the media and the government using Dr. Hatfill to take the fall for another twisted scientist? ...

BEFORE the investigation of Dr. Hatfill captured national headlines, another insider scientist had come under FBI scrutiny without much media fanfare. It was easy to miss the few stories published in January 2002 about Lt. Col. Philip Zack, ...Zack, moreover, actually worked with military-grade anthrax at Fort Detrick. Dr. Zack left Fort Detrick in December 1991 amid allegations of unprofessional conduct. The Jewish scientist and others were accused of harassing their co-worker, Dr. Ayaad Assaad, until the Egyptian-born American scientist quit,...Although Dr. Zack was let go, he returned frequently to visit friends, and used the Fort Detrick laboratories for "off-the-books" work after hours. After reports of missing biological specimens - including anthrax, Ebola and the simian AIDs virus - came to light, as well as reports of unauthorized research, a review of surveillance camera tapes recorded Dr. Zack entering the lab late on the night of Jan. 23, 1992...Inexplicably, the national press ignored these documented unauthorized visits to a top-secret government lab embroiled in the anthrax attacks. Did journalists fear being labeled anti-Semitic for casting suspicions on a Jewish scientist?