The Anthrax Attacks of 2001
Robert Stevens, a talented photo retoucher for a tabloid in south Florida, was known to friends as the only English redneck they knew, a lover of pickup trucks and bass fishing. In late September 2001, after a family trip, he began feeling ill. What started as a stomach ache quickly escalated into a high fever and total confusion. At the hospital, doctors were baffled until Dr. Larry Bush examined a sample of spinal fluid and saw strange, rod-shaped bacteria resembling tiny pieces of macaroni. He realized he was looking at anthrax, a rare and explosive pathogen. Despite every effort, Stevens fell into a coma and died days later.
Dr. Sherif Zaki and a CDC team arrived to perform a specialized autopsy in a sealed room, wearing heavy biohazard suits. When they opened Stevens's chest, they found it filled with nearly a gallon of bloody fluid, and his lymph nodes had swollen from the size of peas to dark purple plums. This proved he had inhaled the spores—a terrifying discovery, as inhalation anthrax is almost always fatal and incredibly rare in nature. After destroying their tools and scrubbing the room with chemicals, they knew they were facing a major public health crisis. Investigators eventually discovered the mailroom manager at Stevens's office was also hospitalized, narrowing the search to the American Media building, where testing revealed a mail bin saturated with glittery, gray anthrax spores. The concentrated spores confirmed a deliberate act of bioterrorism.
Shortly after, on a warm October morning, a staffer in Senator Tom Daschle’s office opened a hand-lettered envelope. A fine, bone-colored powder puffed into the air like smoke from a snuffed candle. Though she tossed the letter away, the building’s ventilation system pulled the invisible particles deep into the vents, circulating them for forty minutes before the fans were cut. This single letter forced a six-month evacuation and a massive cleanup.
The FBI’s hazardous materials team rushed the evidence to USAMRIID at Fort Detrick, the nation’s premier biodefense laboratory. Inside, microbiologist John Ezzell prepared to examine the sample. When he opened the evidence bags in a secure lab, the powder behaved strangely. It was so light and fine that it floated and danced away from his tools. The letter inside contained a chilling message of death. Seeing how easily the particles took flight, Ezzell realized he was looking at a highly refined biological weapon.
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