Laboratory technician's hands shown holding anthrax laced letter, after safely opening it, addressed to Senator Leahy at Fort Detrick bio-medical research laboratory in the Amerithrax investigation. The 2001 Anthrax Attacks occurred over the course of several weeks beginning on September 18, 2001, one week after the September 11 attacks. Letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to several news media offices and two Democratic Senators (Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy), killing 5 people and infecting 17 others. Bruce Edwards Ivins, senior biodefense researcher at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, became a focus of investigation around April 4, 2005. On July 29, 2008, Ivins committed suicide with an overdose of acetaminophen. On August 6, 2008, based on DNA evidence leading to an anthrax vial in Ivins's lab, federal prosecutors declared Ivins to be the sole culprit of the crime. December 5, 2001. |