| Publication |
2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
On 5 October 2001, not even a month after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 (9/11), a person died in Boca Raton, Florida, of inhalational anthrax. The low incidence of this disease (only eighteen occupational exposure cases were recorded in the United States during the twentieth century);1 the concern generated after 9/11 regarding possible al-Qaeda attacks using chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) weapons; and the fact that the etiological agent of this illness is the biological weapon (BW) par excellence, triggered alarms when the cause of this death was made public. Traces of the biological agent were detected a few days later in American Media, Inc. (AMI) facilities, where the deceased worked. Two envelopes, postmarked 18 September, addressed to an NBC reporter and to the editor of the New York Post, both with threatening messages and indicating that they contained anthrax, were retrieved. For a series of reasons, the logical thing to do at that time was to relate these mailings to al-Qaeda. Among those reasons were the proximity in time of the postal mailings with the 9/11 terrorist attacks; the messages included in the envelopes had 9/11 allusions and phrases such as "Death to America," "Death to Israel," and "Allah is great"; and the suspected interest of the 9/11 suicide terrorists in agricultural aircraft to disseminate chemical or biological agents. This is when what is colloquially known as the "Amerithrax"-the name that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) gave to the criminal investigation-investigation began.
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