The Ames strain

After September 11, American faced its second attack. A handful of anthrax-laced letters sent through the U.S. mail caused additional deaths, seventeen infections, and a seven-year-hunt for the culprit. Bruce Edwards Ivins, a deeply troubled U.S. Army scientist, was the sole perpetrator of the anthrax attacks. But before Ivins was identified, there was a struggle for control within the FBI's anthrax investigation; the missteps of an overzealous press; and the cadre of senior government officials who disregarded scientific evidence while spinning the attacks into a basis for war with Iraq.