The Malaysian Letter to Microsoft

found on anthraxandalqaeda dot com (good information found there, good work!)  

There was a letter coming from Malaysia to Microsoft (arriving September, opened October 2001) that tested positive in initial testing and then final testing proved negative. The envelope was initially sent by Microsoft Licensing to a vendor in Malaysia. The envelope was returned in September, but not opened until mid-October. The check Microsoft had mailed was still inside the envelope. It apparently was dampened and then dried. The employee discovered that five pornographic magazine pictures had been inserted into the envelope before it was returned. Employees with the Las Vegas Health Division tested the contents of the envelope and found bacteria of the type that causes anthrax were found on one of the pictures. They then sent a sample of the bacteria to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Perhaps the Malaysia letter to Microsoft was sent by an Al Qaeda or JI associate who did not have virulent anthrax but only had some other bacterium or anthrax simulant that Al Qaeda, according to news reports based on interrogations, found not useful for weaponization. (The lab technician taking a lead in the anthrax R&D program, Malaysian Yazid Sufaat, himself was in Karachi at the time the letter came from Malaysia.)

Leonard Cole in Anthrax Letters has helpful explanation of such tests for anthrax.

The first test, capsular staining, apparently showed that the bacillus had a capsule, a thick outer coating. But Cole explains that "The capsular test by itself is not conclusive for anthrax because some other bacilli are also encased in capsules." Did the Malaysia letter test positive under the first test? (Presumably yes, puruant to testing done in the Las Vegas area).

Cole explains the second test:

"The second test, the polysaccharide test, is performed on the cell wall of the organism when it is in spore form. The wall contains a specific sugar, a polysaccharide that is peculiar to anthrax and a few other bacillus species. As with the first test, a positive result does not mean confirmation. But if both the capsule and the polysaccharide tests are positive, the bug is almost certainly anthrax." Did the Malaysia letter test positive under the second test? (Where and when was this second test performed?)

The third test, the gamma phage test, is based on the fact that certain viruses, called phages, can enter and infect bacteria. Among a group of them known as gamma phages, one type can uniquely infect anthrax bacteria. Once inside the bacteria, the phages rapidly reproduce and cause the bacterial cell to split open. The test involves introducing these gamma phages into a population of bacteria. If the bacteria break open, or lyse, they are virtually certain to be anthrax." This test presumably done at the CDC and apparently was negative.

Although there were numerous "hoaxes" or false alarms, like those in Karachi, this is one of the interesting ones because of the possible geographic connection Al Qaeda's anthrax program.