# Science culture To quarantine the fall-out, Bruce, personally, unfortunately, had sacrificial lamb written all over him (look away Pete Daszak). By 2008, 7-years on, Bruce was fucked. He'd gone from top, respected scientist - Pentagon Awarded star of bio-warfare defense - to sole suspect in the Anthrax terrorist attack. Long before that, since the initial weeks of the mailings, there were bloggers pressing for an investigation into a Fort Detrick lab-exit event. Mueller, who knew all along it was domestic terrorism committed by a small subset of suspects with access to Fort Detrick's Ames anthrax, had to act. With the full might of the FBI, he began tightening the noose - on the wrong neck. Not Bruce, but another top-scientist, the FBI's designated patsy, Steven Hatfill. The FBI even outed him as their sole [*person of interest*](https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/252860/watching-the-detectives/), thus ensuring a full-blown media circus - tipped-off to throng at his house for the search, agents marching in & out with boxes of evidence, live chopper vision of the pond-draining - huge fuss made of a plastic contraption retrieved from the pond which may have been used in cultivating anthrax - turned out to be a tortoise trap - -rabid media crap - the whole shit-show. Hatfill watched his house being raided on TV at a friend's place. He said it was *surreal*. He was known as a cowboy Bio-defense weapons zealot - which he was - a leading bio-terror advocate - but innocent of the Anthrax attack. Paid-out [*5.8 million* from the public's purse for wrongful persecution](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-to-pay-widow-25m-in-2001-anthrax-death/). Finally, our guy Bruce Ivins, their expert advisor, did become the FBI's chief suspect. Quietly, this time, outside the public's eye. Ivins would keep denying it but by the end Bruce *was* in deep depression, under pressure from the Feds, his professional career having seeped down the gutter. He *took his own life* in July 2008 - an[ overdose of Tylenol](https://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/01/06/anthrax.ivins/) - his wife found him dead at home - lying in his clothes on his bed - a note read *Let me sleep*. The FBI said it was set to execute an arrest but he'd beaten em to it. Conveniently so - disappearing a messy public show trial - Ivins *had* maintained his innocence - so there'd have been a contest. Mueller ruled he was as a loner*[ acting alone](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-and-fbi-announce-formal-conclusion-investigation-2001-anthrax-attacks)*.[ Case closed](https://www.smh.com.au/world/fbi-sure-anthrax-scientist-acted-alone-20080807-3rcq.html). [Ivin's colleague remarked:](http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/anthraxbenefitpanic.html) *They seemed to harp on he was a loner. He was **not a loner****.* ….* He had **a lot** of friends ..* Indeed, *20 to 30 colleagues* showed up at his 1st & 2nd death anniversaries - he was something of a hero. lvins *was *a weirdo though - make no mistake - had a *not*-so-secret fetish - known around the office - for secret initiations of Ivy-League sororities - that included stalking - breaking & entering - all very seedy. But when ya enmeshed in the fenced-off-society of the well-off science community - you'll get away with that shit - you can hide it in plain sight - it's called: *eccentricity*. Ivins also had access to the exact same anthrax strain and a money motive. Would it've stood up in court? - id've thought *line-ball call* - there was a *major* bungle in the collection of key evidence - the danger though for the higher-ups in the scio-security game being: Where's this going? So it's left open-ended. The FBI betting that if it was buried for long enough we'd all forget who or what the fuck caused an avalanche of money for bio-tech globo-surveillance: Pretending Bruce Ivins was a loner who dropped out of the sky - to where he's thus returned - it wasn't like that - A smoothed out ripple in history - well, he is, good job - but the problem isn't. Ivins was the inevitable result of a culture that's very much alive n wriggling today. In this instance it's the science community - a close-knit, closed-society - unaccountable - monied-up elite - playing secret power shenanigans with security organizations. I don’t know much about nothin - but i know that’s a recipe for corruption. That shit never ever fixes itself - it does the opposite ... a smoothed out ripple in history