Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak

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Abstract
The May 4 review of my book Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak 1 contains a historical error in need of correction. The pathoanatomical analysis proving that victims of the 1979 Sverdlovsk epidemic died of inhalatory anthrax was the work of Russian pathologist Faina Abramova and her colleague Dr. Lev Grinberg: the results were published in English in 1993.2 As I wrote in the book, Dr. Abramova, who was in charge of autopsies during the outbreak, courageously hid tissue samples of 41 patients from the KGB. The autopsy data alone, though, could not prove the culpability of the Soviet military. For that, it took an epidemiologic map documenting the whereabouts of the 66 victims just before the outbreak. That map, which was based on my 1992–1993 interviews with the victims' families, incontrovertibly points the way back to the Sverdlovsk military laboratory.