Anthrax: the other white powder

And now, for your reading pleasure, a somewhat delightful what the hell moment. Remember anthrax? From back in the day? It was that suspicious dangerous white powder that was sent through the postal system, killing 5 people and hospitalizing 17 others. This was shortly following 9/11, so it caused panic of a second wave of attacks, and both Afghanistan and Iraq were thought to be the culprit. The United States Postal Service heightened their biohazard detection systems, the US government began to take biological warfare in the wake of 9/11 more seriously, but in the public mind the whole scandal was largely forgotten. In June 2008, the FBI was investigating Bruce E. Ivins, an Army scientist who helped create an anthrax vaccine program. Ivins committed suicide before charges could be brought against him, but not before investigators determined that he created the whole scare to direct attention to his vaccine program, and the encoded messages in the letter were about his 2 female coworkers with whom he was obsessed. The case is officially closed, and bizarre.

I smell a movie. My pick to play Ivins is Gerard Butler, with Matt Damon as special FBI investigator Walter "Walt" Wallace.