Released June 2009 (Counterpoint) * 256 pages * ISBN-13: 9781582435091

The Book
Dead Silence: Fear and Terror on the Anthrax Trail by Bob Coen and Eric Nadler investigates the anthrax letter scares just after 9/11. Following the trail of the anthrax bacterium, the authors find themselves looking at the deaths of the accused perpetrators of the attacks as well as the deaths of leading anthrax researchers. The trail of anthrax as a biological weapon leads them from the US labs at Fort Detrick to Porton Down in the UK and on to South Africa and the former Soviet Union.

The Review

I’ve read quite a few books on biological warfare (it’s an interest since I use to work in biomedical research), so I was curious to see what there was to learn about the anthrax attacks of 9/11 after the relative silence of the mass media on the topic. By silence, I mean after the attacks (there was certainly enough hysteria-inducing media coverage during the attacks).

Although the book starts a bit slowly as it establishes the genesis of the authors’ investigation, it soon goes into interesting territory by pulling together disparate parts of the global anthrax story including:

• The incestuous relationships between anthrax biological warfare programs all over the world;
• The curious number of deaths among anthrax researchers worldwide;
• The ownership of major anthrax vaccine installations (if you think it’s in the hands of a Western government or corporation, think again);
• The resurgence in biological weapons research in the name of national security (a lot of it done at university facilities without proper oversight);
• The incredible amount of government and private dollars at stake in said research.

I was familiar with the Soviet Union aspect of anthrax bioweapon research, having read Biohazard by Ken Alibek (who, according to the authors, has now gone back to the former Soviet Union to start a pharmaceutical company–I don’t know about anyone else, but this makes me a little nervous considering his previous career running a Soviet biological weapons program), but I wasn’t familiar with the biological warfare program carried out against the black populace in South Africa as apartheid was falling apart.

The section of the book on “Project Coast” went a long way to explaining the distrust by the black populace of the origin and treatment of AIDS. Some of the opinions in Africa about AIDS that seem unreasonable or uninformed to North Americans make considerably more sense when given the context that biological warfare has been carried out on a racial basis in that region in the past.

The book also has a lot of information about the new wave of “biodefence” research, primarily in the US, which threatens to spark a new biological arms race. This is something that has gone largely unnoticed by the public and needs more exposure.

The authors have uncovered many questions but few answers. They successfully make the case that the story told to the public in the media was not the full story and may not have been the truth at all. This book is an interesting read. You may not want to know the information in this book, but you should know it.

You can find Dead Silence: Fear and Terror on the Anthrax Trail at amazon (US, Canada, UK) and The Book Depository (Worldwide) as well as other online and retail booksellers.

Addendum: I forgot to mention that this book has both an index and a list of additional reading material by chapter.

Related posts:

1. The Dead Blog Office
2. First Daughter by Eric van Lustbader (Review)
3. Delusion by Peter Edwards (Review)
4. Start & Run Your Own Internet Research Business by Gerhard Kautz (Review)
5. Marketing in the New Media by Holly Berkley (Review)