February 22, 2004
Did Frist cry wolf? "Ricin" scare looks lame
Remember: Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, in whose office the powder was first found, just happened to be the first person to loudly and positively proclaim the powder to be ricin (even before reliable tests came back... field tests done on the scene showed mixed results, but the positive results were emphasized in news reports). Coincidentally, he is also to author of this book on bio-terror attacks. Now, I’m not suggesting that Bill Frist may have had more than a little self interest in seeing this story hyped to the max, or even that he may know a lot more than he’s letting on about the origins of the mysterious white powder that doesn’t seem to have arrived in his office via the U.S. Mail after all. After all, it is a well known fact that Republicans are the party of honesty and integrity
and surely their senior members would never stoop to pure profiteering at the expense of ordinary citizens, right?
There is a new theory emerging about the ricin scare two weeks ago.Posted by Norwood at February 22, 2004 04:05 PMNBC News has learned investigators are looking into the possibility that there never was any ricin attack in the first place.
A white powder, previously believed to be ricin, was discovered on a machine used to open envelopes in the Dirksen Senate office building. Dirksen and two other buildings were closed for several days.
There are several reasons for the new theory. Investigators haven't been able to determine an apparent source of the ricin, and the suspicous substances was found in very small amounts.
Since ricin comes from the castor bean, and some nontoxic parts of the plant are used to make paper, it might be possible that the tests found traces of the plant, but not ricin.
