JUN 2é ’92 15:88

21 June 1992

MEMORANDUM

Fe TETRIS a

TO! John Steinbruner
FROM: Elisa DB. Harris

SUBJECT: Meselson Visit to Sverdlovsk

Matt called shortly before 11:30 AM taday to tell me about his trip to

Sverdlovsk. We talked for roughly 90 minutes and only skimmed the surface.

He would vary much like te come to DC for a “debriefing” and suggested a

number of people to include, in addition to CISAC members: Alex Langmuir
(School Publie Health, Johns Hopkins); Jim Steele Cleading US FHS official?; neo}!

Rob Mikulak; Jack Melling (Forton BW expert); Julian Ferry Robinson; Nikita -—~ ‘
Smidavich (Russian Foreign Ministry CBW official, Currently in NY). He proposed

ta do this June 29 or 30, and said that it would take the better part of a

day to qutline the new information.
- , yes

‘Matt's team was comprised of Jeanne Guillemin, Alex Shelekov, David aike

(a Texas pathologist), Martin Hugh Jones Ca veterinarian), and Olga Yampolskaya
(wha was Nikiforov’s assistant). Yampolskaya, Walker, Iv. Abramava Cuho
treated “the early victims) and Ir. Grinberg ¢who worked with Abramova), are
preparing a medical paper on the incident. Matt will incorporate this paper

in a wider report which he hopes to publish.

‘“fibramova and Grinberg showed the team autopsy tissue and organs from 42
victins. ALL had severe lung damage. 39 of the 42 also had gastrointestinal
damage, but this was believed to have been a consequence of a systemic
infection carried via the blood stream. None of this had been revealed to
Matt previously cr mentioned by Nikiforeyv et al when they were here in 1984.
Matt acknowledged that he had been misled, Walker is convinced based on his
examination of these materials that the victime died after inhaling anthrax.
Most of the illnesses occurred within a'ten day to 2 week period, beginning
on 4 April. Patients died within hours ef the onset of symptoms.

The team compiled a list of victimes from a variety of sources, inciudiag the
‘cemetery where they were buried, A list was also provided to them by an
obhast official, According to markers in the cemetery, all of the victims
died in April and May. Guillemin interviewed the families of some 2 dozen
victims. The others are being tracked down and interviewed by # Russian |
sociologist. Most of the victims lived in dwellings located between the
military facility and a ceramics factory 3 kilometers away. One of the
people Guillemin interviewed said that diseased meat had been burned at the
ceramics factory, leaving open the possibility that the outbresk was unrelated
to the military facility. However, the team was unable to determine whether
there had been an anthrax problem among livestock in the period before the
human outbreak. One SES (Sverdlovsk public health) official said that there
Was, while another claimed there was not. Veterinarians and cthers that may
have fad information about any livestock problem apparently either were not
permitted or were unwilling to talk with the team.

Matt talked with Pyotr Burgasov and Vladimir Sergiev, both of wham gave
_JUN 22 ’S2 i5:a9

presentations here in 1988, as well as with Vladimir Nikiforov’s son (who
apparently did/does work on toxins in the military part of the Ministry of
Health). Sergiev said that he had no knowledge of medical evidence that the
victims had died from inhaling anthrax. Olga Yampolskaya said that Nikiforov
only spoke of a “systemic” infection. Nikiforov’s son, however, said that
hig father believed that there had heen inhalatory anthrax, but had been
pressured into saying it was gastrointestinal.

he