He took charge the day before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and was still in the position when Senator Daschle’s Washington, D.C., office received a piece of mail containing anthrax.
His work has focused on criminal matters, including representation of the individual initially named as "a person of interest" in the anthrax mailings of 2001.
In 2001-2002, he and his colleagues sequenced the anthrax that was used in the 2001 anthrax attacks.
2001 | September 11 attacks | 2001 in music | 2001 ATP Tour | 2001: A Space Odyssey | Anthrax | Anthrax (American band) | 2001: A Space Odyssey (film) | 2001 in film | United Kingdom general election, 2001 | 2001 in television | anthrax | The Fast and the Furious (2001 film) | 2001 in sports | 2008 Mumbai attacks | 2001 in baseball | 2011 Norway attacks | 2001 FIFA World Youth Championship | Planet of the Apes (2001 film) | 2001 WTA Tour | 2001 Gujarat earthquake | Major Indoor Soccer League (2001–2008) | 2001 anthrax attacks | Armageddon 2001 | 2001 World Championships in Athletics | 2001 Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy | Transnistrian presidential election, 2001 | Ocean's Eleven (2001 film) | Norwegian parliamentary election, 2001 | Enigma (2001 film) |
Many large institutions, such as the WHO and the CDC, have created databases and modern computer systems (public health informatics) that can track and monitor emerging outbreaks of illnesses such as influenza, SARS, HIV, and even bioterrorism, such as the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States.
Persons participating in the program, popularly called "disease detectives", are called "EIS Officers" by the CDC and have been dispatched to investigate possible epidemics, due to both natural and artificial causes, including anthrax, hantavirus, and West Nile virus in the United States and Ebola in Uganda and Zaire.