It occurred to me, because of a certain skype discussion, that the
DNA databank for the 9/11 victims is an interesting piece of evidence, if we corner those responsible and force them to PROVE this database exists somewhere.
For the time being, I'll post here the little I learned so far.
The story begins, like all good stories, with a Google search.
On this article I find the DNA database mentioned:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6065FZ20100107"
Two women were identified by referencing DNA from the remains with a database of DNA profiles from victims of the attack, said Ellen Borakove, a medical examiner's spokeswoman.
Ellen Borakove. What has Google to say about this woman?
Well, she is ALL OVER THE PLACE, although I can't seem to find a single picture of her face.
Being the face for the
NYC office of the Chief Medical Examiner (website:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/ocme), she is so often mentioned on news articles her quotes are even collected on quotes websites.
Here are a few articles where she appears on the NY daily news:
http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Ellen+BorakoveShe seems to be saying the last words on all sorts of cases of violent deaths, about 9/11 rescuers, and even celebrities who died in NYC such as John Lennon (!) and Heath Ledger.
Actually, to handle celebrity cases of suspicious deaths seems to be her more high-profile occupation, which accounts probably for the fact that her picture is hard to find among thousands of pictures of the celebrities whose cases she handled (just see this google search:
http://www.google.com/images?q=Ellen+Borakove)" )
Here she rules on Ledger:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/02 ... _died.htmlHere she refuses to release John Lennon autopsy report:
http://www.jfkmontreal.com/john_lennon/exhibit_n.htmHere she rules how a ground zero worker died:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/10 ... ed_fr.htmlAnd here is an interesting article about the DNA identification on the 9/11 crime scene using bone fragments:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/09 ... _of_9.htmlLaura Lee Morabito's remains were found in the initial recovery effort but could not be linked to her by the DNA technology used at the time, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the city's medical examiner.
The medical examiner's office now is working with the Bode Technology Group, a Lorton, Virginia-based DNA testing laboratory that has patented a new methodology of DNA extraction. The new system requires much less sample material than was required just five years ago.
Laura Lee Morabito is so excited about the news her left eye got a little deformed:
Talking about this, somebody carried around a coffin:
http://blog.syracuse.com/news/2007/10/s ... morab.html --and somebody whined about a mosque:
http://www.cnycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=500758The Bode Technology Group website:
http://www.bodetech.com/Who formerly ran (and still owns) this venture? But none other than
Howard Safir, New York City Police Commissioner until 2000:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_SafirHoward Safir
After Safir resigned as Police Commissioner in 2000, he immediately went to work as a consultant to the chief executive of ChoicePoint, Inc. and ultimately ran their Bode Technology Group subsidiary, which they purchased at Safir's urging in April 2001.
In February 2007, Safir became CEO of Bode Technology when GlobalOptions Group, Inc. acquired The Bode Technology Group from ChoicePoint in a cash purchase for $12.5 million.
Among other things this guy is "a member of the Board of Visitors to CIA University". I guess that explains why his forensic group is based in Virginia, right?
ChoicePoint also dwelled in Intelligence, and was involved in the Florida 2000 recount (when Safir was there):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChoicePointAnyhoo. DNA. Here goes the Bode Tech website about the WTC victims on the "cold cases" page:
Over 3000 highly compromised bone fragments from World Trade Center victims were processed in 2006-2007 and of these over 2000 reportable profiles were generated, resulting in new identifications from samples previously unidentified.
Against what, exactly, these samples were compared? Let's see what the deputed government agency has to say. This seems the place with the answers:
http://massfatality.dna.gov/ (it's a study that moves from the 9/11 case, in form of a website, also in PDF here:
http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/214781.pdf))
I highly recommend chapter 8 which details the relationship between the DNA laboratories and the 9/11 victims "families" (lol). It is worth a couple of laughs. Apparently the "relatives" provided their own swab samples, which were later compared to the bone fragments to find a match. They maintain that this page
http://dna-view.com/simulate.htm makes it perfectly clear. :D
Here's a nice graphic of where the samples came from (sorry, graphics not embeddable in the page):
http://massfatality.dna.gov/Exhibits/21More details here:
http://massfatality.dna.gov/Exhibits/1/From more than one passage I seem to understand that there is not ONE vitcims databank, but that the samples are instead spread over more than one laboratory in a system called "Decentralized Laboratory Structure".
http://massfatality.dna.gov/Exhibits/8/ and
http://massfatality.dna.gov/Exhibits/9/Hmm... This way it seems pretty hard to pinpoint who first collected and who is storing the samples and the matches...
But let me go back a second.
Let's take a look at the source of this:
http://massfatality.dna.gov/Exhibits/21"Information provided by the New York City office of the Chief Medical Examiner".
In other words, the office of
Ellen Borkarove... so I guess we're back at square one. They seem to be the ones hosting the 9/11 victims DNA databank, or, in other words, making up what constitutes the DNA of the vicsims (or simDNA).
(I wonder, how do you ask for proof for the existence of a DNA databank? In what form is this stored? All electronically? Anyone has a friend geneticist or microbiologist to ask to?)
