California Doctor's Suicide Leaves Many Troubling Mysteries Unsolved

New York Times ^ | 3 Nov 2002 | By JO THOMAS

[csvset]

Strange goings on.

[TomGuy]

More bio-scientist oddities.

Bio-science has become a dangerous field of pursuit the last couple of years.

I lost count at some 30+ demised bio-scientists/doctors/technicians during the last 2 years.

[Siobhan]

One of the most bizarre and frightening news stories I have read.

I want to know what is in those medical records of the 83 women. Where did he get the C-4 -- can that be traced somehow? I also want to know about the pathogens -- of course, this leads me to think of the Anthrax letters.

[martin_fierro]

More Google search stories

[csvset]

Patrick Riley, Ford's partner in Biofem, is going to be on 60 Minutes tonight.

I did a google search as well.

One site in particular, The Anthrax Conspiracy Theories Page looked interesting.

I haven't had the time to wade through all the links, (there are many), but I've marked it for later reading.

[mountaineer]

Epidemiologists examined the records and interviewed eight women, six of them ill. But they quickly closed the inquiry, saying they had found no public health threat and no pattern of symptoms suggesting deliberate infection.

They interviewed eight of 83 and then quickly closed the inquiry? Nothing to see here, move along.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for the heads up!

[Siobhan]

Thanks for that link!

Pinging Alamo-Girl!

[Siobhan]

I'm a daylight, but I'm glad you got to see this one.

[Siobhan]

Sheesh, "day late and a dollar short"

It is difficult to type with a child crawling over you....

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for thinking of me!!!

[csvset]

Strange, eh?

[Focault's Pendulum]

Somebody ping Tom Clancy.

[kcvl]

Dr. Larry C. Ford, co-owner of Biofem Pharmaceuticals

Irvine company, Biofem Inc., could capture annual sales worth some $400 million. Riley told investors. The profits, in turn, would fund Ford's true passion of the past 12 years, a secret Biofem project to develop a superantibiotic derived from what he called "Unidentified Amniotic Fluid Substance." He believed it was nature's way of protecting embryos from disease, the reason HIV-negative babies can be born to HIV-positive mothers. Ford hoped to synthesize the substance, saving countless lives, and earning him a Nobel Prize along the way.

But Ford had come to resent his decade-long partnership with Riley, who had final say in every Biofem decision and who had the physician bound to a contract so sweeping--giving him a 50 percent share of any idea or product Ford might conceive--that one lawyer likened it to indentured servitude. The agreement snuffed out Ford's attempts to make lucrative outside deals, and so, police and prosecutors have alleged, he decided Riley had to die.

Riley had just emerged from his blue Audi and was walking to Biofem's offices on a Monday morning when the gunman approached and fired. A chance turn of the businessman's head sent the bullet through his left cheek instead of his brain. "I have no doubt I would be dead if not for that," Riley said recently, a faint, nickel-sized scar marking the bullet's point of entry. After crumpling to the hot asphalt, he staggered back to his feet, blood gushing, pulled out his cell phone, and called the one person he knew could help--his friend and partner, Dr. Larry Ford. The doctor ran outside and applied pressure to the gaping hole in the side of the CEO's face as they awaited an ambulance.

Within three days, however, Riley's savior had become a prime suspect. After the first of several searches of his house--which turned up only documents--the 49-year-old gynecologist met for five hours with his lawyer, scribbling notes throughout the discussion. Then he returned home and retreated to his bedroom, where he carefully laid out a selection of firearms from his collection. He put a double-barreled shotgun in his mouth and pulled both triggers. His wife, Diane, heard the blast and the thump of his body on the floor and knew; she called the lawyer and the police without going up to see her husband. The authorities found beside him a rambling, nearly illegible five-page note--what he had been writing in the lawyer's office--protesting his innocence. He had six different antidepressants in his system.




The Biofem case might have made the back burner then and there had Irvine police detective Victor Ray quit when his department and the FBI warned him to. But Ray, a former sonar technician on navy submarines, a job that requires patience and persistence, would not give up. He steered the investigation to Ford's backyard, where men in Andromeda Strain suits would evacuate a neighborhood and haul away an arsenal of toxins, germs, plastic explosives, and guns. In the process they unearthed a trail that stretched all the way from the CIA to apartheid-era South Africa and Dr. Wouter Basson, the man who ran the country's clandestine bioweapons program.

The question still plaguing federal, state, and local investigators is a simple but urgent one: What was Ford planning to do with his germs and bioweapons expertise? The discovery of militia-movement and racist literature among Ford's papers has raised the possibility that he offered biological or chemical weapons to terrorist groups. Concerns have also mounted over a patented feature of his Inner Confidence suppository: the microencapsulation of beneficial bacteria. It turns out this architecture could double as an ideal delivery system for bioweapons, allowing otherwise fragile disease organisms to be seeded virtually anywhere. Ford, in essence, had patented the prescription for a perfect microscopic time bomb.

"That," says Ray, "scares the hell out of everyone."


http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:1kG7BLiGNNsC:www.edwardhumes.com/medicine.htm+Biofem+Pharmaceuticals&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[Axenolith]

Yea, but I think the NYT also was just getting a hard on to do a story with keywords "angry" "white" and "racist" in it...

The media has a big problem these days, all of us white dudes appear to be fairly gruntled and the only big stories are coming from the followers of some religeon, can't remember it now but I believe it had something to do with peace...

[Axenolith]

But Ford had come to resent his decade-long partnership with Riley, who had final say in every Biofem decision and who had the physician bound to a contract so sweeping--giving him a 50 percent share of any idea or product Ford might conceive--that one lawyer likened it to indentured servitude.

Thats a LOAD. 50% share in an idea is FABULOUS. Where I worked it was 0%, and my wife worked with the guy who developed the automated gene sequencer and aside from a Nobel he got zilch. BTW, was the guy to stupid to read a contract???

[okie01]

"...had it not been for the phone calls that within hours began coming in to the police. Dr. Ford, the callers said, had left something behind: a cache of weapons and anthrax."

Two questions:

1. When will this Dr. Ford, who died in March, 2000, be somehow connected with Dr. Hatfill and/or the anthrax mailings?

2. Who were these mysterious callers?

[Mamzelle]

Bizarre--but there are a lot of psychotics out there. At least, with the "white supremist" angle on the story, we can be sure it'll be checked out and not quickly hidden.

[Endeavor]

OK, this guy killed himself in 2000. The anthrax attacks occurred in 2001. Do the math.

This excerpt is poorly written. I can't get to the NYT site so can't read the entire article. However, while I doubt this guy is tied into the anthrax attacks, I find it irritating that the NYT insinuates the guy was a racist w/o giving us more info. Everyone except their editorial staff is a right wing extremist to the NYT.

And I agree w/Mountaineer, interviewing 8 of 83 and determining there's nothing more to find here, is ridiculous.

[Vic3O3]

wierd ping