Arrest Made in Missing Vials Case

Reuters ^ | 1-15-03 | BETSY BLANEY

[Pharmboy]

LUBBOCK, Texas - A university professor was arrested Wednesday for allegedly telling authorities that 30 vials of plague were missing when he knew they had been destroyed, the U.S. attorney's office said.

The mysterious episode at Texas Tech University triggered a terrorism-alert plan and showed how jittery Americans are over the threat of a biological attack.

Dr. Thomas C. Butler, chief of the infectious diseases division of the department of internal medicine, was arrested late Wednesday on a complaint of making a false statement to a federal agent.

U.S. Attorney Dick Baker said the professor said the vials were missing as of Saturday when "truth in fact, as he well knew, he had destroyed them prior to that."

The samples, about 30 of the 180 the school was using for research on the treatment of plague, were reported missing to campus police Tuesday night.

Baker said FBI (news - web sites) agents interviewed Butler on Tuesday. He wouldn't say whether Butler made the initial report or comment on why the vials were destroyed.

Butler, who has been at Texas Tech since 1987, was jailed pending his arraignment set for Thursday.

Earlier Wednesday, The FBI had only said it had accounted for the vials. An FBI official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, had said authorities believed the samples of the lethal bacteria were simply destroyed and not properly accounted for, rather than stolen or misplaced.

"We have accounted for all those missing vials and we have determined that there is no danger to public safety whatsoever," FBI agent Lupe Gonzalez said at a news conference in Lubbock.

Plague — along with anthrax, smallpox and a few other deadly agents — is on a watch list distributed by the government, which wants to make sure doctors and hospitals recognize a biological attack quickly.

Health officials say 10 to 20 people in the United States contract plague each year, usually through infected fleas or rodents. The plague can be treated with antibiotics, but about one in seven U.S. cases is fatal.

Texas Tech said that officials thought it was "prudent" to get law enforcement involved because of current concerns about bioterrorism.

The FBI sent agents to Lubbock. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites) also took part in the investigation. Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge contacted Lubbock's mayor. About 60 investigators from the FBI and other agencies converged on the medical school Tuesday night.

A post-Sept. 11 emergency plan was activated, under which Lubbock-area hospitals and medical personnel were notified to be on the lookout for cases of plague. But the public was not told about the incident until late Wednesday morning.

"We didn't want to spread panic," Texas Tech Chancellor David Smith said. "As it turns out, they were never missing." He would not elaborate.

The vials were kept in an area with limited access but without a surveillance camera, officials said.

Mayor Marc McDougal said the public was not notified because of information the university received late Tuesday that indicated the missing vials were not a threat to the public.

"I think when you look how quickly it came down and how it got resolved, I think it would be hard to second guess" how we handled it, he said. "One thing we didn't want to do was cause people to panic."

The form of the disease called bubonic plague is not contagious. But left untreated, it can transform into the more dangerous pneumonic plague that can be spread person to person. The most infamous plague outbreak began in 1347 and killed 38 million people in Europe and Asia within five years.

___

Associated Press Writer Curt Anderson in Washington contributed to this report.

[Pharmboy]

Weird.

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[RCW2001]

Agreed...something just isn't right with this.

[ArcLight]

Cue the Twilight Zone theme music...dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee...

[Reagan is King]

Why would someone throw away their entire career to pull a stunt like this? There has to more to this story. Did the guy just go off the deep end? Weird is right!

[The KG9 Kid]

This scientist did not respect the duty he was given in being responsible for such potentially dangerous microbes. He also didn't respect the fact that they were weapons.

What else did this funny professor do? Run down the halls tossing vials of Anthrax to himself to show all his students that the vials were made of unbreakable plastic?

Hey everyone! Watch me start a national incident inside a biowarfare lab just to show how everyone in America is so jumpy about biowarfare lab security these days!

[Pharmboy]

Well, he hasn't published much lately; but, plague was his specialty.


1: Clin Infect Dis 1994 Oct;19(4):655-61; quiz 662-3 Related Articles, Links


Comment in:
Clin Infect Dis. 1995 Oct;21(4):1063-4.

Comment on:
Clin Infect Dis. 1994 Oct;19(4):668-74.

Yersinia infections: centennial of the discovery of the plague bacillus.

Butler T.

Division of Infectious Diseases, Texas Tech University Health Science Center, Lubbock 79430.

Publication Types:
Comment
Review
Review, Tutorial

PMID: 7803628 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]


Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg 1989 Jul-Aug;83(4):458-60 Related Articles, Links


The black death past and present. 1. Plague in the 1980s.

Butler T.

Division of Infectious Diseases, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock 79430.

This paper considers firstly the epidemiology of plague in the 1980s. The largest number of cases occurred in Tanzania. Most cases were in children and young adults; in the USA the male:female ratio was about 2:1. Plague had a seasonal distribution. Almost all cases arose from bites of infected rodent fleas, and Rattus spp. were the most important reservoir hosts. Virulence is linked with the presence of a 45 MDa plasmid. The predominant clinical form of plague is bubonic, followed by septicaemic, meningitic and pneumonic. For treatment, streptomycin is the antibiotic of choice, with tetracycline and chloramphenicol as alternatives. Treatment given on the first 1-2 d of illness is highly effective, and resistance is not a problem. Rodent control, insecticide application, and avoidance of contact with rodents and their fleas remain the prime means of control. Plague vaccine is not in general use.

PMID: 2617596 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]


Infect Immun 1982 Jun;36(3):1160-7 Related Articles, Links


Experimental Yersinia pestis infection in rodents after intragastric inoculation and ingestion of bacteria.

Butler T, Fu YS, Furman L, Almeida C, Almeida A.

To clarify the pathogenesis of oral plague infection, we studied the susceptibility of three species of rodents to intragastric inoculation of Yersinia pestis, described the pathology and progression of infection, and measured antibody responses to fraction IA antigen of Y. pestis. The 50% lethal doses of bacteria by intragastric inoculation for Mus musculus, Zygodontomys pixuna, and Rattus rattus were log10 = 6.32, 5.46, and 9.62, respectively, which were at least 1,000-fold higher than the values obtained by subcutaneous inoculation. M. musculus was shown to be susceptible to lethal infection also when bacteria were ingested in drinking water. Microscopic pathology was consistent with heavy systemic infection. Quantitative cultures of tissues at different times after intragastric inoculation revealed that infections of blood, liver, and spleen preceded infections of Peyer's patches and mesenteric lymph nodes. Stool cultures were negative. The strain of Y. pestis used for inoculation was killed when exposed to a buffered solution at pH less than or equal to 3. Antibody responses were observed in some of the surviving rodents after intragastric challenge. These results showed that Y. pestis was an effective oral pathogen that produced fatal systemic infections and self-limited infections with immunity but did not produce enteric pathology or lead to fecal excretion of bacteria.

PMID: 7095845 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

---

Summary Brief Abstract Citation ASN.1 MEDLINE XML UI List LinkOut Related Articles Domain Links Genome Links ProbeSet Links Nucleotide Links OMIM Links PMC Links Cited in PMC PopSet Links Protein Links SNP Links Structure Links Show: 5 10 20 50 100 200 500 Sort Author Journal Pub Date Text File Clipboard Order

[per loin]

Earlier Wednesday, The FBI had only said it had accounted for the vials. An FBI official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, had said authorities believed the samples of the lethal bacteria were simply destroyed and not properly accounted for, rather than stolen or misplaced.

I noticed tight lipped faces at the news conference today. This begins to explain that.

[Bonaparte]

"Run down the halls tossing vials of Anthrax to himself to show all his students that the vials were made of unbreakable plastic?"

Can this be the birth of the "Hold Muh Vial Alert?"

[jqpublic]

Cue the Twilight Zone theme music...dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee...

Thank you very much... Now I'll NEVER get that tune out of my head!! ;-)

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Guess he felt like committing professional/economic/social suicide. Give 'im ten years in jail and forget about 'im.

[SandfleaCSC]

Congratulations Americans. You have been bent over a barrel and molested once again by the F.B.Lie. We should take some of the FR donations and send a sympathy bouquet to Hatfill.

[Chad Fairbanks]

What kind of Vial Criminal was this?

[xm177e2]

How do they know the vials have been destroyed? How hard would it be to substitute other vials for those containing plague and destroy them? Maybe the prof wanted to claim they were missing, then have the FBI come in and find out they were "destroyed" (even though those were blanks) and then he gets to keep the real stuff for himself.

[Slyfox]

I would like to know what in tarnation is a university doing with vials of "The Plague"?

[John H K]

I would like to know what in tarnation is a university doing with vials of "The Plague"?

Because that's where most research is done.

[lorrainer]

Almost all cases arose from bites of infected rodent fleas, and Rattus spp. were the most important reservoir hosts.

I knew the dems were involved somehow...

[Slyfox]

Yah but, it just seems that vials of "The Plague" should be held under lock and key and guarded by some authority bigger than a collge security guard.

I am just giving the comment a lot of people were probably verbalizing in their cars when they first heard it on the radio.

What in tarnation is a university doing with vials of "The Plague"?

[Happy2BMe]

"The "good" doctor is cleared and ends up in control of viles."

Good theory and I'm sure it was among the topics initially discussed while reviewing the "good" doctor's MO as he sits behind the bars in his "good" cell.

They will scrub him till he bleeds.