One of these two photographs depicts an elaborate piece of stagecraft featuring an actor playing the role of his life in an extraordinary charade calculated to distract a gullible public from the embarassing reality of a catastrophic failure in national defense planning. Which one?
With all eyes increasingly on Hatfill, I thought it was time for a tribute thread. Come here and share your notes, memories and theories about the man and his associates like Pat Clawson, Bob Roth, Bryan Blankenship, Thomas G. Connolly, Prof. Ralph Kirby, Prof. Lothar Bohm, Dr. John Michie, etc. Steve, I know you're reading this. Don't be a stranger.
Date: Fri 17 Sep 93 12:47 GMT+200
From: elb@maties.sun.ac.za
To:kirby@dtkl.ym.edu.tw Subject:Dear Ralph Don Hendry gave me your adress. 2 problems here:
Our new 560 bp PCR product still does not give continuous melts. In touch with DIAGEN it turns out that the handbook refers to a method called G-clampingmto stabilize DNA and generate decent Y-fragments. Regrettablyneither Steven nor you came up with this solution. Steven has been seeing our poor metls for the last 9 month. We are rather disappointed if not to say PISSED OFF with so much ignorance, carelessness and indifference.. 9 month of timne plus 4000 odd Rand oliogs wasted. You are both DEEP in our memory.
A japanese workers has problems in reproducing the Thalidomide work on K 562. After some correspondence relating to buffers and drug metabolism using S-9 ftraction he still cannot do it. When I discussed the problem with Steven it became clear that he could not have done the experiment as his handling of the S-9 fraction indicated total confusion.
Taking these observations and the wonderful TGE melt mitochondrial DNA referred to in the Lancet paper it also transpires that the experioment could not have been done by S. because essential parts of the TGE machine accessories were still unopened. It goes to show that S takes great liberties with the truth.
I think you may wish to be on guard when you assess his Ph.D. thesis not to risk a scandal. I can onluy pray that the Japanese worker is not going to blow the whistle-but with increasing interest in Thalidomide somebody else might. I find it utterly distasteful and unprofessional to practice science in this way and I am reassessing my position regarding S. and asking you again for advice
LOTHAR BOHM
On the private Internet forums where individuals close to the FBI's Amerithrax investigation exchange data, the word is that Prof. Kirby, formerly a well-respected scientist and head of the South African Society for Microbiology, was forced out of his position at Rhodes University and had to flee to Taiwan owing to his involvement with Hatfill. If this e-mail is for real, who could be surprised at that?
