Posted on 05/04/2002 10:35:59 PM PDT by Nachum
It's a tale only the best conspiracy theorist could dream up.
Eleven microbiologists mysteriously dead over the span of just five months. Some of them world leaders in developing weapons-grade biological plagues. Others the best in figuring out how to stop millions from dying because of biological weapons. Still others, experts in the theory of bioterrorism.
Throw in a few Russian defectors, a few nervy U.S. biotech companies, a deranged assassin or two, a bit of Elvis, a couple of Satanists, a subtle hint of espionage, a big whack of imagination, and the plot is complete, if a bit reminiscent of James Bond.
The first three died in the space of just over a week in November. Benito Que, 52, was an expert in infectious diseases and cellular biology at the Miami Medical School. Police originally suspected that he had been beaten on Nov. 12 in a carjacking in the medical school's parking lot. Strangely enough, though, his body showed no signs of a beating. Doctors then began to suspect a stroke.
Just four days after Dr. Que fell unconscious came the mysterious disappearance of Don Wiley, 57, one of the foremost microbiologists in the United States. Dr. Wiley, of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Harvard University, was an expert on how the immune system responds to viral attacks such as the classic doomsday plagues of HIV, ebola and influenza.
He had just bought tickets to take his son to Graceland the following day. Police found his rental car on a bridge outside Memphis, Tenn. His body was later found in the Mississippi River. Forensic experts said he may have had a dizzy spell and have fallen off the bridge.
Just five days after that, the world-class microbiologist and high-profile Russian defector Valdimir Pasechnik, 64, fell dead. The pathologist who did the autopsy, and who also happened to be associated with Britain's spy agency, concluded he died of a stroke.
Dr. Pasechnik, who defected to the United Kingdom in 1989, played a huge role in Russian biowarfare and helped to figure out how to modify cruise missiles to deliver the agents of mass biological destruction.
The next two deaths came four days apart in December. Robert Schwartz, 57, was stabbed and slashed with what police believe was a sword in his farmhouse in Leesberg, Va. His daughter, who identifies herself as a pagan high priestess, and several of her fellow pagans have been charged.
Dr. Schwartz was an expert in DNA sequencing and pathogenic micro-organisms, who worked at the Center for Innovative Technology in Herndon, Va.
Four days later, Nguyen Van Set, 44, died at work in Geelong, Australia, in a laboratory accident. He entered an airlocked storage lab and died from exposure to nitrogen. Other scientists at the animal diseases facility of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization had just come to fame for discovering a virulent strain of mousepox, which could be modified to affect smallpox.
Then in February, the Russian microbiologist Victor Korshunov, 56, an expert in intestinal bacteria of children around the world, was bashed over the head near his home in Moscow. Five days later the British microbiologist Ian Langford, 40, was found dead in his home near Norwich, England, naked from the waist down and wedged under a chair. He was an expert in environmental risks and disease.
Two weeks later, two prominent microbiologists died in San Francisco. Tanya Holzmayer, 46, a Russian who moved to the U.S. in 1989, focused on the part of the human molecular structure that could be affected best by medicine.
She was killed by fellow microbiologist Guyang (Matthew) Huang, 38, who shot her seven times when she opened the door to a pizza delivery. Then he shot himself.
The final two deaths came one day after the other in March. David Wynn-Williams, 55, a respected astrobiologist with the British Antarctic Survey, who studied the habits of microbes that might survive in outer space, died in a freak road accident near his home in Cambridge, England. He was hit by a car while he was jogging.
The following day, Steven Mostow, 63, known as Dr. Flu for his expertise in treating influenza, and a noted expert in bioterrorism, died when the airplane he was piloting crashed near Denver.
So what does any of it mean?
"Statistically, what are the chances?" wondered a prominent North American microbiologist reached last night at an international meeting of infectious-disease specialists in Chicago.
Janet Shoemaker, director of public and scientific affairs of the American Society for Microbiology in Washington, D.C., pointed out yesterday that there are about 20,000 academic researchers in microbiology in the U.S. Still, not all of these are of the elevated calibre of those recently deceased.
She had a chilling, final thought. When microbiologists die in a lab, there's a way of taking note of the deaths and adding them up. When they die in freakish accidents outside the lab, nobody keeps track.
Suspicious deaths
The sudden and suspicious deaths of 11 of the world's leading microbiologists.
Who they were:
1. Nov. 12, 2001:
Benito Que was said to have been beaten in a Miami parking lot and died later.
2. Nov. 16, 2001:
Don C. Wiley went missing. Was found Dec. 20. Investigators said he got dizzy on a Memphis bridge and fell to his death in a river.
3. Nov. 21, 2001:
Vladimir Pasechnik, former high-level Russian microbiologist who defected in 1989 to the U.K. apparently died from a stroke.
4. Dec. 10, 2001:
Robert M. Schwartz was stabbed to death in Leesberg, Va. Three Satanists have been arrested.
5. Dec. 14, 2001:
Nguyen Van Set died in an airlock filled with nitrogen in his lab in Geelong, Australia.
6. Feb. 9, 2002:
Victor Korshunov had his head bashed in near his home in Moscow.
7. Feb. 14, 2002:
Ian Langford was found partially naked and wedged under a chair in Norwich, England.
8. 9. Feb. 28, 2002:
San Francisco resident Tanya Holzmayer was killed by a microbiologist colleague, Guyang Huang, who shot her as she took delivery of a pizza and then apparently shot himself.
10. March 24, 2002:
David Wynn-Williams died in a road accident near his home in Cambridge, England.
11. March 25, 2002:
Steven Mostow of the Colorado Health Sciences Centre, killed in a plane he was flying near Denver.
However,I don't agree with you about the body not floating hundreds of miles downriver.I work on rivers much of the time and it wouldn't surprise me at all,especially if the river was on a rise.
The ones I design and build are used for DNA synthesis (genomics), and protein crystalization and analysis (proteomics).
I'm pretty low level in the scheme of things, but I do worry about some of my customers...
What does that have to do with anything?
My qualifications are I am not crazy and can think logically and coherently and know the field.
BJ was pushing the idea that the US government trained and paid Al Qaeda and was behind the attacks on 911.
He spewed lie after lie -- always with the leftist world view that evil oil barons rule the world and create all the evil and engage in all the diabolical acts that occur, 911 for example was part of a plot to get oil from somewhere according to BJ.
After running into so many people who believe the holocaust never occured, or the moon landings never occured, or other assorted things... I think we are going to regret not publishing some more photographs, or else our kids and grandkids may come to believe this didn't occur.
I'm tired of having every wounded palestinian rubbed in my face, talk of our bombing civilians pounded in, and having our alleged mistreatment of detainees gone over endlessly, while we cannot counter that junk with evidence of our own from the WTC or Pentagon. We were treated to the sob stories of terrorists, but images of US troops in Somalia were quickly doused and people forgot, and Bill Clinton got away without anyone questioning him, even as the bodies were returned in the dead of night.
The public schools show films of drunk driving injuries, and Hollywood shows them grisly horror films, but the kids will never see photos of murder perpetrated against Americans. No wonder this country is filling up with irrational nutjobs... we're trained to think like the world is Disneyland.
I want everyone who had the slightest thing to do with this to die. Preferably slowly and horribly, after watching everyone they love and everything they hold dear destroyed before their very eyes. Then run every scrap of tissue through a pig fat rendering plant.
I am ashamed that so many of my fellow citizens just don't get it. In-your-face images of the human toll might, just might, get the message through to some of the marginally less dense in time to prevent an encore performance.
But we don't want to upset the sheep, now do we...
But not, apparently how to figure out a percentage...
See also the post by the matehmatican on agronomists.
Yes I did notice that. Exactly what field are you expert in?
The numbers of doubters will grow if the terrorist propaganda isn't confronted, because people years from now will begin to doubt what occured on 9/11. Even now we have people seriously thinking that a plane didn't hit the Pentagon, and others who buy into the nonsense about hundreds of Jews not going to work at the WTC that day.
Of course, it might be said that people who can't grasp the enormity of the destruction and death from the sight of the buildings going down, probably won't accept other photographic evidence, either. But why make it easy for such people to spread their conspiracy theories?
You really ARE a victim of the California State educational system! This explains much...
Concpiracy theories arise when people are confronted with facts but are unable to make the true connections. When people have incomplete information they tend to fill in the blanks with concpiracies. The more we do not publicaly and openly investigate with complete transparency then this will get worse.
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