Scientists' deaths are under the microscope

The Globe and Mail ^ | Saturday, May 4, 2002 | ALANNA MITCHELL

[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.

[BlackVeil]

Yes, infowars, radical journals like you just mentioned, (LOL!) I rather miss BlackJade. I always used to contradict her about Iraq, but what's a forum for? Even if someone is posting from radical journals - well - you can read them critically, surely. Tallhappy says: "BJ was pushing the idea that the US government trained and paid Al Qaeda and was behind the attacks on 911." I can see why that view might be ruled right out of line. But while the straight conspiracy theory is offensive, it is fair to point out that the CIA are mob of bunglers (after Sept 11, that's being charitable), and that they throw money around, and train odd people. There is a theory running in Middle East circles that the CIA (who had a special budget of millions, to assassinate Saddam Hussein) were funding these Iraqi "opposition" groups, who were actually planted by the Iraqi government. Who thus managed to pick up the money earmarked for the assassination of their own Pres. Your tax dollars at work again!

[NapaCA]

Gotcha.

I share your anger at those who embrace distorted truths and outright lies, care not for those who care not, and have no sympathies regarding the imposed discomforts of the guilty. Those who now or in the future do not believe the events of 9/11 occured matter not to me, the truth of 9/11 is just too big to sweep away.

[BlackVeil]

"months after 9/11 no hearings have been held on the matter, no American punished for criminal negligence, no once forced to resign ... " I agree. It is unbelievable, and unless they are keeping information back for the duration of the war, this is the first stage of a cover-up.

[BlackVeil]

Thanks for posting this article. There was a very similar British scandal, the Marconi deaths (1988) which has remained forever unresolved. I have an article on that, if you are interested.

[The Great Satan]

Had to do a search on that. Sounds like something out of The Avengers:

The Marconi Deaths

The Independent - London
August 26, 1988

The police said it was suicide, and no doubt they were right. Ex-Brigadier Peter Ferry, a marketing manager at Marconi's Command and Control Systems centre at Frimley, Surrey, had apparently killed himself by inserting power main electric wires into his mouth and then turning on the power.

The method chosen was perhaps marginally more grisly than in the case of several other Marconi employees. In 1986, for example, Ashad Sharif, a computer analyst who worked for Marconi Defence Systems in Stanmore, Middlesex, tied one end of a rope around his neck, another to a tree, and put his car into gear. Two months earlier, the body of Vimal Dajibhai, a software engineer responsible for checking the guidance systems of Tigerfish torpedos for Marconi Underwater Systems, was found under Clifton suspension bridge at Bristol.

In March 1987, David Sands, a project manager working on secret satellite radar at Marconi's sister company Easams, in Camberley, drove up a slip road on his way to work and into a cafe at an estimated 80mph. A year later, Trevor Knight, a computer engineer at Marconi's space and defence base in Stanmore, died in his fume-filled car at his home in Hertfordshire. Earlier, two other Marconi employees, Victor Moore, a design engineer, and Roger Hill, a draughtsman, had killed themselves, both seemingly as a result of work pressures.

There have been at least half a dozen more untoward deaths among defence scientists and others working in the defence field. Marconi is not alone, but it is well in the lead. The best efforts of investigative journalists have failed to establish a link either between the various deaths or between the deaths of the Marconi staff and the Ministry of Defence inquiry, now two years old, into some (pounds)3bn worth of defence contracts awarded to GEC-Marconi. No doubt in several instances pressure of work was the main factor: in a field where millions of pounds hang on the securing of contracts, it can be intense, especially if the Ministry of Defence investigators are hovering, as they had been at Frimley, Brigadier Ferry's base. It is hard to believe, however, that other factors have not also been at work. The pressure of work is also fierce in the money markets of the City, where equally large sums are at stake. Yet the suicide rate remains unremarkable.

Mr Ferry's death on Tuesday must add to the concern already aroused by the alarming sequence of deaths in the defence industry. He had apparently been depressed since his car collided with a lorry a month ago; but suicide seems an extreme reaction. In such instances where no foul play is suspected, the inquiries of both police and coroners are likely to be brief, partly for the sake of the distressed relatives. They will not be concerned with establishing a connection with comparable deaths in different counties. Since these cases have been spread wide, there is now a case for pulling the threads together. It may be that there is no conspiracy and no concerted skullduggery. But these have been talented men. To allay anxieties, a senior police officer should be appointed to head a coordinated investigation into the underlying causes of so high a death rate.

[sneakypete]

Black Jade and all her posts have been deleted.

Huh? When and why did this happen?

[sneakypete]

Someday, nanotechnology will be far more powerful than even bioweapons.

Maybe even within the next 20 or so years.

[sneakypete]

Some of those articles were from left-leaning sources... so they nuked her. :-(

There is WAAAY too much of that "shoot the messeanger" crap going on here at FR. It's all a part of the "group think" mindset that sometimes seems to have taken over.

[self_evident]

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.

I agree whole-heartedly. It's perverse that "Saving Private Ryan" has more reality than coverage of 9/11.

But we don't want to upset the sheep, now do we...

However, I see no reason to think of people as sheep. You've automatically assigned yourself to a lifetime of weird conspiracy theories. Why? Beacause everytime someone confronts them with facts you assume that they are "sheep".

[Lady Heron]

They forgot the 5 microbiologist listed in other reports that were on the plane shot down over Ukrane on the way to Russia from Israel. I am not sure they ever released the Israelis microbiologist names.

[John Farson]

I am aware of Black Jade being Deleted but I think she still lurks around and can find replies addressed to her, maybe even sign on and temporarily re-post her work under a new name, it happened the other night.

I just spoke with her on another forum. She was nuked and cannot find replies addressed to her. She also said she has no intention of sneaking back here.

She was never given a reason or warning why she was nuked.

[Nachum]

All this sort of reminds me of the old television series "V". The aliens went about murdering scientists to prevent being discovered.

I kind of enjoyed that show.

[null and void]

The problem is that months after 9/11 no hearings have been held on the matter, no American punished for criminal negligence, no once forced to resign.

But we do have a nifty color code for threat levels...

[VOA]

Scientists' deaths are under the microscope

Is there anything to this? Maybe.

What gets me is the general longevity I've noticed among academic research scientists.
When I was in graduate school in the late 1980's and early 1990's (in biochemistry),
what suprised me was the faculty members that did "go early" on campus.

Although my personal sample size is small, I remember a art faculty member visiting
one of the biochemistry professors. The art professor was dying of lung cancer,
probably from years of smoking.

I know of a few more faculty members from the arts and humanities that "went early"
while I was there.
But the biochemistry faculty members, many who had been very active in the years of the
1940s-present and had (figuratively) taken a bath in radioactive compounds and
fairly noxious chemicals?
Not one kicked while I was there for more than five years...they just kept going like energizers.

When this many prominent microbiologists go in such a short interval of time...
maybe it's just a statistical fluke.
Or maybe a collateral effect of the stress on people following 9-11.

Still, it bears at least some investigation.

[null and void]

Why? Beacause everytime someone confronts them with facts you assume that they are "sheep".

No, I say "sheep" precisely because the general public is never exposed to "the truth" - whatever that is.

There are thousands of "conspiricies" everyone wants their way, many try to get it by underhanded means, or simply try to cover up mistakes, or stay out of jail. The thing that saves us is they are all working at cross purposes!

[VOA]

Earlier, two other Marconi employees, Victor Moore, a design engineer, and Roger Hill,
a draughtsman, had killed themselves, both seemingly as a result of work pressures.

I do think this is a professional peril of our times.
I took a course in the history of biochemistry and noticed a modestly common thread
in the lives of a number of the early biochemists of the 1700s and 1800s.
They seemed to have cycles of incredible, non-stop productivity...but seemed to be
able (or allowed) to take two-to-three month vacations to recover.

In our modern times, in corporate (and even some academic) cultures,
taking off a full week in which you are out of phone and e-mail contact
can be professional suicide.

[null and void]

She was never given a reason or warning why she was nuked.

That is very troubling. Are we turning into Lucianne.com?

[MarMema]

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.

This one still scares the bejesus out of me.

[The Great Satan]

Chart of doomed engineers

Name	Lived	Known For	Demise
Phil Katz	1963-2000	PC compression utility PKzip	Suicide by alcoholism
Yahya Ayyah	1966-1996	Palestinian bomb maker	A booby-trapped cellular phone
Frederick Cuny	1944-1995	International relief expert	Executed in Chechnya
Gary Kildall	1942-1994	Author of CP/M and founder of Digital Research	Fatal accident in a bar
Gerald Bull	1928-1990	Designer of Iraqi supergun	Assassinated in Belgium
Don Aronow	1927-1987	Designer of Cigarette and other high-speed boats	Murdered by drug-smuggler associate
Benjamin Linder	1962-1987	Hydroelectric projects in Nicaragua	Killed in Contra raid
Henry Smolinski and Hal Blake	d 1973	Winged automobiles	A suddenly wingless automobile
Mitrofan Nedelin	d 1960	Headed Soviet launches at Baikonour	Excessive devotion to schedule
Edwin Armstrong	1890-1954	Invented most of radio	Bankruptcy, suicide
Alan Turing	1912-1954	Undecidability, Enigma code-breaking, early computers	Suicide by cyanide after medical treatment for homosexuality
John Whiteside Parsons	1914-1952	Early work on rocket fuels, Satanist follower of Aleister Crowley	Killed in mysterious explosion in his house
Thomas Midgley	1889-1944	Leaded gasoline, CFCs	Paralyzed by polio, then strangled by a harness while getting out of bed
Wallace Carothers	1896-1937	Inventor of nylon	Depression, suicide
Peter Palchinsky	1875-1929	Leading Russian mining engineer	Executed by Stalin
Rudolf Diesel	1858-1913	The eponymous engine	Suicide after loss of control over technology
Thomas Andrews	1873-1912	Designer of the Titanic	Drowned after collision with iceberg
Otto Lilienthal	1848-1896	Early aircraft	A glider crash
Horace L Hunley	d 1863	Financier of the Confederate submarine, HL Hunley	Drowned during sea trials in Charleston SC
Horace Wells	1815-1848	First use of nitrous oxide as pain reliever	Disbelief, chloroform addiction, suicide
Archimedes	~290-211 BCE	Volume of the sphere, principles of buoyancy and leverage	Ignored a Roman soldier
Seymour Cray	1925-1996	Leading supercomputer designer	Killed in an SUV rollover

Source: http://world.std.com/~jlr/doom/doom_eng.htm

[tallhappy]

Yes I did notice that. Exactly what field are you expert in?

No, your answer was evasive.

Your attempt at doing an argument by authority is pathetic, and all the more so because as was evident by your post and in your own comment, you are not an expert on anything.

Still, even if you were, that means nothing -- it is argument by authority. Not a valid aproach.