Newspaper: Tech professor carried plague on airlines

Associated Press ^ | February 22, 2003 | Associated Press Staff

[MeekOneGOP]

I looked in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, but didn't see this article. Maybe it will update later online?

Here is the evil Dr. Butler ...

[MeekOneGOP]

fyi ...

[martin_fierro]

Yeesh.

[Sacajaweau]

bump

[Qwerty]

I bet he hates that picture.

[MeekOneGOP]

I bet he does too ...

[AppyPappy]

What an icehole.

[aruanan]

Here is the evil Dr. Butler ...

Puh-LEASE

[MeekOneGOP]

You think he's being framed? Or just don't like the pic/comment? ...

[CCWoody]

Oddly enough, we are only talking a few miles from Lubbock and where this nut grew up.

[CCWoody]

You know, it really doesn't matter if the attorneys say the transportation is safe or not. The only thing that will matter will be did he violate any federal and/or state laws.

Of course, as he has already proved he does so by lying (is that too presumptious of me since we haven't had a trial yet) I don't expect this to end up favorably for him.

[MeekOneGOP]

Yeah, this should be interesting ...

[aruanan]

You think he's being framed? Or just don't like the pic/comment? ...

No, I don't think he's being framed. It's just that given the types of carrying containers that are used, it's safer for him to escort the material than to simple send it off by itself. Besides, YP is a common disease of rabbits that people only occasionally get. That's what's behind the saying that if you can catch a (wild) rabbit using your bare hands, you shouldn't eat it. YP is being studied as a biowarfare agent but it's already out there in the natural environment the same as bubonic plague. A few people happen to get either every year.

The people criticizing him for taking it on board a plane are the same folks who take away a fingernail clipper because it could be used as a weapon but allow a pen with a metal body that could be used much more effectively as a weapon. "Imagine what could happen if the YP happened to get out!" Yeah, imagine what could happen if a passenger happened to decide to hold the point of his ballpoint against the eyeball of a female flight attendent and demand access to the cockpit. The danger doesn't lie in the object. There is a far greater likelihood of a passenger using a ballpoint to commander the plane than a microscopically small amount of YP spontaneously escaping from a sealed transport device. I'm speaking from the standpoint of someone in biological research.

[First_Salute]

But, but, but ... he's an "expert!" And federally sanctioned, too!

[WL-law]

All of the 'easy passage' of dangerous materials between academics explains how U.S.-originated anthrax got into the hands of evil people in Iraq, back in the 1970's -- because it was sent by US academics to Iraqi universities.

Seems like it's time to put some serious controls on this practice, and seems like we've found the perfect test-case to institute the changes.

[MeekOneGOP]

Thanks for clarify that. Now I understand where you're coming from. Makes sense ...

I wonder why he lied to the authorities and why they are pursuing this? Something we don't know is in the background, perhaps ...

[Lancey Howard]

12 Monkeys

[buffyt]

What a scary looking face! My son is a freshman at Texas Tech. right now. I wonder what they are hearing there? I emailed this article to him. I will post anything here, if he answers me with anything NEW>

[aruanan]

I wonder why he lied to the authorities and why they are pursuing this? Something we don't know is in the background, perhaps ...

From what I remember, he had accidentally destroyed some samples and said they were missing. In these days, "missing" is seized on as "has been stolen by terrorists bent on infecting millions of innocent U.S. citizens." Better to have just taken the lumps for having destroyed them without the proper paperwork than to have been the cause of hysteria and be labeled a quasi-terrorist.

Here's this from a Texas paper back on January 15. It explains a lot. Notice that it appears that the FBI charged him with lying because he said the samples were missing and later concluded they had been destroyed. You know, "Hey, you reported them missing but concluded later they had been destroyed. Since they weren't missing, what you said was not the truth. A lie is not the truth. You lied to us, you bad, bad man (and made us look like fools)." After the FBI scrambled 60 agents and did a full-hysteria press, they certainly don't want to look like feebs, so, yeah, they'll try to keep him looking like a bad guy as long as possible.

That Butler had access to the potentially lethal pathogen is not surprising. Butler, 61, has been responsible for groundbreaking research on the disease for 30 years, according to his colleagues.

"He is one of a handful of persons in the United States that has had extensive research experience on the plague, beginning in the early 1970s," said Dr. David Dennis, a retired scientist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who continues to advise the federal agency. "He did some of the important work on the understanding of the disease and how it causes illnesses and how best to treat it."

Butler studied the plague in Vietnam and Taiwan in 1969 and 1971 while with a U.S. Navy research unit. He wrote a book on his findings titled Plague and Other Yersinia Infections, which scientists called a landmark in the field.

But Thursday, Butler was just another inmate at the Lubbock County Jail, held without bail and charged with lying to the FBI.

_________

Butler said he first noticed the vials were missing Saturday, according to an FBI affidavit. When he had not located them by Tuesday, he notified the dean of the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center, who in turn called local, state and federal health and law enforcement agencies.

The FBI rushed to Lubbock, and a task force involving 60 officers worked through the night and into Wednesday.

The affidavit states Butler admitted to FBI agents Wednesday that he had accidentally destroyed the vials.

"Because I knew that the pathogen was destroyed and there was no threat to the public, I provided (an) inaccurate explanation . . . and did not realize it would require such an extensive investigation," Butler wrote in a statement to the FBI, according to the affidavit.

Only Butler and perhaps federal agents know for certain how the bacteria vials could have been accidentally destroyed, but other scientists said it is not hard to imagine likely scenarios.

Strains of pathogens and other bacteria are routinely destroyed when research on them is completed, Straley said. It is possible that during a routine cleaning of the deep-freeze unit where bacteria are stored, a wrong rack was thrown in with items slated for destruction, she said.

"Anytime anybody cleans out their freezer and reorganizes them, there's always a possibility you could throw out a (wrong) strain," Straley said. "I could understand how somebody could accidentally destroy strains without any kind of malicious intent to be destructive."

Straley, who knows Butler, also said it is possible that Butler didn't lie about the missing vials but honestly did not remember what happened to them until pressed about it by investigators.

"It would not be something discovered right away. It might not be discovered until the next time you went to do an experiment," Straley said.

Dennis, the adviser to the CDC, said Butler's recent research was part of a resurgence in interest in the plague in recent years. The disease remains a serious public health problem in much of the world, particularly in Madagascar as well as East Africa and parts of Asia, he said.

Butler was testing the effectiveness of new antibiotics on the disease.

"I think the work he has been doing and been proposing to do has been important," said Dennis, who lives in Fort Collins, Colo.

[MeekOneGOP]

Thanks ! bttt ...