A story this week caught my eye: Paris’ Pasteur Institute has disclosed that it lost thousands of tubes of samples of the deadly Sars coronavirus. I read the story with a mix of astonishment and irritation. As I have previously discussed, I represented Dr. Thomas Butler, a former Texas Tech professor, who was criminally charged after he revealed that a small number of vials containing bubonic plague samples had disappeared — possibly sanitized by accident. Butler self-reported the loss and was immediately the subject of a bizarre FBI investigation by the Bush Administration and former Attorney General John Ashcroft. He was later hit with a series of national security charges and labeled “Dr. Plague” by the media. While the jury rejected virtually all of the national security counts but a minor allegation on shipping (unrelated to the missing vials), the world’s leading expert on plague was still sent to jail. The Pasteur Institute lost 2,349 vials and the French government is correctly treating it as a non-criminal matter.
The virus in the French tubes are not immediately infectious and contain small fragments of the virus responsible for killing 774 people in 2002. More than 8000 were infected that year with most occurring in China.
What is particularly telling about the story is how close the account is to Butler’s account, including the belief that the tubes may have been sent to disinfection without a record or by mistake. This was in a high-security and large lab. Yet, the FBI dismissed Butler’s explanation that the same thing likely occurred in his small university lab.
As is too often the case, the Justice Department leaked the story to the media to guarantee that media was at the airport to show FBI agents pouring off planes. It caused a public panic and Ashcroft fueled the panic by demanding an emergency briefing with President George Bush. Ashcroft during this period was striving to keep fear alive after 9-11 (this was also around the time that he falsely claimed that the FBI had foiled a plot by Padilla to explode a nuclear weapon in a major city — a claim that the White House itself had to later retract). After the FBI clearly confirmed that there was no terroristic threat (including the ridiculous leaked allegation that Al Qaeda might have been given the vials), it was simply too embarrassing to admit that the Bush Administration had fueled a panic and exaggerated the threat as it did in the Padilla case. In the end, Butler was convicted of minor contract disputes with the university that were charged as fraud. They were completely unrelated to the original controversy, of course. The Bush Administration put huge pressure on the university over Butler and Texas Tech (which received large federal grants) threw Butler under a bus. The contractual disputes between the university and Butler were common disagreements that you find in virtually every university. Nevertheless, the Administration wanted to save face in the embarrassing case by forcing Butler to accept a plea of guilty to a single national security count and he refused. They proceeded to pile on contractual fraud claims to punish him for not declaring himself a national security menace.
Dr. Butler remains one of the most inspiring scientists in the world — helping poor families in some of the most dangerous areas of the world. Indeed, I was brought into the case by ranking scientists from around the world who were horrified by the case. (I later was joined by my friend and colleague Dan Schwartz from the Bryan Cave law firm). To this day, many of us believe that Butler should receive a pardon and an apology for this abusive case. In the meantime, Butler continues to serve mankind with research and work with impoverished nations while Ashcroft and his former aides have made millions on dubious government contracts.
somebody found some killer crack vials
I see that Jonny Sutton was not mentioned in the hall of dishonor. He was the US attorney who railroaded two BP agents, Ramos and Compean to prison for shooting and wounding an armed drug smuggler who had assaulted Compean and who successfully ran across the Rio Grande back into Mexico. He then gave the drug smuggler a border PASS which he then used to smuggle MORE drugs into the US while he was testifying against the two agents. This smuggler was arrested AGAIN, yet the trial judge refused to let this rather significant FACT about his criminal history be entered into the record during the trial while Sutton portrayed him as a poor illegal immigrant who was only trying to better his lot in life. Sutton lost the van, did nothing about asking the BP agents about the shooting before they were arrested. Rather than come to their home at a normal hour, they instead did a drug style raid with SWAT and armed Feds bursting through the door at 1 am and arresting them. Sutton continually lied about the drug smuggler, and the two agents. He was finally called to account before the Senate by Sen. Feinstein who blasted Sutton for his stupidity and misapplying the law in this case. Our Sen. Cornyn was inarticulate in his defense of the two agents.
What Darren said.
It is something we will always have to fight: Embarassed politicians going after individuals through vendetta.
It is unfortunately so easy to destroy a private citizen but it often takes a tremendous effort to hold a politician accountable for their malfeasances.
What they need to do is appoint someone to head up an agency to track this stuff down…a SARS Czar.
Read The Hot Zone. I don’t know why a student had to preread this book before entering high school as a freshman, but it sure solidified the future of a budding germaphobe. There are shocking details of top level pathogens getting out in the public in the DC area. The nastiest of nasties. Actually, on this subject, I think I’ll just stick my head back in the sand. Some amazing details of ignorance, errors, and cavalier attitudes in handling humanity-ending pathogens. Head back in sand…
Off topic, don’t know if I’ll ever get to be a grand parent. I think my son wanted to start high school in a space suit like the ones they wear in those research facilities (research people wear those–but forget to inform others so when cleaning people come in unprotected, take out the material, and drive it to wherever, and dump it… and these aren’t SARS… these things require your liquid remains to be buried, or burned in a plastic bag. Lots of these facilities all over the country now…) Oh… sorry for that… just an aside there…
I was recently reading about lab accidents that have released some amount of really nasty bugs. The was a case in the UK were small pox escaped due to a filtering problem and another through mishandling. I believe there was 1 death and 3 or 4 infections from these 2 cases. It makes me wonder how close we are to a real global catastrophe. Small pox unleashed on a mostly unvaccinated population would be devastating, particularly in a world were intercontinental travel is at most a few hours.
SARS would be ugly as would the plague. Given that there is little we can do world wide I hope scientists are looking at each of these events and improving their own procedures.
And what Dredd said.
(How the Media Conned the Public into Loving the FBI: Book Review
By Steve Weinberg on Apr 9, 2014
http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/04/09/media-conned-public-loving-fbi-book-review/ )
The first two links are working, but not the following one or two:
“bizarre FBI investigation by the Bush Administration and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.”
Jonathan,
The links before the fold don’t seem to be working.
Thanks AP. It should be fixed now.
The FBI does not have the high moral ground in these type cases.
In so many cases like this they blame the wrong person, then double down to try and save face following their incompetence.