The Dangers of Being A Microbiologist 304
Anonymous Coward writes "Globe and Mail is running a story for all the paranoid conspiracy theorists among us: "Eleven microbiologists mysteriously dead over the span of just five months.... 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.""
Ahh! Now let's see how the Machine responds. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, however, that it's a story on Slashdot, (along with several other Big Hot Button stories which have made Slashdot headlines over the past couple of days), we'll get to sift through all the Perfectly Logical Explanations.
Let the Paranoia and Head-in-the-Sand-'Rationality' begin!
-Fantastic Lad --The Truth is somewhere in between. .
Didn't this happen to Programmers in the UK too? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, like the one guy who took a lamp cord, bared the two ends, and taped them to his metal fillings in his molars and plugged it in.
A lot of the deaths also occured in a brief span of time, and lots of strange and horrible ways to die.
Impressive List.....but not as near complete as (Score:2, Interesting)
weapon conspiracy (Score:1, Interesting)
IIRC, these scientists are the type of people that could develop biological weapons -- or develop the cure to biological weapons.
I assume that the majority of the world is against biological weapons, and, possibly, some group of people, who think that they are "doing good", are systematically killing the people that are most likely to develop them.
At the other end of the consipracy spectrum, terrorists with biological weapons would definitely not want cures found to their biological weapons, otherwise, their weapons cease to pose a powerful threat. Also, any country that develops biological weapons would be against other countries developing a cure or creating biological weapons, themselves.
So, there's some food for thought. Maybe, this is all a very statistically unlikely coincidence, or, just maybe, someone is doing a very good job of systematically killing the worlds leading microbiologists. I've heard people today accusing Iraq of planning it.
Peter
The sober, scary truth (Score:5, Interesting)
The author is an academic and lawyer who had a hand in drafting US anti-biowarfare laws - he knows the history, the players, and the reasons related to US biowar activities, the Gulf War Syndrome, strangely convenient anthrax attacks on the US Congress, and well-founded suspicions about what's going on here. It's authoritative and frightening.
they missed a few. (Score:3, Interesting)
On Nov. 24 a Swissair flight from Berlin to Zurich crashed on its landing approach. Of the 33 persons on board, 24 were killed, including the head of the hematology department at Israel's Ichilov Hospital, as well as directors of the Tel Aviv Public Health Department and Hebrew University School of Medicine.
on Oct. 4, a commercial jetliner traveling from Israel to Novosibirsk, Siberia was shot down over the Black Sea by an "errant" Ukrainian surface-to-air missile, killing all on board. The missile was over 100 miles off-course. Despite early news stories reporting it as a charter, the flight, Air Sibir 1812, was a regularly scheduled flight.the plane is believed by many in Israel to have had as many as five passengers who were microbiologists. Both Israel and Novosibirsk are homes for cutting-edge microbiological research. Novosibirsk is known as the scientific capital of Siberia, and home to over 50 research facilities and 13 full universities for a population of only 2.5 million people.
http://fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/02_14_02_
Now, I'm not sure this is anything more sinister than Washington doesn't want a cure or cheap treatment for AIDS found... read between the lines of the 1974 NSSM200 report and match it up with the extensions of drug patents and other well-known actions contrary to Washington's hand-wringing about this epidemic.
http://www.africa2000.com/SNDX/nssm200all.html
http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0937307041
Conspiracy theory vs. fear and trust (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm a South African and was shocked to read about the support given by almost all Western Governments to the Dr.Mengele of the Apartheid Government, Dr.Wouter Basson, a.k.a. Dr.Death, in that regime's attempts to create bio weapons which would only affect black people. (Although why they had this strange idea that blacks are some other species I don't know). In any case, although probably many people don't remember it, in the mid 80's an East German microbiologist claimed that the actual origions of the HIV virus(various newspaper archives) were in fact in a USArmy bioweapons lab in either Virginia or Maryland (Ft.Derrick? I don't remember the name). He was laughed off at the time. I also, in terms of normal common sense found it somewhat implausiable. But the problem is, who do you believe, and who do you trust?
I was somewhat amazed at the many coincidents (reminiscent of a good episode of the X-Files) in the Anthrax attacks in the US last year. Why Florida? Why the isolated cases of lonely old women? Why liberal or popular politicians? How did the FBI get to the conclusion so rapidly that it was not linked to the 9/11 higjackers and that it was "probably of domestic origion"? Why has nothing ever come out of the investigation?
I don't really like conspiracy theories, as they tend to cloud real events, but who do you believe? And what do you believe? Did anyone in any so-called country ever give their politicians an explicit right to muck around with stuff as dangerous as this?
Re:"Statistically, what are the chances?" (Score:5, Interesting)
Reading the article one will observe that most of the deaths involved people between age 45-64. The death rate for this group from the disaster center [disastercenter.com] is 708 deaths per 100,000 people for all causes. Subtracting out the death rates given for medical conditions that almost certainly don't apply, that leaves us 200 deaths per 100,000.
Now the article states that there are 20,000 microbiologists working in the US. Let us suppose that 1/2 of those are over 40. And perhaps 1/2 of those are "important" enough to attract attention. That's a pool of 5,000 people.
Based on the rate of 200 / 100,000 we would expect 10 deaths annually, or about 4.2 over a five month period. Applying Poisson statistics, the probability of seeing 11 or more random events when 4.2 are expected is about 0.2%. In other words this really is a strange occurence, probably having some underlying cause and not just a statistical aberration.
Of course, not knowing much about microbiology, I might be seriously underestimating (or overestimating) how important these scientists were. If they are in the top 5% of their profession, as opposed to the top half, then the coincidence would be even more startlingly unlikely.
Re:The sober, scary truth (Score:3, Interesting)
The question is, WHO? The answer is usually "some powerful government" but in reality, how hard is it to make a series of deaths seem like suicides and strange coincidences?
Any reasonably intelligent human who's read all the detective stories, watches discovery channel, and has the time to plan it all out could make something like this happen.
So then, the question becomes "WHY?" To understand the WHY, you must understand the HOW.
HOW are these individuals REALLY connected. Sure the story gives us some facts on what each researcher was working on, but there are no concrete links.
And why no speculation in the story on the why and how? Then you must examine the what and the when:
What: Biowarfare. A hot topic these days, and
WHEN: 31 days after Sept. 11th, when we are in the midst of this anthrax attack.
Many theories may arise from these minor statements:
1. People killed were involved in the plot, and were killed to keep from talking.
2. If this is the case, who was controlling the plot, and
3. Is this linked to Sept 11th???
Then you might ask:
4. Most of these scientists were American, therefore perhaps the plot involved Americans..?
then maybe
5. The same people were behind
6. Yet, is such an agency who is capable of a Sept 11th also capable of this other plot:
Yes.
So you see, a few minor leaps of the imagination, and we are to the implcations of the matter.. it is not that hard these days to see what might really be happening, as much as we wish to not believe it.
Believe or not, is it better to make 5 educated and strongly verified guesses, or trust a cable news channel (owned by the largest media corp in the world?)
I ask you this.
Bored? Delve in deeper:
Human Underground [humanunderground.com] Continues to Process Intelligence
News links to some of the events, including plane (Score:5, Interesting)
Dr Benito Que was beaten to death on Nov 12 by 4 unknown men Miami Herald [newsbank.com]. He was a cell biologist working on infection diseases at the University of Miami's School of medicine, and was killed as he left work.
Dr Don Wiley drowned under mysterious circumstances on Nov 16.
CNN [slashdot.org].
Only a week after Dr Que, Dr Wiley disappeared after a dinner party. Criminal intent has been noted by the Memphis police. Dr Wiley was the foremost infectious disease research at Harvard.
Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik was found dead on November 23 Nytimes [nytimes.com].
Dr pasechnik was a soviet defector from the Russian biological warfare who was an expert in Anthrax.
Dr. Robert M. Schwartz was stabbed to death on Dec 10. msnbc [msnbc.com].
Dr Schwartz was an expert in DNA sequencing, 'cultists' are blamed.
Set Van Nguyen died in an airlock on Dec 14. Chemical incidents report center [chemsafety.gov]. He was in the field of animal diseases (anthrax) and died in an airlock filled with nitrogen. This is very odd since he should have been able to notice he was suffocating and open the door.
Steven Mostow died in a mysterious plane crash on March 25.Colorado 9news [9news.com]
One of the country's leading infectious disease and bioterrorism experts from the Colorado Health Sciences Center. Preliminary reports say the airplane engine failed. This is an extremely uncommon event, and does not necessarily lead to fatality. I am a pilot and can testify that the events of this death are highly suspicious.
Or the Bush Body Count (Score:2, Interesting)
Pizza delivering hit-man? Hardly. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Plot not yet complete (Score:5, Interesting)
My mom is a microbiologist and officially retired several years ago due to an "accident." What was interesting was the timing of the accident. I was interviewed at my house by one of the security staff who stated he was friends with Ewing Kauffman, the owner of MMD (he died recently and MMD is now defunct.) The guy with the nice golf shirt probed with many questions about my mom's consulting work. Shortly after that, contractors came into my mom's office to move some furniture. It would be a few hours after mom entered the office that she would be in the hospital. There are bad ways to die, but having the lungs burned with a chemical indicator to cough up green mucus is gruesome. Its not your average deathmatch in Quake III. She survived with 30% lung capacity. Someone at the company did not like her and we were forced to pay for the treatment until many years through the courts payed off.
Pick your profession carefully. I'd recommend avoid working with companies that deal with intellectual property right minefields. Know where the mony comes from, especially when it deals with genetic coding of lifeforms. If you work with spooks, you better enjoy politics. I got to see intense rivalry between her peers. And it didn't seem fair. Just because it may be a white collar profession, people get hurt.
Anamolous Results And Statists (Score:1, Interesting)
Sure, the raw chance of an anomolous event of this sort might be low.
But this would only be a decisive statistic IF you had reasonable hypothesis that predicted the event beforehand and you were scanning for these particular events.
What's really happening is conspiracy theorists are scanning all death clusters and all event really looking for anomolous events.
But in a universe of many, many statistics, anomolous are likely to occur, indeed also most certain. It could be planes exploding one week, dentists winning lotteries the next and so-forth. But strange things are certain to happen IN THE COURSE OF NORMAL EVENTS.
So really what needs to be asked "is this an event that is SO, SO anomolous that it would be stand out above **normally unusual events**. And the answer seems like no. If this event has a %0.2 chance of happening, that makes it quite within the realm if conspiracists are scanning tens of thousands of possible.
Re:Nitrogen? (Score:3, Interesting)
Mystery British Death Toll at 10 dead programmers (Score:2, Interesting)
For those interested in a book which follows a plot with a striking similarity to the Marconi incidents, try The Chain of Chance [google.com]
by Stanislaw Lem.It is a shame that noone will ever read this because I posted so late.