Eleven microbiologists have mysteriously died over the span
of five months. Some of them were world leaders in
developing weapons-grade biological plagues. Others were
the best in figuring out how to stop millions from dying
because of biological weapons. Still others were experts in
bioterrorism.
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
November 12 in a carjacking in the medical school's parking
lot, although his body showed no signs of this. Doctors then
began to suspect a stroke.
Just four days after Dr. Que fell unconscious, Don Wiley, 57,
one of the foremost microbiologists in the United States,
mysteriously disappeared. 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.
Greenpeace of Germany reported that U.S. intelligence
experts had leaked them the fact that Wiley was behind the
anthrax terrorism here, but no evidence of this has ever
turned up.
He had just bought tickets to take his son to Graceland the
following day. Police found his rental car on a bridge outside
Memphis, Tennessee. 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. Suicide has also
been mentioned as a possibility.
Five days after the Wiley incident, microbiologist and high-
profile Russian defector Valdimir Pasechnik, 64, fell dead.
The pathologist who did the autopsy, and who is also
associated with Britain's spy agency, concluded he died of a
stroke. Dr. Pasechnik, who defected to the U.K. 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,
Virginia. 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, Virginia.
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 discovered a virulent strain of
mousepox, which could be modified to affect smallpox.
In February, the Russian microbiologist Victor Korshunov,
56, an expert in intestinal bacteria of children, was hit 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 for 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.
Microbiologist Janet Shoemaker, director of public and
scientific affairs of the American Society for Microbiology in
Washington, D.C., reminds us that there are about 20,000
academic researchers in microbiology in the U.S. alone. Still
she has to ask, "Statistically, what are the chances?"
To read Insight piece ?Anthrax & the Agency? by Wayne
Madsen, who was on Dreamland May 11,
click here.
See news story ?Anthrax Terrorist May Have Been
Identified?, click here.
Is there a conspiracy in the media to keep the truth from us?
Read ?Into the Buzzsaw? by Kristina Borjesson and decide
for yourself, click here.
For more information, click here.
