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Professor’s Prosecution Could Chill Research, U.S. Scientists Say
U.S. scientists have said that the case of Texas Tech University professor Thomas Butler, scheduled to begin trial Monday for mishandling plague bacteria samples and for lying to the FBI, could have a “chilling” effect on scientific research, the Los Angeles Times reported today (see GSN, Oct. 20). In January, Butler reported that 30 vials were missing and presumed stolen from his university laboratory. Butler later signed a statement, however, saying that he had actually destroyed the vials and had misled federal agents, the Times reported. U.S. scientists have said that Butler’s case could have a negative impact on research efforts, according to the Times. “This case has been chilling,” said Paul Keim, a microbial geneticist at Northern Arizona University. “Every time we do something in the laboratory now, we wonder if we are going to have to be … worrying about criminal prosecution,” he said. “Butler is probably the nation’s most eminent expert on the plague (bacterium),” said Peter Agre, the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry and a former student of Butler’s. “Are students going to want to work on tropical medicine if there’s a chance they might lose some samples, then be hauled off in the middle of the night?” he said. Some of Butler’s colleagues have said, however, that while he was dedicated to his research on dangerous diseases, he also had a tendency to overlook U.S. regulations designed to counter the threat of bioterrorism, the Times reported. “Dr. Butler, being of the ‘old school,’ clinical researchers, did not appear to be as attentive to (security) issues as we were compelled to be,” U.S. Army bacteriologist Col. W. Russell Byrne wrote in a letter to the prosecutor in Butler’s case (Charles Piller, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 28).
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