The Mystery Of The Dead (BIO)Scientists

[Guest guest]

> Kelly 'warned of dark actors' games'

> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3080795.stm

>

>

> Dr Kelly's e-mail gave no indication he was depressed

> Iraq weapons expert Dr David Kelly reportedly warned of " many dark

> actors playing games " in an e-mail sent hours before he bled to death

> from a slashed wrist.

>

>

> ED NOTE: We can now add Dr. Kelly to " the list. " Dr Kelly was the senior

> adviser on biological weapons to the UN biological weapons inspections

> teams (Unscom) from 1994 to 1999.

>

> The Mystery Of The Dead Scientists

> Coincidence Or Conspiracy?

> http://www.rense.com/general39/death.htm

> By Ian Gurney

> 7-20-3

>

>

>

> It is a story worthy of a major conspiracy theory, the script for a

> James Bond movie, or a blueprint for a contrived episode of " The X

> Files " . Except the facts surrounding this story are just that. Facts.

> The Truth. At least twelve, and perhaps as many as twenty eminent

> scientists, leaders in their particular field of scientific research,

> dead in the last few months, and a bizarre connection between one of the

> scientists and the mystery surrounding the death by Anthrax inhalation

> of a sixty one year old female hospital worker in New York. Sounds far

> fetched? Read on.

>

> Since November last year several world-acclaimed scientific

> researchers, specialising in infectious diseases and biological agents

> such as Smallpox and Anthrax, as well as DNA sequencing, environmental

> research and microbiology have died, many in unusual circumstances.

>

> First, on November 12th, was Dr. Benito Que, a cell biologist working

> on infectious diseases like HIV, who was found comatose outside his

> laboratory at the Miami Medical School. He later died. Police say the

> attack was possibly the result of a mugging. The Miami Herald reported

> that:

>

> " The incident, whatever it may have been, occurred on Monday afternoon

> as the scientist left his job at University of Miami's School of

> Medicine. He headed for his car, a white Ford Explorer parked on

> Northwest 10th Avenue. The word among his friends is that four men armed

> with a baseball bat attacked him at his car. "

>

> On November 16th, within of week of Dr. Que's assault, Dr. Don C Wiley,

> one of the United States foremost infectious disease researchers was

> declared missing. Associated Press wrote:

>

> " His rental car was found with a full tank of petrol and the keys in

> the ignition. His disappearance looked like a suicide, but according to

> colleagues and Dr. Wiley's family, the Harvard Scientist associated with

> the Howard Hughes Medical Institute would never commit suicide.

> Associates who attended the St. Jude's Children Research Advisory Dinner

> with Dr. Wiley, just hours before he disappeared, said that he was in

> good spirits and not depressed. He was last seen at the banquet at the

> Peabody Hotel in downtown Memphis the night he vanished. Those who saw

> him last say he showed no signs of a man contemplating his own death. "

>

> Wiley left the hotel around midnight. The bridge where his car was

> found is only a five-minute drive away and in the wrong direction from

> where he was staying, leaving authorities with a four-hour, unexplained

> gap until his vehicle was found. Memphis police were exploring several

> theories involving suicide, robbery and murder.

>

> On December 21st Reuters issued the following report:

>

> " The body of a Harvard scientist missing for more than a month since

> his rental car was left parked on a bridge over the Mississippi River

> has been found downstream. Workers at a hydro-electric plant in

> Louisiana found the body of Dr. Don Wiley on Thursday, about 300 miles

> south of Memphis where the molecular biologist was last seen on Nov. 16.

> Authorities have yet to determine the cause of death, Memphis police

> said. "

>

> Dr. Wiley was an expert on how the human immune system fights off

> infections and had recently investigated such dangerous viruses as AIDS,

> Ebola, herpes and influenza.

>

> From the United States, the story moves to England. On November 23rd,

> Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, a former microbiologist for Biopreparat, the

> Soviet biological-weapons production facility was found dead. The Times

> provided an obituary for Dr. Pasechnik, and said:

>

> " The defection to Britain in 1989 of Vladimir Pasechnik revealed to the

> West for the first time the colossal scale of the Soviet Union's

> clandestine biological warfare programme. His revelations about the

> scale of the Soviet Union's production of such biological agents as

> anthrax, plague, tularaemia and smallpox provided an inside account of

> one of the best kept secrets of the Cold War. After his defection he

> worked for ten years at the UK Department of Health's Centre for Applied

> Microbiology Research before forming his own company, Regma Biotechnics,

> to work on therapies for cancer, neurological diseases, tuberculosis and

> other infectious diseases. In the last few weeks of his life he had put

> his research on anthrax at the disposal of the Government, in the light

> of the threat from bioterrorism. " Colleagues of Dr. Pasechnik say he

> died of a stroke.

>

> Back to the United States, and on December 10th, Dr. Robert M. Schwartz

> was found murdered in Leesberg, Virginia. Dr. Schwartz was a well-known

> DNA sequencing researcher. He founded the Virginia Biotechnology

> Association where he worked on DNA sequencing for 15 years. On

> Wednesday, December 12th the Washington Post reported:

>

> " A well-known biophysicist, who was one of the leading researchers on

> DNA sequencing analysis, was found slain in his rural Loudoun County

> home after co-workers became concerned when he didn't arrive at work as

> expected. Robert M. Schwartz, 57, a founding member of the Virginia

> Biotechnology Association, was found dead in the secluded fieldstone

> farmhouse southwest of Leesburg where he lived alone. Loudoun sheriff's

> officials said it appeared that Schwartz had been stabbed. " An adult and

> two teen-agers have been arrested in the case. The three are said to

> have a fascination with both swords and Satanism.

>

> And so to Victoria State, Australia, where, on December 14th. 2001 a

> skilled microbiologist was killed at the Commonwealth Scientific and

> Industrial Research Organisation's animal diseases facility in Geelong,

> Australia. This is the same organisation that, as the journal Nature

> announced in January 2000:

>

> " Australian scientists, Dr Ron Jackson and Dr Ian Ramshaw, accidentally

> created an astonishingly virulent strain of mousepox, a cousin of

> smallpox, among laboratory mice. They realised that if similar genetic

> manipulation was carried out on smallpox, an unstoppable killer could be

> unleashed. "

>

> The microbiologist who died was Set Van Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant

> who had worked at the facility for 15 years. Victoria Police said:

>

> " Set Van Nguyen, 44, appeared to have died after entering an airlock

> into a storage laboratory filled with nitrogen. His body was found when

> his wife became worried after he failed to return from work. He was

> killed after entering a low temperature storage area where biological

> samples were kept. He did not know the room was full of deadly gas which

> had leaked from a liquid nitrogen cooling system. Unable to breathe, Mr.

> Nguyen collapsed and died. "

>

> Now for the intriguing part of this story. On Friday, November 2nd, the

> Washington Post reported:

>

> " Officials are now scrambling to determine how a quiet, 61-year-old

> Vietnamese immigrant, riding the subway each day to and from her job in

> a hospital stockroom, was exposed to the deadly anthrax spores that

> killed her this week. They worry because there is no obvious connection

> to the factors common to earlier anthrax exposures and deaths: no clear

> link to the mail or to the media. "

>

> The name of this quiet 61 year old Vietnamese hospital worker was Kathy

> Nguyen.

>

> And so to the New Year, and still the scientists keep dying. On

> February 9th. the Russian daily Pravda reported that:

>

> " The head of the microbiology sub-faculty of the Russian State Medical

> University, Victor Korshunov has been killed. The body of the dead

> professor, who had head injuries, was found on Friday 8th. February, in

> the entrance of the house in Academician Bakulev Street, Moscow, where

> the 56-year-old scientist lived. " Pravda went on to reveal that: " It was

> the third death of a scientist within a few weeks. In January, the

> Russian Academy of Science lost two scientists, both well known around

> the world. Academician Ivan Glebov died as a result of a bandit attack

> in St Petersburg and corresponding Member of the Academy of Science

> Alexi Brushlinski was killed in Moscow. "

>

> Exactly a week later, on February 16th. The Times ran the following

> article:

>

> " Detectives were last night trying to unravel the circumstances in

> which a leading university research scientist was found dead at his

> blood-spattered and apparently ransacked home. The body of Ian Langford,

> 40, a senior Fellow at the University of East Anglia's Centre for Social

> and Economic Research on the Global Environment, was discovered on

> Monday night by police and ambulancemen. The body was naked from the

> waist down and partly wedged under a chair. It is understood that doors

> to the terraced house were locked. A post-mortem examination failed to

> establish how Dr Langford, who lived alone in the house in Norwich,

> died. "

>

> Back to the west coast of the United States, where, on February 28th.

> San Francisco's Mercury News reported that:

>

> " Dr. Tanya Holzmayer, a pioneering scientist, was surprised Wednesday

> night to find a Domino's Pizza deliveryman at the front door of her

> Mountain View home. Moments later, a former colleague appeared out of

> the dark, shot her dead and ran off. "

>

> Dr. Holzmayer was a Russian born genomic scientist who had co-invented

> a tool that has helped find hundreds of molecular targets to combat

> cancer and HIV. Holzmayer and her family came to the United States in

> 1989. Until December, Holzmayer had served a four year tenure as senior

> vice president of genomics for PPD Discovery, a division of PPD Inc. of

> Wilmington, North Carolina. Her killer, said Mercury News, was Chinese

> immigrant Guyang Huang, a former colleague who began working as the

> director of molecular biology and bioinformatics with PPD Discovery in

> early 2000. Mercury News continued:

>

> " Huang appeared from behind the deliveryman. He shot Holzmayer several

> times at close range in the chest and head. As Holzmayer fell in her

> doorway, Huang ran to a Ford Explorer and drove away. Less than an hour

> after the shooting, Huang called his wife, according to Foster City

> Police Capt. Craig Courtin. He told her about the shooting and that he

> was going to kill himself, then he hung up. Huang's wife called the

> emergency services and Foster City police used search dogs to comb the

> area.. They ran into a jogger who had seen Huang's body lying off the

> walkway that locals call " The Levee. " He had fired a single bullet into

> his head, according to Robert Foucrault, San Mateo County's acting

> coroner. Police said that at this stage in their investigations there

> appeared to be no motive for the murder. "

>

> Still the deaths continue. On March 25th. 2002 9News.com - part of

> K*USA TV in Denver, reported that:

>

> " Denver car dealer Kent Rickenbaugh, his wife, Caroline, and their son

> Bart were killed Sunday in a plane crash near Centennial Airport. Pilot

> Dr. Steven Mostow also died. Dr. Mostow, 63, was one of the country's

> leading infectious disease experts and was Associate Dean at the

> University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. Mostow was a crusader for

> better health, an early advocate for widespread flu vaccinations and

> more recently an expert on the threat of bioterrorism. The plane was

> headed for Centennial Airport from Gunnison Airport when Dr. Mostow

> reported engine trouble around 4:30 p.m., Federal Aviation

> Administration spokesman Jerry Snyder said. National Transportation

> Safety Board investigators said " Weather did not appear to be a factor

> in the crash " ,

>

> Back to England, and on March 27th. The Times carried an obituary for

> yet another leading microbiologist, stating that:

>

> " David Wynn-Williams, an award-winning microbiologist died when he was

> struck by a vehicle while out jogging. In 2000 he was appointed leader

> of the Antarctic Astrobiology Project, which explores the effects of

> environmental stress at the limits of life on Earth. Wynn-Williams had

> assessed the capability of microbes to adapt to environmental extremes,

> including the bombardment of ultraviolet rays and global warming. This

> drew Wynn-Williams into collaboration with the Nasa Ames Research

> Centre, the Johnson Space Centre and Lunar & Planetary Institute,

> Houston, and Montana State University. A man of boundless physical as

> well as intellectual energy, Wynn-Williams generated a constant flow of

> ideas, which entranced both his contemporaries and the young. He was

> killed in a road accident while out jogging near his Cambridge home. "

>

> So far then, twelve dead scientists, at least eight or nine of whom

> appear to have died in " unusual " circumstances. Prior to these deaths,

> on October 4th, a commercial jetliner travelling 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. According to several press reports, the plane

> is believed by many in Israel to have had as many as five passengers on

> board 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.

>

> At the time of the Black Sea crash, Israeli journalists reported that

> three Israeli microbiologists had, on November 24th, been on board a

> Swissair flight from Berlin to Zurich that crashed on its landing

> approach. Of the 33 persons on board, 24 were killed, including the head

> of the haematology department at Israel's Ichilov Hospital, and the

> directors of the Tel Aviv Public Health Department and the Hebrew

> University School of Medicine. They were the only Israelis on the

> flight. The names of those killed, as reported in a subsequent Israeli

> news story, were Avishai Berkman, Amiramp Eldor and Yaacov Matzner.

>

> In light of the deaths of these microbiologists, it is interesting to

> take a look at a similar set of circumstances that occurred fourteen

> years ago in the United Kingdom. Once again it involves the deaths of a

> number of scientists, some in " unusual " circumstances. The report below

> was taken from The Independent newspaper of August 26, 1988.

>

> " The police said it was suicide, and no doubt they were right.

> Ex-Brigadier Peter Ferry, a marketing manager at Marconi's Command and

> Control Systems centre at Frimley, Surrey, had apparently killed himself

> by inserting power main electric wires into his mouth and then turning

> on the power.

>

> The method chosen was perhaps marginally more grisly than in the case

> of several other Marconi employees. In 1986, for example, Ashad Sharif,

> a computer analyst who worked for Marconi Defence Systems in Stanmore,

> Middlesex, tied one end of a rope around his neck, another to a tree,

> and put his car into gear. Two months earlier, the body of Vimal

> Dajibhai, a software engineer responsible for checking the guidance

> systems of Tigerfish torpedos for Marconi Underwater Systems, was found

> under Clifton suspension bridge at Bristol.

>

> In March 1987, David Sands, a project manager working on secret

> satellite radar at Marconi's sister company Easams, in Camberley, drove

> up a slip road on his way to work and into a cafe at an estimated 80mph.

> A year later, Trevor Knight, a computer engineer at Marconi's space and

> defence base in Stanmore, died in his fume-filled car at his home in

> Hertfordshire. Earlier, two other Marconi employees, Victor Moore, a

> design engineer, and Roger Hill, a draughtsman, had killed themselves,

> both seemingly as a result of work pressures.

>

> There have been at least half a dozen more untoward deaths among

> defence scientists and others working in the defence field. Marconi is

> not alone, but it is well in the lead. The best efforts of investigative

> journalists have failed to establish a link either between the various

> deaths or between the deaths of the Marconi staff and the Ministry of

> Defence inquiry, now two years old, into some £3billion worth of defence

> contracts awarded to GEC-Marconi. "

> --The Independent August 26, 1988.

>

> Interestingly, Marconi was recently declared virtually bankrupt after

> it's shares fell below " junk " status on the UK stock exchange. Both the

> chairman and C.E.O. resigned and a great many employees have lost their

> jobs and pensions as the share price fell from a twelve month high of

> £4:45 to only 5 pence. Marconi, once a major player in the defence

> industry had, over the last few years, moved into the Telecoms sector

> and suffered when the downturn in technology and telecom stocks came

> along last year. A company once worth billions is now worthless, a

> situation that is somewhat similar to Enron.

>

> Whether these recent deaths are purely coincidence or part of some

> sinister plot, the reasons for which can only be guessed at, remains

> unclear. What is clear though, is that being a scientist these days can

> be a dangerous occupation.

>

> Copyright Ian Gurney. 2002.

>

>

>