more on butler case

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jonathan Krim <KrimJ () washpost com>
Date: June 1, 2005 11:05:31 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net, declan () well com
Subject: butler case






more complex than proMed suggests. here's one of our stories on it.

cheers.



                            The Washington Post

                          November 9, 2003 Sunday
                               Final Edition

 SECTION: A Section; A03

 LENGTH: 1674 words

 HEADLINE: A Career Ends and a Trial Begins Over Plague Vials;
 Texas Researcher Accused of Lying About Bacteria Samples

 BYLINE: Lee Hockstader, Washington Post Staff Writer

 DATELINE: LUBBOCK, Tex.

 BODY:


 It was Thomas C. Butler's unruffled, matter-of-fact calm that  
struck his
 bosses at Texas Tech University's medical school as out of place and a
 little weird.

 Here was Butler -- tall and snowy-haired, an eminent doctor and  
renowned
 contagious disease researcher -- reporting that 30 specimen vials  
of the
 bacteria that cause bubonic plague, the medieval "Black Death" still
 common in parts of Asia and Africa, were missing from his cramped
 laboratory. What is more, he said he believed they had been stolen.

 Thunderstruck, and spooked by the threat of bioterrorism, Butler's
 department head and the dean of the medical school said they would  
have to
 alert the authorities. But Butler, preternaturally serene, said he  
really
 did not see why that was necessary. Couldn't the university handle  
it as
 an internal matter?

 "I was flabbergasted," Donald Wesson, chairman of the medical school's
 Department of Internal Medicine, testified in court this week. "All  
kinds
 of things went through my head."

 So began a drama last Jan. 14 in the cotton-growing Texas Panhandle  
town
 of Lubbock, the drab, pancake-flat home of Texas Tech University  
and its
 medical school, the Health Sciences Center. Within hours, 60 federal
 agents arrived in Lubbock. President Bush was briefed at the White  
House.
 And Butler -- who eventually admitted to a "misjudgment" in  
asserting the
 samples had been stolen and said he had accidentally destroyed them  
-- was
 shackled in handcuffs and leg irons on his way to jail, his passport
 confiscated, his illustrious career destroyed and his reputation in  
ruins.


 Last week Butler went on trial for lying to the FBI, illegally  
importing
 and transporting plague bacteria samples, defrauding Texas Tech and  
filing
 false tax returns. According to federal prosecutors, Butler, locked  
in an
 escalating dispute with the medical school over his research grants  
and
 under orders suspending his clinical research, "lashed out" by  
inventing
 the story about stolen plague samples.

 In all, he faces 69 federal felony counts, carrying a maximum  
sentence of
 469 years in prison and $17.1 million in fines. Even if he is  
convicted on
 just two or three counts of the thick indictment, he could spend a  
decade
 behind bars.

 "An incident that could have sparked widespread panic of a  
bioterrorism
 threat in West Texas was stopped clean in its tracks," U.S.  
Attorney Jane
 J. Boyle said in a statement in April.

 And yet the incongruities of the case -- why someone of Butler's  
stature
 would lie in the first place, and why the federal government would so
 aggressively pursue a case in which no physical harm was meant or  
alleged
 -- have unsettled preeminent American scientists and biodefense
 researchers.

 Some, including a quartet of Nobel laureates, insist that whatever
 Butler's missteps, he does not deserve to be in the dock at federal  
court.
 They suspect that Butler is mainly a victim of the post-Sept. 11,  
2001,
 hysteria of a nation traumatized by terrorism and anthrax, and of
 prosecutors run amok. And they warn that whatever the outcome at  
Butler's
 trial, the effect of his prosecution will be to intimidate biowarfare
 disease researchers and impede their work at a critical moment.

 "I mean, what's the motivation -- why are we prosecuting this guy?"  
said
 Donald A. Henderson, the 75-year-old founder of the Center for  
Civilian
 Biodefense Strategies at Johns Hopkins University, and a key figure  
in the
 effort to eradicate smallpox in the 1960s and '70s. "I think the  
idea is
 to make an example of him [so] scientists will be more likely to  
follow
 the guidelines . . . I don't think that is consonant with the way our
 justice system is supposed to work."

 Butler's prosecution has shaken Lubbock, a college town of 200,000  
best
 known for its sandstorms and as rocker Buddy Holly's home town.  
Perhaps
 half the town is affiliated one way or another with Texas Tech  
University
 -- the judge in Butler's case is a graduate, and one of the  
prosecutors
 teaches there -- and many were unnerved by the plague scare last  
January.

 At the center of the storm, Butler -- barred from his lab at the  
medical
 school and facing the likelihood of dismissal by the university --  
sits in
 silence these days through hours of courtroom testimony, working  
his jaw
 muscles as federal prosecutors present the government's case. His  
wife, a
 son and a small coterie of friends sit in the benches behind him.  
At the
 prosecution table, agents from the FBI, Department of Commerce,  
Department
 of Transportation and Internal Revenue Service flank three  
assistant U.S.
 attorneys.

 He now says he does not know what happened to the samples of plague
 bacteria in his laboratory, where he was working on a new antidote  
to the
 disease. In an interview with the CBS News program "60 Minutes"  
that aired
 last month, Butler insists that FBI interrogators "tricked" him into
 saying he had "accidentally destroyed" them with the promise that  
it would
 set the matter to rest and reassure a panicky public. If he did  
destroy
 the samples, which is routine procedure in labs, he does not remember
 doing so, he says.

 "I feel I was naïve to have trusted [the FBI agents] and the  
assurances
 they gave me," Butler told "60 Minutes." "They wanted to conclude the
 investigation and, they told me, reassure the public that there was no
 danger."

 Butler, as well as the lawyers and agents involved in the trial, is  
now
 subject to a gag order imposed this fall by Judge Sam R. Cummings,
 forbidding them from discussing the case. However, under close  
monitoring
 by one of his lawyers, George Washington University law professor  
Jonathan
 Turley, Butler did speak to a reporter last week -- with the condition
 that he would not discuss the case or the allegations against him.

 He spoke generally about what drew him to plague research as a  
young Navy
 doctor in Vietnam, and the idealism, sense of adventure and  
altruism that
 he says kept him at it through years of living and traveling in the  
Third
 World and treating desperately poor people.

 "Going out to do field research, where you travel with medicines and
 supplies with you that are less available to Third World countries --
 there's a sense of service to people and a hope that your research
 findings will benefit society in general," he said.

 Butler admitted to a certain degree of what he called "egoism" and
 "stick-to-itiveness" in pursuing his research. And it is those  
qualities,
 which some of Butler's own allies interpret as his stubbornness,  
that may
 have played a part in his current troubles.

 According to the indictment and prosecutors, Butler well understood  
the
 regulations for importing and transporting plague bacteria and other
 potentially deadly pathogens in the United States. And yet he  
apparently
 disregarded the rules -- when he returned from a trip to Tanzania  
in 2002
 with samples of the plague bacteria in his luggage; when he brought
 samples to Fort Detrick, Md., home of the U.S. Army Medical Research
 Institute of Infectious Diseases, and to the Centers for Disease  
Control
 and Prevention lab in Fort Collins, Colo.; and when he shipped samples
 back to Tanzania in a FedEx package that he marked "laboratory  
materials."


 Some of Butler's methods were once common among contagious disease
 researchers, including carrying potentially hazardous materials on
 airplanes, a practice known as "VIP," or vials in pocket. But those
 methods have been forbidden since 1996. And Butler's cavalier attitude
 toward the rules, say prosecutors, characterized his work and  
eventually
 landed him in trouble.

 From 1998, the government says, documents show that drug companies for
 which Butler was conducting clinical trials at Texas Tech were  
paying both
 the university as well as Butler -- an arrangement hidden from  
university
 officials. Prosecutors have termed these "shadow contracts" a form of
 fraud that deprived the university of overhead expenses on the  
money paid
 directly to Butler.

 Butler's lawyers contend that the contracts were consultancies  
permitted
 under vaguely written university regulations; his allies note that  
in any
 event, arcane disputes between researchers and administrators are  
routine
 in the world of academia.

 Nonetheless, auditors from an internal review board at Texas Tech were
 pressing Butler for details of his research work and contracts.  
When he
 repeatedly ignored their requests, prosecutors said, the university
 notified him in November 2002 that his clinical work with patients was
 suspended. A top university official confirmed the suspension in a  
letter
 to Butler on Jan. 9.

 Four days later, on Jan. 13, Butler reported that 30 of his 180  
vials of
 plague bacteria were missing. Federal agents were summoned on Jan. 14.
 After a full night of questioning, Butler, who waived his right to a
 lawyer, signed a handwritten affidavit at about 3 a.m. on Jan. 15
 acknowledging his "misjudgment."

 Butler was "in trouble," Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Webster  
said in
 his opening argument at the trial. "He knew the wagons were  
circled . . .
 and he had a plan to lash out."

 Butler's intent, said Webster, was to "throw a monkey wrench in the
 internal affairs" of the university. But instead of "lighting a  
fire, he
 lit a bonfire," the prosecutor said.

 The trial, which is expected to last into December, has also ignited a
 controversy in the world of science, with some scientists  
dismissing the
 idea that Butler is being unfairly prosecuted.

 "If this occurred, it's simply not defensible," said Richard  
Ebright, a
 molecular biologist at Rutgers University in New Jersey. "It's not an
 issue of sloppy practice. It's an issue of criminal offense coupled  
with
 practices incompatible with science."

 But Butler's supporters include some of the United States' top  
scientists,
 and many of them are incensed.

 Prosecutors "are acting like they think they're Eliot Ness," said  
Peter
 Agre, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine who won the
 Nobel Prize in chemistry this year. "But I think scientists in this
 country are convinced they're more like Sen. Joe McCarthy."

 LOAD-DATE: November 9, 2003







----------------------------------------
Jonathan Krim
Technology Policy Writer
The Washington Post
krimj () washpost com
202.334.6758 (w)
202.841.3671 (cell)
202.496.3816 (fx)



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