Scienctist found dead outside biochemical firm in Fremont

[Minstrel Boy]

Scienctist found dead outside biochemical firm in Fremont

Police say researcher may have purposefully inhaled combo of toxic substances

FREMONT -- A research scientist found dead Friday morning in front of the biochemical firm he worked for apparently died after inhaling a combination of potassium cyanide and acid, police said.

An employee arriving at Ciphergen Biosystems Inc., 6611 Dumbarton Circle, about 6:20 a.m. found the 29-year-old man, whom he worked with, lying on the sidewalk in front of the west entrance, and immediately called authorities, Sgt. Jeff Swadener said.

Early indications are that he died after inhaling fumes he created by mixing an acid with powder potassium cyanide, said Detective Bill Veteran. There were no signs of foul play, he said. Fire officials said cyanide attacks the central nervous system.

It is unknown how long the man was lying in front of the firm, but company records show he last entered the building about 11 p.m. Thursday, said Geoff LaTendresse, a Fremont Fire Department division chief.

http://www.theargusonline.com/Stories/0,1413,83~1968~2105721,00.html

About Ciphergen Biosystems:

Ciphergen picks up NIH grant to fight bioterror-related viruses
http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2003/09/15/newscolumn2.html

Ciphergen Biosystems Inc. in Fremont has a screening technology designed to isolate disease-causing agents that could be used to determine, for example, if anthrax has made a person ill. The company already licenses its ProteinChip System, which analyzes large volumes of proteins from biological samples, to biotech and pharmaceutical companies, as well as the government.
http://www.bizjournals.com/eastbay/stories/2002/07/01/focus1.html

[PaDUer]

1. How MANY does this

make now?!

[JPJones]

2. What do you mean?

How many does this make?

[PaDUer]

4. There's been a lot

of scientists found dead..

[Minstrel Boy]

5. rash of deaths of microbiologists in bioterror field since 9/11

A Career In Microbiology Can Be Harmful To Your Health
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/02_14_02_microbio.html

Complete 911 Timeline: Anthrax attacks and microbiologists
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&theme=anthrax

Scientists' deaths are under the microscope
http://globeandmail.workopolis.com/servlet/News/fasttrack/20020504/UMURDN?section=Science

Dead Scientists blog
http://www.deadscientists.blogspot.com/

[goforit]

56. Ya,"rash of deaths of microbiologists in bioterror field since 9/11" and

all have happenned on Bush's watch!!

[bobthedrummer]

7. There have been a large amount of bio-defense "researchers" dying

all over the world. I stopped counting when Dr. Wiley disappeared from that bridge in Memphis where he was visiting with his family around Thanksgiving, and then his body was found in the river some 300 miles away.

Dr. Wiley would have made a fine Surgeon General, there is a lot of agreement about that. The administration of George W. Bush aka The War President installed a former Special Forces biological warfare expert and member of an Arizona SWAT team, Mr. Carmona as SG. But, be that as it may, Tommy Thompson hired Jerome Hauer from SAIC on 9-10-2001, immediately following the 9-11-2001 plane attacks, but well before the anthrax attacks, Thompson had given Cipro to a lot of folks in DC.

Thompson also boasted about his great skills as a businessman negotiating a deal with I.G. Farben spin-off Bayer for 300 million doses of Cipro. While he was making his point, innocent US Postal workers were being infected in biowar hot zones, some died and many were harmed.

The last I heard about the anthrax investigation it had been determined that the anthrax used came from US Ames strain spores, these anthrax spores were weaponized by the US Army for the end user CIA.

Then there were sideshows like discrediting Mr. Hatfill and the draining of a pond on Hatfill's property. Jerome Hauer is worthy of a close inspection by some of us convinced of LIHOP.

Hey, Minstrel Boy-thanks for posting this!

[Minstrel Boy]

13. sure thing, bob!

Just happened to see this and thought I better bring it here, since it's a story which is unlikely to get much attention outside of its local community.

I'm not claiming this was murder. We don't know enough - they haven't even released his identity. But having this one on file may be useful for those of us following the microbiologists' story. It's all about pattern recognition.

[TruthIsAll]

14. I calculated the odds of 16 dead microbiologists in 6 months.

I do not know how many world-class microbiologists there are. So
I did a sensitivity analysis of probabilities for various population sizes.

See the analysis here:


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1005141

[Donkeyboy75]

20. There are at least tens of thousands of

microbiologists/biochemists at least. The guy who died probably wouldn't be called "world-class."

I'm in academics in a related field. I must admit an anti-tin foil hat bias, but nevertheless there is a lot of pressure and depression in these areas. I'm wondering if people are just starting to notice because of all the recent attention being paid to bioterrorism.

Also, I'm not sure why people feel that scientists are being killed. Is it to keep government work hush-hush? If so, I really think these suspicions are wrong. Both government labs and military labs have huge budgets, and really don't outsource security-sensitive work.

OK everyone, fire away at me. :)

[bobthedrummer]

26. Are you familiar with the Frank Olson case?

Olson was a bio-war researcher given LSD surreptitiously by the CIA back in the good old days of Sid Gottlieb and The Health Alteration Committee. Some things never change imo.

So whenever I hear about the real deaths of real people involved with WMD and/or intelligence I pay attention to all open sources for more information to make available to all and counteract historical revisionism and denial of criminal acts covered up by national security. Like the story of Frank Olson.

Frank Olson Legacy Project link
http://www.frankolsonproject.org/

[Donkeyboy75]

37. No, I wasn't familiar.

My point isn't that it couldn't happen. I believe the government is more than capable of murder to keep its secrets. It has done so countless times. But, the death of an industrial biochemist probably has NOTHING to do with any government plan.

Frank Olson worked for the Army. I would imagine top secret stuff. Many of the scientists (and they aren't all microbiologists, by the way...) who have died are in industry and academics. I'm in academics, and I'm a bioorganic chemist. I know how a lot of things work that maybe the lay person doesn't. I find some of these conspiracy theories to be irresponsible, which surprises me on DU because usually many of these theories are based on fact. Not so in this case.

[hang a left]

39. In post #5 there are some links that discuss the questionable

ways that these men and women died. Very strange. It is one thing to be anti-foil and another to refuse to have a look. Research it yourself and then make up your own mind.

[Donkeyboy75]

44. Right. I've looked at it, though.

Most of these deaths aren't terribly suspicious to me, although I have to admit Kelly's death is incredibly suspicious, but I don't think it would have to do with bioweapon development. He was an embarrassing figure to the Bush and Blair administrations, unlike others. I mean, one guy died of a stroke, and two died over what looks to be a lover's quarrel murder/suicide.

I have one statement and two questions, though. Not all of these figures were microbiologists (some were biochemists and chemical biologists), so the sample size of these scientists are huge, meaning these deaths may not be TERRIBLY significant.

Also, why would anyone want to kill scientists who prevent the spread of infectious diseases? There's no benefit there. Secondly, if one looks at the exact projects most of these scientists were working on, they really aren't helpful for developing bioweapons. I would seriously start worrying when scientists disappear from military labs, where the real nasty stuff goes on.

[hang a left]

47. Let's start with these

FTW -- Feb. 28, 2002 -- In the four-month period from Nov. 12 through Feb. 11, seven world-class microbiologists in different parts of the world were reported dead. Six died of "unnatural" causes, while the cause of the seventh's death is questionable. Also on Nov. 12, DynCorp, a major government contractor for data processing, military operations and intelligence work, was awarded a $322 million contract to develop, produce and store vaccines for the Department of Defense. DynCorp and Hadron, both defense contractors connected to classified research programs on communicable diseases, have also been linked to a software program known as PROMIS, which may have helped identify and target the victims.

In the six weeks prior to Nov. 12, two additional foreign microbiologists were reported dead. Some believe there were as many as five more microbiologists killed during the period, bringing the total as high as 14. These two to seven additional deaths, however, are not the focus of this story. This same period also saw the deaths of three persons involved in medical research or public health.

- On Nov. 12, Benito Que, 52, was found comatose in the street near the laboratory where he worked at the University of Miami Medical School. He died on Dec. 6.

- On Nov. 16, Don C. Wiley, 57, vanished, and his abandoned rental car was found on the Hernando de Soto Bridge outside Memphis, Tenn. His body was found on Dec. 20.

- On Nov. 23, Vladimir Pasechnik, 64, was found dead in Wiltshire, England, not far from his home.

- On Dec. 10, Robert Schwartz, 57, was found murdered in his rural home in Loudoun County, Va.

- On Dec, 11, Set Van Nguyen, 44, was found dead in the airlock entrance to a walk-in refrigerator in the laboratory where he worked in Victoria State, Australia.

- On Feb. 8, Vladimir Korshunov, 56, was found dead on a Moscow street.

- And on Feb. 11, Ian Langford, 40, was found dead in his home in Norwich, England.

[Donkeyboy75]

48. OK, let's do that..

BTW, I'm not coming into this with a predisposed point of view. I'm just trying to look at these circumstances objectively.

This is indeed a list that makes one think. But I guess we'd have to ask ourselves what entity would want these people dead? English, Russian, Australian and American scientists.

Also, Bob Schwartz's daughter is suspected of murdering him. The only reason Nguyen is mentioned is because others at his institute developed biowarfare agents. Wouldn't it make more sense to kill them? I know from experience that Principal Investigators (such as Nguyen) know very little if any experimental details of their collaborators. The fact that they worked at the same institute is overblown, IMO. Don Wiley was primarily a crystallographer, and worked primarily with antibodies and virus coats. This is hardly someone you'd go to if you wanted to craft bioterror weapons. I can think of many others that would be better candidates. I'm not familiar enough with the others to make any qualified judgements.

Look, these are suspicious details, but from experience I also know that these labs are very dangerous places. No matter how experienced you are, it just takes a bit of forgetfulness to get yourself killed. I myself have been twice hospitalized in ten years of lab work. There are a lot of scientists worldwide, and I certainly think they have a higher death rate than the average worker.

Is this phenomenon just a spike in random activity? Or is it something more? I tend to think the former, but nobody knows.

[Sufi Marmot]

49. Not microbiologists, not "world class"...

Wiley was "world class" (hundreds of publications), the others weren't. Nguyen seems to have been a lower-level lab tech. At least 6 of 7 on the list weren't microbiologists, the possible exception being Korshunov.

-SM

[hang a left]

50. I wasn't the one that said they were world class.

Sorry for the late response. I am planting flowers today.

This doesn't include a few of the latest ones as this article is a year old. One that comes to mind is the man who was killed when I white van jumped the sidewalk and ran him down in Texas somewhere.

You claimed that these deaths weren't suspicious. You must have a low threshold for inquisitiveness.





MICROBIOLOGISTS CONTINUE TO DIE

Also in February, FTW reported on the extremely suspicious deaths of as many as 14 world-class microbiologists. Since that report, three more microbiologists have died.

At about 8:45 p.m. on Feb. 27, Tanya Holzmayer answered the door of her Mountain View, Calif. home to find a Domino's Pizza deliveryman. While explaining that she had not ordered a pizza, a man jumped out of the shadows firing several point-black shots at Holzmayer, killing her instantly. The shooter ran down the street, jumped into a Ford Explorer, and sped away. Holzmayer's work was centered on using genomics to develop drugs for HIV/AIDS and cancer.

At about 10 o'clock that night, the body of Guyang "Matthew" Huang was found on a jogging path in a Foster City, Calif. park. He had been shot once in the head, and a .380 semi-automatic pistol was near his body. Quoted about Huang in the San Francisco Chronicle on Feb. 28, Mountain View police Capt. Craig Courtin said, " did make a phone call to his wife and told her he was on the bay, told her he had shot his boss and...he threatened suicide."

While the pistol found beside Huang was immediately found to have been registered to him, a month after the incident Mountain View police have not confirmed any ballistic evidence that links Huang's gun to Holzmayer's murder.

Both Holzmayer and Huang, like the other dead microbiologists FTW reported on in February, were experts at DNA sequencing. Holzmayer had been Huang's superior at PPD, a Menlo Park, Calif. biotech firm. Holzmayer fired Huang in June, eight months before the shootings. Holzmayer herself left PPD in recent months, possibly to start her own biotech firm. PPD will not comment, other than to say Holzmayer and Huang both worked there.

Quoted in the Sacramento Bee on March 2, Maurille Fournier, Huang's doctoral advisor, said Huang was fired because PPD believed he was doing work for another firm on the side, but that Huang insisted PPD knew about this other work. It is clear from several sources that Holzmayer did not initiate Huang's firing, and did not want to fire him, but was ordered to do so by senior management.

Huang should not have been worried about finding employment. His resume included the fact that he was a senior research fellow at the University of Washington's Department of Molecular Biology and a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He was also a founder of the Southern China National Human Genome Research Center.

In another bizarre incident, British microbiologist David Wynn-Williams was killed while jogging near his home in Cambridge, England. Wynn-Williams was an acknowledged expert on the microbiology of the Antarctic ecosystem, and how it could serve as a model for life on other planets. And like the others, Wynn-Williams was involved in DNA sequencing.

According to a March 27 report in England's The Telegraph, Wynn-Williams was caught between two cars that apparently collided. Neither driver was hurt, yet the impact was sufficient enough to kill Wynn-Williams.

http://fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/04_04_02_new_biowar.html

[Sufi Marmot]

53. They're (mostly) not microbiologists.

For the umpteenth time. :eyes:

You personally may not have said they were world class, but every time that "dead world-class microbiologist" list is cut, pasted, and posted by someone who doesn't know any better (or someone who doesn't care, because the truth interferes with their pet theory...), it propagates misinformation. If people insist on reposting misleading and/or utterly false information, why shouldn't I correct it?

You claimed that these deaths weren't suspicious. You must have a low threshold for inquisitiveness. Given that a) I'm a biologist, and b) I actually bothered to investigate what many of these people work on, your ad hominem attacks are baseless.

Again, none of the people listed in this post that I am replying to would I consider "world class" biologists. Doesn't mean they weren't good scientists, but none of them were of Wiley's stature.

Reading these lists of "dead microbiologists" is both funny and sad, since it's obvious that the people compiling such lists have absolutely no knowledge of either biology itself, or how biological reseach is conducted in the modern era. If they did, they wouldn't be labeling these people "world class microbiologists", and they wouldn't get excited about "DNA sequencing". Here's a hint, nearly every modern molecular biology lab uses DNA sequencing in some capacity.

So how many people whose occupation relates to the computer industry died prematurely/unexpectedly within the same period?

-SM

[hang a left]

52. Not acording to this article. They were all micro-biologists.

Would like to see your links.



Prior to these deaths, 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.

According to several press reports, including a Dec. 5 article by Barry Chamish and one on Jan. 13 by Jim Rarey (both available at www.rense.com), 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.

At the time of the Black Sea crash, Israeli journalists had been sounding the alarm that two Israeli microbiologists had been recently murdered, allegedly by terrorists. 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. They were the only Israelis on the flight. The names of those killed, as reported in a subsequent Israeli news story but not matched to their job titles, were Avishai Berkman, Amiramp Eldor and Yaacov Matzner.

Besides all being microbiologists, six of the seven scientists who died within weeks of each other died from "unnatural" causes. And four of the seven were doing virtually identical research -- research that has global, political and financial significance.

[Sufi Marmot]

54. Find me the direct link...

And if I can I'll slog through it. For all I know, maybe the biologists on the downed flight were actually microbiologists. Doesn't change the fact that most of the people on the list (particularly the Americans) aren't.

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.
Yeah, Novosibirsk (specifically Akademgorodok) is the center of Siberian science - it was specifically designed as a scientific community set deep in the Russian heartland, away from the border with Europe. I've actually been there (lovely birch and pine forests, nice beach on the Ob Sea...). It wouldn't surprise me that any flight out of Novosibirsk would carry a few scientists.

Besides all being microbiologists, six of the seven scientists who died within weeks of each other died from "unnatural" causes. And four of the seven were doing virtually identical research -- research that has global, political and financial significance. Got any substantial data for this assertion?

If you want my links - do a Pubmed search on any of the deceased biologists, which will give you a decent idea of what they worked on.

-SM

[hang a left]

55. Sorry, thought I posted it with the clip

http://fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/02_14_02_microbio.html

[Sufi Marmot]

61. Where to begin...

Oy...I'm not going to go through all this line by line, but some salient points:

Wiley, Que, Schwartz, Nguyen, Langford - not microbiologists.

I've explained previously why the fact that the work of many of the deceasd biologists involved "DNA Sequencing Studies" is nothing to get excited about. All molecular biology these days involves "DNA Sequencing Studies" in some capacity. Probably every biology institute in existance these days has their own DNA sequencer. Just like your local garage does "engine repair".

Regarding Nguyen:
Nitrogen is not a "deadly" gas, and is a part of air. An extreme over-abundance of nitrogen in one's immediate atmosphere would cause shortness of breath, lightheadedness, and fatigue -- conditions a biologist would certainly recognize. If the atmosphere of the storage facility was almost completely nitrogen, wouldn't one asphixiate rather quickly? It's not the N2, it's the lack of O2...

Additionally, a leak sufficient to fill the room with nitrogen would set off alerts, and would be so massive as to cause a complete loss of cooling, causing the temperature to rise not necessarily

which would also set off alerts these systems are routinely equipped with. - the big liquid N2 tanks I'm aware of don't have alarms or sensors. It's not clear to me that the liquid N2 was actually used to cool the refrigerated room, or was actually used for cryostorage within the cold room. Cold rooms are usually around 4 degrees Celsius, not the temperature of liquid nitrogen - imagine a big walk-in freezer. Liquid N2 is used to keep samples frozen, (think cryostorage). So, it's plausible to me that a cryostorage unit within a refrigerated cold room could have leaked.

Regarding Pasechnik: Who knows... :shrug: If any of these deaths are suspicious, his is the most so, only since he was a defector from the Soviet Union. The "DNA Sequencing" bit is meaningless, though, per above. He supposedly died of a stroke, which wouldn't surprise me if he drank and smoked like the average Russian male does.

The uncovering of a pathogen's genetic structure is the exact work Pasechnik was doing at Regma. The context of this statement is the flu virus research - this wasn't what Pasechnik was working on, was it? The genomes (genetic structures) of lots of organisms are being sequenced these days. No big thing. Misleading of Rense, et. al, to equate them.



Regarding Ian Langford:
It is hard to understand how a man can reach the highest levels of achievement in a scientific field while drinking "a big bottle of vodka" on a daily basis... The author has obviously never been to a scientific conference (a Cold Spring Harbor Meeting, for example), where one of the secondary entertainments is to watch famous and well established scientists get drunk at the bar after the sessions and make clumsy passes at comely young female grad students and post-docs. A lot of scientists drink, and some drink a lot.

Regarding HHMI:
There is another intriguing connection between three of the five American scientists that have died. Wiley, Schwartz, and Benito Que worked for medical research facilities that received grants from Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). HHMI funds a tremendous number of research programs at schools, hospitals and research facilities
HHMI funds so much research at so many institutions that it is inconceivable that most of the home institutions of the deceased American biologists DIDN'T get HHMI money. Wiley may have been an HHMI investigator (getting HHMI funding directly) - I'll double check later.

and has long been alleged to be conducting "black ops" biomedical research for intelligence organizations, including the CIA.Any evidence for this?


The DNA sequencing work by several of the microbiologists discussed earlier is aimed at developing drugs that will fight pathogens based on the pathogen's genetic profile. The work is also aimed at eventually developing drugs that will work in cooperation with a person's genetic makeup. This is the goal and research aim of the vast majority of the entire world's pharmaceutical industry.

Theoretically, a drug could be developed for one specific person. That being the case, it's obvious that one could go down the ladder, and a drug could be developed to effectively treat a much broader class of people sharing a genetic marker. The entire process can also be turned around to develop a pathogen that will affect a broad class of people sharing a genetic marker. A broad class of people sharing a genetic marker could be a group such as a race, or people with brown eyes. Drug development and making an ethno-specific pathogen are two very different things. While I would never say that an ethno-specific pathogen could never be developed, it would probably be MUCH harder than you all think. We all have the same set of genes, with only very subtle changes within given genes accounting for phenotypic variance. One amino acid in a given protein of ~500 amino acids, for example. It would be a considerable challenge to specifically target one gene variant over another. Not to mention the considerable genetic variation between members of the same "ethnic" group.

Anywhoo, so while I'm perfectly happy to concede that some of the deaths were by foul play, I still don't see any link whatsoever between the deceased biologists. And invoking nonsense like "they were involved in DNA sequencing" is just ridiculous to anyone who has ever worked in a modern biology lab. Among other reasons, I can't take Rense, et al., seriously when they're trying to build an argument on "They were all involved with DNA sequencing", or "They were all trying to determine the genetic structure of something".

And its not like the type of research that any of them were doing is simply going to stop being done because they died. Also, academic labs and biotech companies all over the world are doing anti-viral, anti-pathogen, "anti-bioterrorism" research (the phrase "bioterrorism research" is so vague as to be meaningless) - governments are throwing $$$$ at universities and private companies to develop cures and preventatives for those diseases we're all supposed to be so scared of.

-SM

[hang a left]

62. I am no scientist as you have probably guessed.

I do find it curious that these researchers who were working on cures for certain types of deadly strains of viruses. Like the scientist in England messing around with the Spanish flu. And the scientist in Australia working with mousepox. There were other things that freaked me out. I will go back and read again and come back and ask you questions.

I love my foil. But I am willing to let you debunk this.

[Sufi Marmot]

63. Couple of points...

Like the scientist in England messing around with the Spanish flu. But they're still alive, right? The article was misleading because it linked Pasechnik, the Soviet dissident who worked at Regma. Per their website, Regma works on antibacterials, rather than antivirals - at least I'm unaware that Regma/Pasechnik worked on viruses. I also note that their website hasn't been updated since 2001, before Pasechnik's death.

The following is very misleading:
Early-October saw reports that British scientists were planning to exhume the bodies of 10 London victims of the 1918 type-A flu epidemic known as the Spanish Flu. An October 7 report In The Independent, UK said that victims of the Spanish Flu had been victims of "the world's most deadly virus." British scientists, according to the story, hope to uncover the genetic makeup of the virus, making it easier to combat.

Professor John Oxford of London's Queen Mary's School of Medicine, the British government's flu adviser, acknowledges that the exhumations and subsequent studies will have to be done with extreme caution so the virus is not unleashed to cause another epidemic. The uncovering of a pathogen's genetic structure is the exact work Pasechnik was doing at Regma. Pasechnik died six weeks after the planned exhumations were announced. The need to exhume the bodies assumes no Type-A flu virus sample exists in any lab anywhere in the world.. As far as I can tell, Pasechnik's work at Regma and the virus sequencing described in these paragraphs are entirely unrelated, other than they are the "uncovering of a pathogen's genetic structure". Again, thousands of biolabs sequence pathogens and their strain variants. I find this is a typical practice for Rense - take two unrelated specifics and link them by their common generality that the layperson doesn't realize is so common/vague as to be meaningless.



Nguyen, the scientist (technician?) in Australia, wasn't, to my knowledge, working on mousepox, at least I couldn't find any evidence that he was. I don't think he worked in the lab that was doing the mousepox work, I think he just worked in the same building. (Note, by "lab" here I mean a single research group headed by a senior investigator - most institutes house multiple lab groups).

Wiley was an X-ray crystallographer who spent the majority of his career trying to understand the 3D structures of certain influenza proteins and the mammalian proteins they bind to. He also published a small handful of papers on the cyrstal structure of certain HIV and Ebola virus proteins. I doubt his lab worked with live viruses, rather I strongly suspect they just cloned, expressed and purified specific proteins for analysis.

There were other things that freaked me out. I will go back and read again and come back and ask you questions. I love my foil. But I am willing to let you debunk this. Fair enough. Ask away and I'll do my best to answer.

Cordially, -SM

On Edit: I do agree that exhuming people who died of deadly flu viruses is potentially fraught with peril and should be done with utmost caution.

[hang a left]

64. Well I found this

“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” read the Nature article on the scientists.

According to the Victoria police department, Nguyen died after entering a refrigerated storage facility. “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” reads the official report.


http://www.memphisflyer.com/MFSearch/full_results.asp?xt_from=1&aID=2521

[Sufi Marmot]

65. You know what, I don't even think they worked in the same PROVINCE

I'm embarrassed I didn't see this before.

On December 14th, two days after Que’s death, Dr. Set Van Nguyen was found dead in Geelong, Australia. Nguyen had worked as a scientist in the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization’s animal-diseases facility for 15 years. Earlier last year two scientists at that facility were written up in the esteemed science journal Nature for their work in genetic manipulation and DNA sequencing. Specifically, the two had created a virulent form of mousepox.

“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” read the Nature article on the scientists.

According to the Victoria police department, Nguyen died after entering a refrigerated storage facility. “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” reads the official report.

I believe that this is the paper they are talking about. Note the address: CISRO - Sustainable Ecosystems, CANBERRA, Australia. CISRO-Sustainable Ecosystems homepage
Pest Animal Control CRC link I note they have a mouse control program.



This is the institute in Geelong where Nguyen worked - the Australian Animal Health Laboratory.

More evidence that Set Van Nuyen worked at AAHL

Geelong is Southwest of Melbourne, at least 300 MILES from Canberra.

CISRO appears to be like the NIH - lots of different research intitutions in different places. It seems that Nguyen worked in a completely different institution, in a differnt city.


-SM

Edited for further clarification: There are two separate Australian institutions dealing with animal health in question here, the AAHL, in Geelong, where Nguyen died, and the Pest Animal Control CRC, in Canberra. More recent publications from Ian Ramshaw suggest that he is now working at the John Curtin School of Medical Research in Canberra. Here's a link to his research page.

[hang a left]

66. I am still looking around but I found this and it seems related.

snip

"We have demonstrated, in the laboratory, that it is technically possible to use a virus to deliver an infertility agent, which will keep mice infertile long enough, we believe, to prevent plagues developing," Dr Hinds said.

snip

"We are also aware that our work will stimulate national and international scientific debate about the issue of releasing modified viruses into the environment - even if they are specific to the pest animal and are otherwise quite harmless."

Research by the Vertebrate Biocontrol CRC and CSIRO is targeted at reducing the impact of introduced mammal pests on the Australian environment and agriculture. However, with up to one quarter of the world's grain supply vanishing down the throats of various pests - including rats and mice - every year, it could also in the long term become a technology vital to food security for a human population which is forecast to rise by 5.5 million to 10.5 billion by 2050.

The Vertebrate Biocontrol CRC, established and supported under the Australian Government's Cooperative Research Centres Program, is a collaboration involving Agriculture Western Australia, the Australian National University, CSIRO Division of Wildlife and Ecology, and the Western Australian Department of Conservation and Land Management.

http://www.csiro.au/communication/mediarel/mr1997/mr97080.htm

[hang a left]

68. As it seems, they all worked together

CSIRO has made changes to laboratory equipment and staff procedures following an internal inquiry into the death of a staff member at CSIRO's Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) in Geelong last December.

Mr Set Van Nguyen was a long-standing member of the laboratory's team. It is believed that his death was due to a lack of oxygen in a room that held low temperature storage units using liquid nitrogen.

Acting CSIRO Chief Executive Dr Ron Sandland described the incident as "a tragedy for Mr Nguyen's family, colleagues, and the Organisation."

"Workplace deaths should never happen, and we are deeply sorry this incident occurred. We believe CSIRO has an obligation to the family and colleagues of Set Van Nguyen to learn from this tragedy such that a similar event never happens again. The recommendations of the inquiry are being taken extremely seriously," Dr Sandland says.



http://www.csiro.au/index.asp?type=mediaRelease&id=AAHLReport

[Sufi Marmot]

73. My point is...

The whole point of my post #65 was that the institute Nguyen worked in is an entirely different institute than the one the mousepox research was being done in - two different cities (Geelong and Canberra) over 300 miles apart. So if conspiracy theorists are positing that Nguyen was killed because of some top-secret research at the mousepox institute, that theory is now debunked since he didn't work there to begin with. Again, Rense, et al., didn't even bother to check whether the two intstitutions were the same, but simply wrote in a manner that implied they were.

(I didn't check at first either - shame on me...)

The mousepox work at CISRO-Sustainable Ecosystems certainly isn't secret, or a conspiracy, since they're publishing it in peer-reviewed journals.



-SM

[hang a left]

74. I would like to know what Nguyen was working on.

They were all obviously doing research with animals. Also the releasing of viruses into the environment that can cause infertility is a little nerve wracking.

Just because they are doing research and publishing it in journals doesn't mean that their findings couldn't have sinister applications.

[Sufi Marmot]

72. They're working on trying to make mice infertile...

Australia has a really bad rodent problem, and some research groups at CISRO are working to engineer viruses that will make them sterile. One can argue whether this is a wise approach or not, but it's not a conspiracy.

-SM

[hang a left]

69. A little something more on Pasechnik and Regma Bio

Regma Bio Technologies Limited is a new drug development company working to provide powerful alternatives to antibiotics. The company was founded by Caisey Harlingten and Dr Vladimir Pasechnik. Caisey Harlingten is an experienced and successful investor in intellectual property who has financed several science based start-ups that commercialise core technologies. Dr Vladimir Pasechnik is a research scientist with extensive experience in drug design and development. He spent over 10 years working at the Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research at the UK Department of Health in Salisbury. The company’s core technologies are focused on developing novel agents to combat microbial pathogens that can be delivered to the site of infection and treat diseased cells. With the growing decline in the efficiency of antibiotics new effective treatment are urgently needed. Regma considers that its technologies have the potential to provide powerful alternatives to antibiotics for the treatment of a variety of infections.


snip

21st August 2002 – Agreement with The Naval Medical Research Center (NMRC) of the US Navy

Regma Bio announces the signing of a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with the Naval Medical Research Center (NMRC), a division of the U.S. Navy, in Silver Spring, Maryland. The intention of the agreement is to exploit the potential biological assets and capabilities of Regma Bio Technologies, Ltd. with respect to the diagnostic and therapeutic treatment of Anthrax and to jointly discover and develop capabilities that are either novel or build on existing capabilities of both parties.

The NMRC is a division of the Department of the Navy, United States of America, located in Silver Spring, MD. The mission of NMRC is to conduct research, development, tests and evaluations, and disease surveillance, in order to enhance the health, safety, performance and deployment medical readiness of Navy and Marine Corps.

snip

http://212.67.202.140/~biotech/News/London/PhageGen%20-%20regma_bio.htm

[hang a left]

70. And here is a real trippy site I found.

It appears that 1918 flu was an avion flu, very similiar in structure. Again I am not a scientist, but it seems that dna sequencing is a necessary research in developing diseases and vaccines.




snip

OOPS! : Vaccine helps to mutate Bird flu?
11 February 04

..."In 2003, scientists who developed an improved flu vaccine for poultry, including Robert Webster of St Jude's, concluded that such vaccination "may be a serious problem for human pandemic preparedness" (Virology, vol 314, p 580). Such vaccines, they wrote, might mask disease signs while allowing the birds to continue to shed virus. In such a case, "persistence of virus infection in the presence of a flock immunity may contribute to increased virus evolution".

Genetic analysis probes bird flu's history - New scientist


So vaccines are developed and then the flu mutates into a new more virulent form...

ad infinitum?

are scientists who know the consequenses of
introducing vaccines to strong strains...
really making politically useful bio weapons ?

snip

http://www.wardrobe.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/killkontrol/4.html


Flu vaccine to change next year
The World Health Organization recommended changing two of the three strains of virus to be used in next season's influenza vaccine in the Northern Hemisphere. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to adopt the changes on Thursday, when a two-day meeting on the issue concludes, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

[bobthedrummer]

71. Let's introduce the mercenaries, like Dyn Corp which completed Phase

I Clinical Trials for both anthrax and smallpox vaccines.

Dyn Corp was awarded the Iraq contract to "train" Iraqi police.

Dyn Corp employees had a similar contract in Bosnia-some of them joined forces with ethnic gangsters and were running dope, guns, and kids used for sexual slaves.

Dyn Corp had the clout to get Mary Robinson, who was relentless in her pursuit of these criminals in Dyn Corp, removed from her position as head of UNHRC.

Like many of the mercenaries employed by the administration of George W. Bush aka The War President, Dyn Corp is a big political contributor.

Campaign Contributions of Post-War Contractors (MERCENARIES)
http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/resources.aspx?act=contrib

:grr::nuke:

[nolabels]

46. That died under mysterious cicumstances you might want to add

The spook comunity seems to be having a war with each other directly under our noses. People that think strange things are not going on must need a two-by-four wacked over their head or something

[bobthedrummer]

15. Don't forget that American Technology Corp. of San Diego has those

patented silent sound systems that actually do produce voices inside of heads, among other things. Voice-to-skull communication has been doable since at least 1974.
http://www.raven1.net/atc-ag98.htm
Other folks have US Patents on this kind of voice-to-skull tech
http://www.raven1.net/5159703.htm

Btw, American Technology Corp. of San Diego also got the DoD contract for those sonic weapons recently deployed in Iraq, they are based on American Technology Corp's HSS system.
http://www.raven1.net/hssweapon.htm

American Technology Corp. of San Diego executives have engaged in inside trades
http://biz.yahoo.com/t/14/1529.html

This is provided just in case they try the old "well, this person was disturbed-and claimed to have heard voices telling him to do something blah blah blah", sheesh...those daze are over. Voice-to-skull communications has long been a reality.

[Minstrel Boy]

16. Speaking of which, have you read

Alex Constantine's "Psychic Dictatorship in the USA" and "Virtual Government"? Lots of important material there. And a thing I like about Constantine is he brings a sense of history which lends credence to his "paranoia", by bringing it all back to Project Paperclip.

[bobthedrummer]

21. My father-in-law was in OSS, he met von Braun, or so he claims.

I believe him, I'm aware of how real Nazis were "recruited" and given identities and jobs as Americans working in national security, that was the original "intelligence failure" imo, allowing Nazis to take a large part in the battle against godless communism hiding behind the broadest of brushes, national security.

It's also remarkable that these Nazis found a political home here in the RW of the Republican Party.
http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/ratlines.htm

One thing about Nazis, they had a lot of very skilled folks coming up with all kinds of weapons and "research" that were allowed to continue along those lines in the United States of America.:grr:

At least President Clinton made an effort to do something about this hidden history of national security criminals protecting Nazis.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/hr071498/holtzman.html

http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/hr071498/maloney.html

http://tis.eh.doe.gov/ohre/index.html

[jpgray]

19. This is off topic and in bad taste, but if I were named Dr. Wiley

My Megaman jokes and references to my construction of silly evil robots would force my colleagues to kill me several times over. :D

[Zhade]

24. HAH! My roommate is the world's #1 MM fan (or so she boasts).

NT!

[Zhade]

23. Man, SAIC gets around!

Know where else you've heard of SAIC recently?

Here's a hint: electronic voting machines.

[Sufi Marmot]

28. Don't you need an M.D. to become Surgeon General?

Dr. Wiley would have made a fine Surgeon General, there is a lot of agreement about that.

Wiley didn't practice medicine, and as far as I know, was a Ph.D. not an M.D. From his obit:

Born October 21, 1944 in Akron, OH, Wiley grew up in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Wiley received his undergraduate degree in physics from Tufts University in 1966. He completed his doctoral degree in biophysics in 1971, at Harvard University, under the direction of Harvard professor William N. Lipscomb, the Nobel Prize-winning chemist. Named an assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in 1971, Wiley became an associate professor in 1975, and then professor of biochemistry in 1979.

-SM

[frylock]

9. at least 14 now..

15 if you count this guy.

[doni_georgia]

59. 15 or 16 - how many studying biological weapons?

[JPJones]

3. I think it was probaly cyanogen bromide

not potassium cyanide. Makes more sense considering the research that they do.

[sweetladybug]

6. There has been several scientists which I died from accidents

since the Anthax was sent to Democrats right after 9/11/04. How many does this make? I've lost count.
ELECT KERRY 2004!!!!

[Minstrel Boy]

8. 16+. I've seen up to 30.

Some related threads:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1005141

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=594709

[PfcHammer]

10. hmmm. accidents you say. sounds like a round up.

[frylock]

11. you know.. i'm sure it's all just a strange coincidence..

best to just take your Soma, watch TV, and go to bed.

[bobthedrummer]

12. Anthrax attacks links

Tommy Thompson cited as being unhelpful
http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2001/printer_1062.shtml

Anthrax updates
http://democrats.com/preview.cfm?term=Anthrax

[Donkeyboy75]

18. But that doesn't release cyanide gas upon contact

with acid, right? We do biochem work and have a ton of potassium cyanide around the lab.

[lostnfound]

17. Seems a little young to be a threat to anyone.

So I'm not as suspicious about this as I am about the fellow that was run over by a white van in Houston a few months ago. ..or the pizza delivery case, et al.

[hang a left]

40. Guy is found dead on the sidewalk in front of the building.

That is a little suspicious to me.

[Norquist Nemesis]

22. Here's a good dead scientists info link

I thought the same thing (another one) as soon as I saw the article.

Here's some good info on the dead scientists so far.

http://stevequayle.com/index1.html

[Rex]

25. How do they know he willingly inhaled these gases?

I always adjust my tinfoil hat when the person murdered...er, suicided is involved in any field having to do with anthrax. :tinfoilhat:

[bobthedrummer]

29. Some of the many sub-projects of US mind control "research" dealt

with ways to get human beings to do things contrary to Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs theory imo.

It's time to declassify a lot of things besides a PDB.

It starts with discussing these things rather than dimissing them as tin foil.

There's a lot of work to be done in exposing why we haven't been protected by our national security apparatus, imho.

This young man's death fuels more speculation indeed, but that speculation is reality based on open source information about the hidden history of national security, now a concern of all American citizens because of the intelligence failure of the administration of George W. Bush aka The War President.

[Rex]

30. Like the guy who just 'happened' to fall off the roof of the State Dept.

a few months ago. Maybe he thought he was going to the water cooler for some nice, cool, refreshing water.

The only reason I leave this stuff in the realm of tinfoil (my own codeword for critical-thinking required) is because the average American would immediately dismiss any debate with the term 'mind control' in it.

They're just not ready yet.

[bobthedrummer]

33. Was that the person that was barefoot or missing clothes?

It is time to talk about mind control without ridicule, I define it as the overt and covert manipulation of human perceptions for political/economic agendas.

The history of US mind control research began as a proposal put forth by Richard McGarrah Helms and approved by Allen Dulles on 4-15-53.
This proposal was alledgedly in response to the fear that communists had developed some new way of getting UN soldiers taken as POW's to renounce the war, capitalism, the West and even defect in some cases.

It was rather speedily discovered that there was nothing new from the communist techniques but there had been some remarkable results in the US especially in the use of drugs, hypnosis and sensory deprivation.

Where do you think these researchers found their experimental subjects for this? Who were these researchers?

Richard McGarrah Helms was the driving force behind US mind control research known at one time as MKULTRA. The last days Richard McGarrah Helms spent as Director of the CIA were devoted to the destruction of MKULTRA and other documentation (such as illegal domestic surveillance and political black ops imo).

Richard McGarrah Helms missed a few MKULTRA operational files and an investigative journalist won a FOIA request for access in a federal court in August 2002
http://www.rcfp.org/news/2002/0819kellyv.html

A reputable human rights activist, Cheryl Welsh, filed a FOIA request with the NSA in 1995 referencing mind control-here is the NSA response to her request


The language of HR2977/The Space Preservation Act of 2001 referenced mind control, but the portion of the "exotic weapons" text was removed from the revision, HR3616/The Space Preservation Act of 2002
http://www.raven1.net/govptron.htm

It's time to discuss this subject without ridicule. Mind control is a reality, and the history of some of it is a criminal enterprise imo.

[Rex]

35. Very interesting links - thanks

I agree that it should be a topic that can be talked about openly. FWIW I'm still not convinced that TV 'programming' isn't a form of low-yield mind control. Wait...we call that consumerism.
:evilgrin:

EDIT - yeah, it looks like Google purged the story. It was about an employee who went to the top of the building, barefoot, and jumped off the roof. Haven't heard a peep about it since.

[Minstrel Boy]

36. John Kokal was his name.

State Department official, involved in the analysis of intelligence about Iraq prior to and during the war against Saddam Hussein.

I haven't seen any update on his death for months, but there are a bunch of old stories (in the alternative media, at least) still available if you google his name.

Like this, from Wayne Madsen:

State Department officials report that a "chill" has set in at the State Department following Kokal's defenestration. A number of employees are afraid to talk about the suspicious death. It also unusual that The Northern Virginia Journal, a local Arlington newspaper, has not published an obituary notice on Kokal.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/112003_kokal.html

[goclark]

27. Wasn't there a biochemist found

somewhere near Washington D.C. about 1 -2 years ago.
I recall hearing about it but then it dropped off the media screen.

[Judi Lynn]

31. If a person, overwhelmed with his sad lot as a scientist, wanted to kill

himself, wouldn't it be less painful to use a gun, or some other method?

Geez. Even the scientist's "leap" from a bridge seems preferable to this one.

[greenleaf]

38. It seems that scientists

find inovative ways of doing themselves in.

Some years ago there was a spate of suicides in the Marconi firm's division that was doing research for the Ministry of Defence in the UK.

One of the suicides, tied one end of a twenty meter length of rope to a tree, put his head in the noose on the other end, got in his car and drove off.

[Minstrel Boy]

42. Did 22 SDI Researchers really ALL Commit Suicide?

In the '80s, 22 British scientists involved in "Star Wars" research supposedly committed suicide. What's up with that?

Well, some speculate that SDI funding has other purposes than SDI. Alex Constantine makes a case for it being a cover for EM-pulse mind control experimentation. Which could explain some of the bizarre deaths of the UK scientists.

For instance:


Fifty-year-old Alistair Beckham was a successful British aerospace- projects engineer. His specialty was designing computer software for sophisticated naval defense systems. Like hundreds of other British scientists, he was working on a pilot program for America's Strategic Defense Initiative--better known as Star Wars. And like at least 21 of his colleagues, he died a bizarre, violent death.

It was a lazy, sunny Sunday afternoon in August 1988. After driving his wife to work, Beckham walked through his garden to a musty backyard toolshed and sat down on a box next to the door. He wrapped bare wires around his chest, attached the to an electrical outlet and put a handkerchief in his mouth. Then he pulled the switch.

With his death, Beckham's name was added to a growing list of British scientists who've died or disappeared under mysterious circumstances since 1982. Each was a skilled expert in computers, and each was working on a highly classified project for the American Star Wars program. None had any apparent motive for killing himself.

http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/sdi-deaths.html

Some examples of their deaths:

DEATH LEAP--Jonathan Walsh, 29, digital-communications expert assigned to British Telecom's secret Martlesham Health research facility (and to GEC, Marconi's parent firm). In November 1985 Walsh allegedly fell from his hotel room while working on a British Telecom project in Abidjan, Ivory Coast (Africa). He had expressed a fear for his life. Verdict: Still in question.

DECAPITATION--Ashaad Sharif, 26, computer analyst, Marconi Defense Systems. In October 1986, in Bristol, Sharif allegedly tied one end of a rope around a tree and the other end around his neck, then drove off in his car at high speed. Verdict: Suicide.

SUFFOCATION--Richard Pugh, computer consultant for the Ministry of Defense. In January 1987 Pugh was found dead, wrapped head-to- toe in rope that was tied four times around his neck. The coroner listed his death as an accident due to a sexual experiment gone awry.
http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/sdi-deaths.html

Thanks for reminding me of that story, greenleaf. And welcome to DU.

[Judi Lynn]

43. Thanks, greeleaf, for the revelation of UK similarities

Horrendous. I doubt many Americans have ever heard about this. How could people not admit a pattern exists in light of the appalling numbers and circumstances?

Welcome to DU, too! :hi: :hi: :hi:

Minstrel Boy, thanks for the info.

[ngGale]

32. Yet another one bites the dust...

where will all this end? Poor guy, think he didn't do it to himself. He would have gone home first.

[Judi Lynn]

34. The details at the end of the story are strange, don't you think?

Emergency crews evacuated the business Friday morning after employees told them a 25-gram vial or bottle of powder potassium cyanide was missing.
(snip)

Although authorities aren't positive of the man's cause of death, they said a toxicology report done through the Alameda County Coroner's Bureau should tell them if it was found in his system.
(snip)

For more than four hours, authorities remained at the scene searching for the container of potassium cyanide.

Two hazardous materials crew members wearing bright yellow-green suits looked on the property, through a black Volkswagen Bug near the body and nearby Dumpsters. They found the vial in a Dumpster on the other side of the parking lot, Veteran said.
(snip)

[Nlighten1]

41. Indeed...

this casts some doubt on the official story doesn't it...

[Thor_MN]

45. Wow, that's some inventory control they have.

Maybe things have changed since 1996... At the lab where I used to work, if a 500 gram bottle of potassium cyanide was "missing", the response would have been who the hell used up the last of the cyanide and didn't order more?

[IMayBeWrongBut]

60. Yeah, what a jerk

If he was going to kill himself with the last bottle of potassium cyanide at least he could have ordered more before he did it, and saved his co-workers the trouble.<sarcasm>

I guess the question I hope the police are asking is "How does a dead guy walk across a parking lot to drop the vial, which he just used to kill himself, in a dumpster.

[goforit]

57. Yes...very strange indeed.

[RainDog]

51. Didn't the PNAC-ers say they also want to develop

"genetic weapons" ?

not that it has anything to do with these people, but I remember when I read that portion of their manifesto and thought they had truly revealed themselves as Nazis at that point.

[goforit]

58. This is right up Rummy's alley.

Genetic weapons.

Pray tell,....Where the hell are the Christian right now?

[bobthedrummer]

67. The neo-conservative dominated military think tanks hated President

Clinton and these traitors delivered papers on the efficacy of coup.
RPMA/Revolution in Political and Military Affairs
http://www.guerrillacampaign.com/coup.htm

But they've failed.