Nobel Laureates declare support for Butler

Four American Nobel Laureates have come out in support of Thomas Butler, the Texas Tech University professor whose trial for an assortment of charges involving his handling of plague samples began this week in Lubbock, Texas.In a statement released Monday night (November 3), Peter Agre, Sidney Altman, Robert Curl, and Torston Wiesel wrote that the Justice Department's determination to send Butler to jail sends a strong message to the scientific community "that those scientists most involved in bioterrorism-related research are most likely to be victims of punitive attacks at the hands of federal authorities." The group predicted that this message will intimidate "precisely the scientists we need most in this effort of high national priority," and they urged the prosecution and defense to agree to a plea bargain that does not include prison time. "I think the four of us all feel just adamantly that this is turning out to be a gross miscarriage of justice," Peter Agre, a Johns Hopkins University professor who won half of this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry, told The Scientist. "This is outrageous," he said. "It smacks of McCarthyism."Early in his career, when Agre was an intern and resident at University Hospitals in Cleveland, Thomas Butler was his mentor. Agre and his wife have donated money to help with Butler's legal expenses, which Agre claims have bankrupted the plague researcher. Agre promises to give more money when he receives the roughly $600,000 cash award that accompanies his Nobel Prize.The Nobel Laureates who signed this week's statement are all members of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Human Rights, a voluntary scientists' group that helps persecuted foreign researchers. The committee declared its support for Butler in September, only the second time in its 27-year history that it has taken up the cause of an American researcher.This week's statement was written by the four Laureates "as American citizens," not on behalf of the committee, Agre said, simply to save the time it would take to poll all members.In August, the National Academy of Sciences and its companion organization, the Institute of Medicine, both pledged to back Butler. In September, the New York Academy of Science did the same. Other science groups, such as the Federation of American Scientists, and prominent individuals, such as smallpox researcher D.A. Henderson, have also made strong public statements decrying the government's handling of the Butler case.This week's statement by the four Nobel Laureates also protested the government's "piling on of accusations which now total 69 counts" and "seem included only as an attempt to discredit Butler and assure his conviction." "They seem to be trying to destroy him," Professor Robert Curl of Rice University, who won the Chemistry Nobel Prize in 1996, told The Scientist. "This is the kind of behavior that says, 'You're going to plead to something or we're going to overwhelm you. You're going to have to defend yourself on so many fronts, you can't manage,'" Curl said. "I would plead with other scientists to get active in this case, contribute what they can to the Butler defense fund," Agre said. "I don't think the American population is going to put up with this," he predicted. "Plenty of scientists I know are not liberal democrats. Some of them are quite conservative, and they are appalled as well," he said.Some scientists have already admitted publicly that the prosecution of Butler has turned them away from bioterrorism research. Stanford University Professor Stanley Falkow, a noted plague researcher, said last month that he has since destroyed all his samples to avoid possible conflict with the government. Agre said that he knows another eminent researcher who has done the same, but withheld that scientist's name to protect the person's privacy. "If you step outside of the United States," Agre said, "the Tom Butler case is seen as some crazy American witch hunt. My European colleagues and my Canadian colleagues and friends wonder just what in the hell is going on here."

Nobel Laureates declare support for Butler

As plague researcher's trial begins, leading US scientists condemn the case itself and its chilling effect

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