IT IS hard not to be reminded of the tale of how the Inquisition showed Galileo the instruments of torture. If you don鈥檛 do what we say, they told him, this is what will happen to you. When those in authority feel threatened by science, they seek to control it by threatening scientists.
Maybe the US government thought it could seize control of science by throwing the book at Thomas Butler, head of infectious diseases at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. It seems to be sending out a message to scientists at large: if you don鈥檛 obey the rules designed to keep deadly germs out of the hands of terrorists, you too could face millions of dollars in fines, a ruined career and a lifetime in jail.
That is the fate confronting Butler this week. A respected authority on bubonic plague, he probably thought he was doing his civic duty when he reported that 30 vials of plague bacillus had gone missing from his lab. But instead he unleashed a nightmare that started with a police interrogation and this week brought him to a courtroom in Texas to face a plethora of charges.
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If Butler is guilty of any of these charges, then justice should be done. But there is much to suggest that justice has not been the prime motivation in bringing this case. The original charge against Butler was that he lied to the FBI about the fate of the vials. Butler denies this, claiming he changed his story at the request of the FBI (see 鈥淭he butler case鈥�). Already there is a whiff of entrapment, but that was just the start. After the bureau had made its arrest, agents started trawling through Butler鈥檚 past and piled on charges of illegally transporting plague bacillus 鈥� albeit safely 鈥� tax evasion and mishandling grant money. None of these charges seems to warrant a life sentence. So why is the US government doing this?
Butler is no terrorist, he is a scientist. But for some that may be the problem. The FBI is still smarting from its failure to catch the person who mailed anthrax around the US in the wake of 9/11. And it believes the culprit is, like Butler, an American scientist with access to deadly germs. It must dearly want to teach such people a lesson: that they should take care of their cultures, and not mess with the FBI. Then there is the fact that when Butler was arrested in January, the US government was imposing a set of strict and costly rules on scientists who work on a select group of dangerous pathogens (see 鈥淗ow the US crackdown on bioterror is backfiring鈥�). The government wants those rules to be obeyed.
It does not take a conspiracy theorist to see that someone wants to make an example of Butler. New 杏吧原创 has learned from well-placed sources that federal officials have been saying as much. And in one sense this strategy has worked. After Butler鈥檚 case, few scientists in the US can be in any doubt what to expect if they fail to follow the letter of the law when dealing with dangerous pathogens.
What effect will this have? If scientists know that the slightest slip in their paperwork can bring the FBI down on them, what are they going to do? Try to get it right and hope the government believes them? Not likely.
The chances are they will simply stop working with anthrax, plague and the other scary monsters the US government wants to control. Indeed, they already have, especially scientists in the small university labs where much innovative research goes on. This is an unfortunate loss. When it comes to combating bioterrorism and disease, a diversity of approaches is an asset. During the investigation into the anthrax mailings, the skill and knowledge to trace the origins of the white powder didn鈥檛 come from big government labs, but from two small university research groups that were interested in the evolution of anthrax.
The US will also be less able to detect an attack, should it come. Some clinical labs are already afraid to report incidents involving the 鈥渟elect agents鈥� on the government鈥檚 new list, for fear of attracting the FBI鈥檚 attention. And who in their right mind would own up if vials of a nasty pathogen went missing?
It is as if the US government has forgotten who its friends are. It wants scientists to cook up new ways of detecting bugs such as the plague bacterium, to find treatments and vaccines for them, and shout if they see anything suspicious. This requires trust and openness. But the prosecution of Thomas Butler is creating a damaging climate of fear. Whatever the jury鈥檚 verdict, the case will lose the US far more than it could possibly gain.