From the Globe & Mail, Saturday, May 4, 2002 ˆ Page A1:

Suspicious deaths

The sudden and suspicious deaths of 11 of the world’s leading
microbiologists. Who they were:

1. Nov. 12, 2001:

Benito Que was said to have been beaten in a Miami parking lot and died later.

2. Nov. 16, 2001:

Don C. Wiley went missing. Was found Dec. 20. Investigators said he got dizzy on a Memphis bridge
and fell to his death in a river.

3. Nov. 21, 2001:

Vladimir Pasechnik, former high-level Russian microbiologist who defected in
1989 to the U.K. apparently died from a stroke.

4. Dec. 10, 2001:

Robert M. Schwartz was stabbed to death in Leesberg, Va. Three Satanists
have been arrested.

5. Dec. 14, 2001:

Nguyen Van Set died in an airlock filled with nitrogen in his lab in Geelong, Australia.

6. Feb. 9, 2002:

Victor Korshunov had his head bashed in near his home in Moscow.

7. Feb. 14, 2002:

Ian Langford was found partially naked and wedged under a chair in Norwich,
England.

8. 9. Feb. 28, 2002:

San Francisco resident Tanya Holzmayer was killed by a microbiologist colleague, Guyang Huang, who shot her as she took delivery of a pizza and then apparently shot himself.

10. March 24, 2002:

David Wynn-Williams died in a road accident near his home in Cambridge,
England.

11. March 25, 2002:

Steven Mostow of the Colorado Health Sciences Centre, killed in a plane he
was flying near Denver.

Scientists’ deaths are under the microscope

By ALANNA MITCHELL, SIMON
COOPER AND CAROLYN ABRAHAM

COMPILED BY ALANNA MITCHELL

It’s a tale only the best conspiracy theorist could dream up.

    Eleven microbiologists mysteriously dead over the span of just five months.

Some of them world leaders in developing weapons-grade biological plagues.

Others the best in figuring out how to stop millions from dying because of biological weapons. Still others, experts in the theory of bioterrorism.

    Throw in a few Russian defectors, a few nervy U.S. biotech companies, a deranged assassin or two, a bit of Elvis, a couple of Satanists, a subtle hint of espionage, a big whack of imagination, and the plot is complete, if a bit reminiscent of James Bond.

    The first three died in the space of just over a week in November. Benito
Que, 52, was an expert in infectious diseases and cellular biology at the
Miami Medical School. Police originally suspected that he had been beaten on
Nov. 12 in a carjacking in the medical school’s parking lot. Strangely
enough, though, his body showed no signs of a beating. Doctors then began to
suspect a stroke.

    Just
four days after Dr. Que fell unconscious came the mysterious

disappearance of Don Wiley,
57, one of the foremost microbiologists in the

United States. Dr. Wiley,
of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Harvard

University, was an expert
on how the immune system responds to viral attacks

such as the classic doomsday
plagues of HIV, ebola and influenza.

    He had
just bought tickets to take his son to Graceland the following day.

Police found his rental
car on a bridge outside Memphis, Tenn. His body was

later found in the Mississippi
River. Forensic experts said he may have had

a dizzy spell and have fallen
off the bridge.

    Just
five days after that, the world-class microbiologist and high-profile

Russian defector Valdimir
Pasechnik, 64, fell dead. The pathologist who did

the autopsy, and who also
happened to be associated with Britain’s spy

agency, concluded he died
of a stroke.

    Dr. Pasechnik,
who defected to the United Kingdom in 1989, played a huge

role in Russian biowarfare
and helped to figure out how to modify cruise

missiles to deliver the
agents of mass biological destruction.

    The next
two deaths came four days apart in December. Robert Schwartz, 57,

was stabbed and slashed
with what police believe was a sword in his

farmhouse in Leesberg, Va.
His daughter, who identifies herself as a pagan

high priestess, and several
of her fellow pagans have been charged.

    Dr. Schwartz
was an expert in DNA sequencing and pathogenic micro-organisms,

who worked at the Center
for Innovative Technology in Herndon, Va.

    Four
days later, Nguyen Van Set, 44, died at work in Geelong, Australia, in

a laboratory accident. He
entered an airlocked storage lab and died from

exposure to nitrogen. Other
scientists at the animal diseases facility of

the Commonwealth Scientific
and Industrial Research Organization had just

come to fame for discovering
a virulent strain of mousepox, which could be

modified to affect smallpox.

    Then
in February, the Russian microbiologist Victor Korshunov, 56, an expert

in intestinal bacteria of
children around the world, was bashed over the

head near his home in Moscow.
Five days later the British microbiologist Ian

Langford, 40, was found
dead in his home near Norwich, England, naked from

the waist down and wedged
under a chair. He was an expert in environmental

risks and disease.

    Two weeks
later, two prominent microbiologists died in San Francisco. Tanya

Holzmayer, 46, a Russian
who moved to the U.S. in 1989, focused on the part

of the human molecular structure
that could be affected best by medicine.

    She was
killed by fellow microbiologist Guyang (Matthew) Huang, 38, who shot

her seven times when she
opened the door to a pizza delivery. Then he shot

himself.

    The final
two deaths came one day after the other in March. David

Wynn-Williams, 55, a respected
astrobiologist with the British Antarctic

Survey, who studied the
habits of microbes that might survive in outer

space, died in a freak road
accident near his home in Cambridge, England. He

was hit by a car while he
was jogging.

    The following
day, Steven Mostow, 63, known as Dr. Flu for his expertise in

treating influenza, and
a noted expert in bioterrorism, died when the

airplane he was piloting
crashed near Denver.

    So what
does any of it mean?

    “Statistically,
what are the chances?” wondered a prominent North American

microbiologist reached last
night at an international meeting of

infectious-disease specialists
in Chicago.

    Janet
Shoemaker, director of public and scientific affairs of the American

Society for Microbiology
in Washington, D.C., pointed out yesterday that

there are about 20,000 academic
researchers in microbiology in the U.S.

Still, not all of these
are of the elevated calibre of those recently

deceased.

    She had
a chilling, final thought. When microbiologists die in a lab,

there’s a way of taking
note of the deaths and adding them up. When they die

in freakish accidents outside
the lab, nobody keeps track.

THANKS: O. KOWARSKY!