Feb 23, 2003 3 min read

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) – The Texas Tech University researcher accused of lying to the FBI about missing vials of plague bacteria repeatedly carried live samples of the germ aboard commercial airliners, a newspaper reported. Thomas Butler’s attorney, Floyd Holder, told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal that the professor imported plague about 60 times over the past 30 years, but said his method of transporting the specimens was “absolutely safe.”

Holder said he believes federal authorities probably will file additional charges against Butler accusing him of failing to go through proper channels in importing live plague samples. Transporting such biological material requires permits and other documents.

“There may be some laws out there somewhere that somebody thinks he broke, but I don’t think he did,” Holder said. “There may have been some problem with whether he dotted every ‘i’ and crossed every ‘t.’ Certainly he had no criminal intent to smuggle anything in.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Dick Baker said he could not comment on any possible additional charges.

Butler is charged with falsely reporting as missing 30 vials of the potentially lethal plague bacteria that he actually had destroyed. News of the supposedly missing vials last month triggered a terrorism alert.

Holder said Butler transported specimens of the plague-causing organism Yersinia pestis by securing them in a plastic container in his luggage, the newspaper reported Friday. He obtained the specimens from infected people in Tanzania.

“He described it to me that it would be impossible to break (the container) with a sledge hammer,” Holder said.

Vickie Sutton, director of Tech’s Center for Biodefense, Law and Public Policy, said there could have been outbreaks of pneumonic plague if one of Butler’s vials had broken.

“The very reason that we have controls for these select agents is because there’s a public health risk,” Sutton said.

Butler was chief of the infectious diseases division of the department of internal medicine at Tech’s medical school but has been placed on paid leave. He has been involved in plague research for more than 25 years and is internationally recognized in the field.

The form of plague called bubonic plague is not contagious, but left untreated it can transform into the more dangerous pneumonic plague that can be spread from person to person.

The most infamous plague outbreak began in 1347 and killed 38 million people in Europe and Asia within five years.

About 1,000 to 3,000 people worldwide contract plague each year. The United States has 10 to 20 cases annually, and about one in every seven victims dies.

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On the Net:

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/health/plague.htm