A Career In Microbiology Can Be Harmful To Your Health

A retired research assistant professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia died of multiple stab wounds before firefighters found in his body in the trunk of a burning car Friday.

MU police yesterday named Im as the victim. His body was found in the trunk of his burning white, 1995 Honda inside the Maryland Avenue parking garage, MU police Capt. Brian Weimer said.

The case was under investigation by the Mid-Missouri Major Case Squad. No arrests had been made by last night.

Weimer spoke to reporters at a news conference yesterday in Jesse Hall but declined to discuss details such as whether a murder weapon was recovered or the cause of the fire.

Rao also was cautious about discussing the investigation. Regarding questions on the estimated time of death, the number of wounds, the type of weapon or the fire, she said, "We don�t want to release any of that information because it�s so crucial to what the police are doing."

Im was primarily a protein chemist. Mark McIntosh, chairman of the MU department of molecular microbiology and immunology, said he doubted the crime could have been the act of an angry student.

"He�s a 72-year-old and pretty much keeps to himself, and so I can�t imagine that it was anything more than some random act," he said.

Police were trying to find an unknown person who used a campus emergency phone to report the fire, Weimer said. Police want that person to contact them again.

Weimer also asked the public for help in identifying a man - 6 feet to 6 feet, 2 inches tall - who was seen in the garage area wearing some type of mask, possibly a drywall or painter�s mask.

"There could be a valid reason for someone like this to be in the garage," he said.

At about 6 p.m. Friday, MU Police Chief Jack Watring activated the major case squad. It�s the first homicide investigation on the campus in nearly 16 years. The request drew in 28 squad members from various law enforcement agencies, including the Columbia Police Department and the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

Im�s wife, Tesuk Im, declined comment yesterday when contacted at her Columbia home.

The parking garage serves employees of MU and University of Missouri Health Care as well as employees of and visitors to the Mid-Missouri Mental Health Center.

Weimer said investigators were still trying to determine the timeframe for the crime. Anyone who was in or near the garage from early morning to afternoon Friday has been asked to call MU police at 882-7203 or CrimeStoppers at 875-8477.

"By all means, let us sort it out," he said. "Please, give us a call and let us know what you saw."

Dr. Lee Jong Wook, who led the World Health Organization as its director general as it struggled to cope with the spread of SARS, avian flu and other public health menaces, died yesterday in Geneva, where he was to attend the organization's annual meeting. He was 61.

Spain's minister of health, Elena Salgado, announced Dr. Lee's death minutes before he was to have spoken to representatives of the agency's 192 member countries at the opening session of its weeklong meeting, known as the World Health Assembly. The organization, based in Geneva, is overseen by the United Nations.

Dr. Lee suddenly fell ill on Saturday at a luncheon sponsored by the Chinese delegation, an official who was present said. He suffered a stroke and doctors performed emergency surgery to remove a blood clot in his brain, the organization said.

Over the last 23 years, Dr. Lee had worked his way up the organization's ladder to become director general, its sixth, in July 2003, and the first South Korean to head a major international agency.

His term was to expire in 2008. Dr. Anders Nordstrom, an assistant director, will serve as interim director general.

The United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, said Dr. Lee had been "a strong voice for the right of every man, woman and child to health prevention and care, and advocated on behalf of the very poorest people."

Dr. Barry Bloom, dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, who worked with Dr. Lee on tuberculosis, said that Dr. Lee "may not have been smooth or highly articulate, but he was enormously effective in getting his goals accomplished."

A number of other public health experts, however, said yesterday that Dr. Lee's tenure had not been as successful as they had hoped.

On taking office, he championed an AIDS treatment program known as "3 by 5." It promised to make antiretroviral therapy accessible to three million people by the end of 2005, most of them in poor countries. The effort fell short of its goal by about a third.

But Dr. William H. Foege, an international expert in public health, said the failure to achieve the "3 by 5" goal was "insignificant compared to the courage of promoting a vision of what the world should be doing."

Dr. Lee later urged governments and private organizations to make anti-H.I.V. drugs universally accessible by 2010. He also encouraged health ministers to explore the role of social factors like illiteracy, poverty, and unemployment in engendering poor health, Dr. Foege said.

Dr. Lee directed programs to rid many countries of polio and had hoped to eradicate it. That goal, too, has proved elusive, largely because the disease spread from Nigeria to 23 other countries after officials in the northern province of Kano temporarily banned polio immunizations.

The World Health Organization was also saddled with low morale during Dr. Lee's term. Many of its 8,000 staff members participated in a one-day strike earlier this year, the first in the organization's 53-year history. But on Monday more than 1,000 staff members jammed a hall in Geneva to pay tribute to him, an organization spokeswoman said.

Dr. Lee had strenuously campaigned to become director general, defeating Dr. Peter Piot, the executive director of the United Nations AIDS program, on a seventh ballot by the organization's executive board. A number of health experts had complained that Dr. Lee acted more like a politician than a scientist. But he said in an interview in 2003 that "you can't make it to this position without being a politician."

Dr. Lee took over in the wake of the SARS epidemic and moved into the forefront of efforts to thwart the spread of the A(H5N1) avian influenza virus, pressing governments to develop emergency plans should national pandemics ensue.

Born in Seoul, Korea, Dr. Lee was 5 years old when he, his mother and two brothers had to march 250 miles in 60 days through a bitterly cold winter to be reunited with his father during the Korean War. "The first thing he did was take us to a bakery for cookies," Dr. Lee said in an interview in 2003. "I cried."

His father and one brother went into politics, but Dr. Lee said that his mother pushed him toward medicine as a way to earn a steady living. After receiving a medical degree from Seoul National University, he dropped out and enrolled at the University of Hawaii to study public health, out of a belief, he said, that he could do more good that way.

He earned a master's degree in public health but never finished his preventive medicine residency, choosing instead to take his first job with W.H.O. in 1983 working in the field on leprosy in Fiji.

Dennis Lee and Stanley Meyers drove together in Stanley's water powered car from California to New York using about 28 gallons of Water. Stan was subsequently conscripted to work for the Pentagon and then was murdered by poison when he hoisted a toast to success powering Army Tanks with the hydrogen in water.

8-1-08 - Bruce E. Ivins - Dead Army vaccine scientist eyed in anthrax probe (They say that he committed suicide?)

WASHINGTON - An Army scientist committed suicide before federal prosecutors could charge him with mailing anthrax-laced letters in the weeks following the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Authorities said Friday the letters may have been part of a warped plan to test his vaccine for the deadly poison.

The scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, worked at the Army's biological warfare labs at Ft. Detrick, Md., for 18 years until his death on Tuesday. He had a long history of homicidal threats, according to papers recently filed in local court by a social worker.

The developments marked an unexpected turn in an episode that rattled a nation shaken only a few weeks earlier by the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Letters containing anthrax powder turned up at congressional offices, newsrooms and elsewhere, killing five and sending numerous victims to hospitals with anthrax poisoning.

Ivins' attorney asserted the scientist's innocence and said he had been cooperating with investigators for more than a year. "We are saddened by his death, and disappointed that we will not have the opportunity to defend his good name and reputation in a court of law," said Paul F. Kemp.

For years, the only known suspect in the investigation dubbed "Amerithrax" had been Steven Hatfill, a colleague of Ivins, who has since been exonerated.

Ivins had worked for more than a decade to develop an anthrax vaccine that was effective even in cases where different strains of anthrax were mixed, which made vaccines ineffective, according to federal documents reviewed by the AP. In his research, he complained about the limitations of testing anthrax drugs on animals.

Several U.S. officials, all of whom discussed the ongoing investigation on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said prosecutors were closing in on the 62-year-old Ivins for the 2001 anthrax attacks.

Authorities had been investigating whether the anthrax was released to test new drugs. They were planning an indictment that would have sought the death penalty for the attacks, officials said.

The Justice Department released a brief statement Friday afternoon saying, "substantial progress has been made in the investigation by bringing to bear new and sophisticated scientific tools." The statement did not identify Ivins. It said investigative documents remain sealed but the department expects to release more information soon.

Prosecutors have not yet decided whether to close the investigation, officials said, meaning authorities are still not certain whether Ivins acted alone or had help. One official close to the case said that decision was expected within days. If the case is closed soon, one official said, that will indicate that Ivins was the lone suspect.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said President Bush was aware there were "about to be developments" in the case but did not elaborate.

Ivins died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital in Maryland. Tom Ivins, a brother of the scientist, told The Associated Press that his other brother, Charles, had told him that Bruce committed suicide and Tylenol might have been involved. The Los Angeles Times, which first reported that Ivins was under suspicion, said the scientist had taken a massive dose of a prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine.

Kemp said his client's death was the result of the government's "relentless pressure of accusation and innuendo"

Friends, colleagues and court documents paint a picture of a brilliant scientist with a troubled side. Maryland court documents show he recently received psychiatric treatment and he was ordered to stay away from a woman he was accused of stalking and threatening to kill.

Social worker Jean C. Duley filed handwritten court documents last week saying she was preparing to testify before a grand jury. She said the FBI was involved and that Ivins would be charged with five capital murders.

"Client has a history dating to his graduate days of homicidal threats, plans and actions towards therapists," Duley said, adding that his psychiatrist had described him as homicidal and sociopathic.

Police said they removed Ivins from his job recently because of fears he had become a danger to himself or others.

Ivins, who received three degrees including a Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati, co-authored numerous anthrax studies, including one published in July that described efforts to treat mice deliberately exposed to anthrax. The scientists complained of the limited supply of monkeys available for testing and said testing on animals is insufficient to demonstrate how humans would respond to treatment.

The Fort Detrick laboratory and its specialized scientists for years have been at the center of the FBI's investigation of the anthrax mailings. In late June, the government exonerated Hatfill, whose name has for years had been associated with the attacks. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft called him a "person of interest" in 2002.

The government recently paid Hatfill $5.82 million to settle a lawsuit contending he was falsely accused. Hatfill's lawyer, Tom Connolly, said he would not discuss the case until the FBI has time to speak with the family members of victims of the anthrax attacks.

Unusual behavior by Ivins was noted at Fort Detrick in the six months following the anthrax mailings, when he conducted unauthorized testing for anthrax spores outside containment areas at the infectious disease research unit where he worked, according to an internal report. But the focus long stayed on Hatfill.

Investigators had been watching Ivins for some time. His brother, Tom Ivins, said federal agents questioned the scientist about a year and a half ago. Neighbors said FBI agents in cars with tinted windows conducted surveillance on his home. A colleague, Henry S. Heine, said that over the past year, he and others on their team have testified before a federal grand jury in Washington that has been investigating the anthrax mailings.

In occasional letters to the local newspaper, Ivins discussed his strong religious faith. He played keyboard and helped clean up after masses at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Frederick, where a dozen parishioners gathered after morning Mass to pray for him Friday.

The Rev. Richard Murphy called Ivins "a quiet man. He was always very helpful and pleasant."

Five people died and 17 were sickened by anthrax powder in letters that were mailed to lawmakers' Capitol Hill offices, TV networks in New York, and tabloid newspaper offices in Florida. Two postal workers in a Washington mail facility, a New York hospital worker, a Florida photo editor and an elderly Connecticut woman were killed.

Associated Press writers Dave Dishneau and Chrissie Thompson from Frederick, Md. and AP researchers Susan James and Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed to this story.

3-12-09

A US-based Iranian doctor working to discover an antitoxin therapy of biological weapons has purportedly died a "suspicious death."

One of the leading bioweapon researchers and a regular keynote speaker at international conferences, Dr. Nasser Talebzadeh Ordoubadi died on Saturday in what his doctors described as a "suspicious death".

Media reports have linked Dr. Talebzadeh Ordoubadi's mysterious death to his notable accomplishments in discovering an antitoxin treatment for bioweapons.

The use of biological and chemical weapons -- which is considered illegal under The Hague convention on rules of warfare -- is feared by many experts more than the use of nuclear weapons.

Biological weapons can kill, incapacitate, or seriously impede an individual as well as entire cities or places where they are used.

While there are antibiotic and penicillin treatments for different types of bioweapons, some of them such as Botulism and Ricin still remain without any antitoxin or vaccine to cure those subjected to the poisonous weapon.

According to Tabnak, Dr. Talebzadeh's achievements in finding a cure to bioweapons had made him the target of various accusations from the government of the United States -- one of the possessors of biological weapons -- since 1992.

In 2000, the Iranian doctor was sentenced to 35 months in prison on charges of health care and mail fraud under the new HIPAA regulations (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996).

His jail sentence, which prompted him to change his name to Noah McKay, came after years of government attempts to level various accusations against him.

The charges, which were never substantiated, proven or confirmed, included "money laundering, funding Middle Eastern terrorists, and connections to the Russian mafia in Seattle".

While serving in the federal prison camp in Sheridan, Oregon, he told one of his lawyers "my life is in danger and I should change my name and request transfer to another prison."

Dr. Lee Jong Wook, 61, World Public Health Leader, Dies

Water Fuel Experimenter and Team Threatened

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