40 Microbiologists Killed: Something Fishy Going On?, page 10

I have read the list and this is my comment:

"World-class microbiologist and high-profile Russian defector Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, 64, dies of a stroke."

He's 64 what you expect.

"November 24, 2001: Three more dead microbiologists: A Swissair flight from Berlin to Zurich crashes during its landing approach; 22 are killed and nine survive. Among those killed are Dr. Yaakov Matzner, 54, dean of the Hebrew University school of medicine; Amiramp Eldor, 59, head of the haematology department at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv and a world-recognized expert in blood clotting; and Avishai Berkman, 50, director of the Tel Aviv public health department and businessman"

Hematology department is not microbiology department. A dean ain't exactly a microbiologist either. And a director/businessman? Does doesn't even come close to being a microbiologst.

"Dead microbiologist: David Wynn-Williams, 55, is hit by a car while jogging near his home in Cambridge, England."

So was it a run-and-hit or not? IF the driver stopped then it wasn't a professional hitman now was it? Those kind of details are rather important.

"June 24, 2003: Dr. Leland Rickman, a UC San Diego expert on infectious diseases and, since Sept. 11, 2001 a consultant on bioterrorism. He was 47. Rickman died while on a teaching assignment in Lesotho, a small country bordered on all sides by South Africa. He had complained of a headache, but the cause of death was not immediately known."

Not immediately known? So does that mean they found out what the cause was later? What was it?

"Astronomer and physicist, Austrian born Thomas Gold famous over the years for a variety of bold theories that flout conventional wisdom died of heart failure."
Not quite a microbiologist. And how old was he?

"67-year-old John Mullen, a nuclear research scientist with McDonnell Douglas dies from a huge dose of poisonous arsenic. Police investigating will not say how Mullen was exposed to the arsenic or where it came from. At the time of his death he was doing contract work for Boeing."

Once again not close to being a microbiologist but it is indeed a strange way to die.

"Mohammed Toki Hussein al-Talakani Iraqi nuclear scientist* was shot dead in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad"

Should I even say it?

"Quayle also supects that more than 310 Iraqi scientists are thought to have perished at the hands of Israeli secret agents in Iraq since fall of Baghdad to US troops in April 2003."

That has something to do with Iraqi scientists working on long range missiles. Terrorists would want to hire those scientists. Tbe problem is that when one secret agency is killing of scientists any other club can do so too and let the blame fall on the other. Oh and "scientists" does not mean the same as microbiologists.

The remainder however are the interesting cases such as the following two:

"November 12 2002: Dr. 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 in a carjacking in the medical school's parking lot. Strangely enough, though, his body showed no signs of a beating."

OK that does sound weird.

"July 18, 2003: David Kelly, a British biological weapons expert, was said to have slashed his own wrists while walking near his home. Kelly was the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific officer and senior adviser to the proliferation and arms control secretariat, and to the Foreign Office's non-proliferation department."

That is plain freaky.

In conclusion: the title is dead wrong. It should be more along the line "A whole lot of scientists involved in biotechnology and nuclear physics killed in unrealistic time period" under strange conditions".

But it does seem plausible that something is going on. Just don't get carried away labeling business man and astronomers as microbiologists; that is just not right.