The ordeal of Thomas Butler, MD, sends chills through the scientific community

September 2005

Since the fall of 2001, the United States has been sensitized to events that could be the work of terrorists using biological weapons. Thus, media reports of the arrest, trial and conviction of Thomas Butler, MD, have attracted much attention and concern, in light of Butler’s position as a professor of medicine in infectious diseases at Texas Tech University in Lubbock and an internationally recognized authority on Yersinia pestis — the causative agent of plague.

A curriculum vitae of more than 170 contributions, not only dealing with plague but on diarrheal diseases in the developing world, typhoid fever and relapsing fever, supported Butler’s position in academic infectious diseases.

Until January 2004, he held the position of chief of infectious diseases at Texas Tech. During that month, Butler was forced to resign as head of the specialty section. A year before, he was unable to locate 30 vials of plague bacilli that had been stored in his laboratory freezers and reported this to the safety officer at his medical school, who in turn notified the FBI. The FBI questioned Butler without legal counsel because Butler had waived his right to it, believing that he had nothing to hide. Nonetheless, after prolonged interrogation and given assurances that no legal action would be taken, he signed a statement conceding that the vials containing the plague organism may have been autoclaved. After this admission, he was handcuffed, jailed and accused of lying to the FBI.

Later, the FBI placed him under house arrest with surveillance after he posted bail of $250,000. The FBI barred him from contact with his colleagues, his computer and his e-mail for months, despite the fact that he lived in the Lubbock community for 16 years with his wife and four children.

The FBI offered Butler a plea bargain: in exchange for six months in jail and an admission of guilt, he would avoid trial by jury to clear his reputation. Almost 70 charges were brought against him, with a possible maximum sentence of more than 400 years in prison and $17 million in fines. During the trial, the charges of bioterrorism were totally unsupported. Instead, issues of illegal transportation of stored plague bacilli, tax evasion, embezzlement and fraud (primarily linked to alleged receipts of grants intended for university research) were brought against him. These charges appeared to be related to disputes that Butler had with his university (including issues of nonpayment of indirect costs), which were clearly unrelated to the original disappearance of the vials of plague bacilli. Normally, such conduct (eg, allegations of violations of university procedures relating to payments of honoraria vs. grants-in-aid that should automatically incur indirect costs) would be within the domain of a civil rather than a criminal court.

The jury found Butler not guilty of most of the original charges including lying to the FBI and tax evasion. The jury convicted him on charges relating to overseas shipment of laboratory specimens involving Tanzania, a country with whom he had a collaborative research project on the treatment of plague. This was a technicality as no improper use of the material was ever established. Samples and data were shared with the CDC, the U.S. Army and the FDA. The jury also convicted Butler on charges involving contracts and indirect costs related to pharmaceutical company-based grants. Whether there were concrete policies in place that governed such transactions remains unclear. During the trial, members of the current university administration testified against Butler.

After a guilty conviction, the judge noted that Butler’s university would never have received any of the monies in question had the defendant not been a member of the faculty and that the grants, contracts, etc, awarded to support Butler’s well-recognized research were attributable to the defendant’s academic contributions and not that of the university. The judge further noted that this research led to the direct benefit of millions of individuals on the planet and reflected a great service to society. These contributions were described as “exceptional in nature.” Nonetheless, the judge imposed a sentence of two years as well as a fine of $38,000 to be paid to Texas Tech.

The severity of these penalties, the duress to which an important scientist has been subjected and the unproven link to bioterrorist activity have provoked reactions of alarm and concern from the academic community. Committees of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the European Society of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases and a number of Nobel laureates have protested his unfair treatment. In the June 1, 2005, issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, specialists in infectious diseases, led by a professor at The University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston, Barbara E. Murray, PhD, voiced their concern.

The net result of this unfortunate court action is that one of the country’s leading clinician/laboratory investigators on a subject with major bioterrorist potential has been barred from both the clinic and laboratory despite a lifetime of contributions to the field.

Throughout his ordeal, no proof arose that he engaged in bioterrorist activities or lied to the FBI. If there was improper conduct, it was related to shipment of specimens of live plague bacilli — but the FBI never established foul play or improper use of these materials. Conviction on violation of university policies relating to honoraria, consulting fees or grants should be in clear-cut breach of existing published procedures or signed agreements relating to compensation (eg, see procedures now in place at the NIH). In the meanwhile, he remains incarcerated, and while his conviction is under appeal he has exhausted his personal savings and retirement funds, and the legal fees required for his defense have exceeded $1 million. At the end of May 2005, his appeal of conviction was to be reviewed in a federal court.

Editor’s note: I’m very grateful to Lowell Young, MD, for preparing this commentary on this nightmarish saga. I would strongly encourage interested readers to read the original article by Barbara E. Murray, PhD, and colleagues. It is almost unbelievable, and highlights the post-9/11 and post-anthrax mentality in the Department of Justice; it’s very reminiscent of the treatment of Wen Ho Lee at Los Alamos National Laboratories. – Theodore C. Eickhoff, MD

For more information:

• Murray BE, Anderson KE, Arnold K, et al. Destroying the life and career of a valued physician-scientist who tried to protect us from plague: was it really necessary? Clin Infect Dis. 2005;40(11):1644-1648.

• Dr. Young is the director of the Kuzell Institute for Arthritis and Infectious Diseases at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco and a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and a member of the Infectious Disease News editorial board.