THE 'BEE FECES' THEORY UNDONE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00587R000100490003-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 10, 2011
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: September 6, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/10: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100490003-7
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE it
WALL STREET JOURNAL
6 September 1985
The `Bee Feces' Theory Undo
BY WILLIAM KucEWIC2 They were all negative," Mr. Meselson The only thing left to dispute. in short.
Harvard biochemist Matthew Meselson I responded in the interview. He said that he was the hypothesis Mr. Meselson has now
now admits that his original "bee feces" had sent 13 twin samples of food and feces abandoned after negative results with his
theory of Southeast Asian yellow-rain from Thailand to two laboratories in Can- own samples, and in the face of the work
deaths-that deadly toxins were not bio- ada and Britain. (Mr. Meselson is not ex- by Mr. Schiefer. The Canadian's latest
chemical weapons but natural contami- pert at conducting such tests himself.) The findings show that the unnatural combina-
nants of feces-" is not very attractive any- chemists didn't find any of the trichothe- tion of three different mycotoxins found in
more." But you wouldn't know it from an cene mycotoxins previously identified in the yellow rain samples collected by the
ellow rain. U.S. government and ABC News is a "Su-
the
article he and four colleagues have pub- y iller--much more potent than the
lished in Scientific American this month. There wasn't room to include these neg- perb" toxins kfillerwally m n ote char
In that piece, Meselson & Co. repeat at alive results in the article, Mr. Meselson tions, a cocktail put together by someone
length their view that yellow rain is "a explained. He said that the editors at Sci- i who knew what he was doing.
phenomenon of nature, not of man." They entific American had set strict length limi-
do not, however, report what Prof. Mesel- tations and "lots" of data had to be left Mr. Meselson, it would seem, can sup-
interview out. port reopening the old inquiry only by di-
son acknowledged in a telephone rectly challenging the findings of Minne-
last week: that samples of bee feces he Mr. Meselson said that he now gener- sota's Prof. Mirocha and Joseph Rosen of
and a colleague brought back from a cele- ally accepts the work of Canadian toxicolo-
Rutgers. Does he think their laboratory
brated expedition to a Thailand jungle last gist Bruno Schiefer showing that trichothe- work in error? ,"I'm not saying that," he
year show no traces of the mycotoxins that cene mycotoxins don't occur naturally in replied.
are widely believed to have killed thou- Southeast Asia-at least not to any signifl-
sands of people in war-torn areas on the cant extent that might cause a health prob- Prof. Meselson did find it telling that a
frontier of the Soviet empire. lem. That means the Harvard scientist. U.S. Army laboratory at Aberdeen, Md.,
It had been Mr. Meselson's hypothesis, whose theories have become the watch- failed to find the toxins in yellow rain sam-
first laid out at a meeting of scientists in word of Western doubters and Soviet prop- pies that previously tested positive by Mr.
Detroit in 1983, that the deadly tricothe- agandists who challenge the U.S. govern- Mirocha. While Mr. Meselson uses the Ab-
cene mycotoxins discovered by other sci- ment's position. must now square his own erdeen negative test results as a foil, he
entists in the bodies of Southeast Asians stance. If yellow rain poisons aren't fails to mention that that same Army labo-
were a naturally occurring phemoenon of springing up on their own, and if refugees ratory did find the toxins on two Soviet gas
the region. Bee excrement and foodstuffs, indeed are suffering and dying from them, masks retrieved from Afghanistan in
this theory held, hosted the growth Of the who's the perpetrator? For scientists 1982.
organisms. The U.S. government has who've cautioned against accusing the So- Profs. Mirocha and Rosen, meanwhile,
maintained, on the other hand, that yellow viets over the matter, it's a dilemma-and stand by their work. In subsequent tests on
rain is a Soviet-supplied toxin used in one that the critical omission in Scientific toxin-infected corn, for instance, they have
Laos, Cambodia and Afghanistan in viola- American would allow them to skirt. never turned up any ? "false positives,"
tion of the 1972 Biological Weapons- Con- Mr. Meselson's out, in the interview, which would have indicated that their tech-
was to suggest that perhaps there were no niques were faulty. Besides, they both
No tion. Mention of Results toxins to begin with. This takes the whole noted, the U.S. Army's laboratory had
No debate back two years, reopening issues great difficulty setting up its own testing
Profs. Meselson and Thomas Seeley of that were seen as settled at the time Mr. procedure and delayed a year and more
Yale got to test their hypothesis in Thai- Meselson first suggested that the toxins the analyses of many yellow rain samples;
land with the help of a $256,000 "genius" were natural products. A 1983 essay by during that time, the toxins could have
award to Mr. Meselson from the MacAr- Lewis Thomas in Discover magazine, for been consumed by bacteria in the samples
thur Foundation (though the areas they example, calls for more exploration of the or otherwise deteriorated. Even Mr. Mesel-
visited were not ones ever associated with natural-occurrence thesis in the following son admitted that that's possible.
a chemical attack). The two academics re- words: So what are we left with? Mr. Meselson
turned in March 1984 to say they had been has found bee feces and the U.S. govern-
"There is no question in anyone's mind
on" were caught t ment has found dead bodies. Indeed de
"crapped by Asian honeybees. "We about the existence of mycotoxins pro- tailed- medical data about a vnow~
in a one d of these yellow rain duced by the Fusarium fungus in the sam-
minutes they said. " It lasted about five les taken from the leaves and rocks in casualty appeared in the A ril 1985 issue of
minutes and deposited approximately 200 p the peer-review ournal of P o-rensic Sci-
spots per square meter." The scientists places where yellow rain attacks are said
collected samples of the bee droppings, to have occurred. Nor is there any doubt e formce. The authors er chief atholo 'st for th U.. mili-
along with foodstuffs from Thailand, "for about the reports by Chester Mirocha, an former
a pro essor at East Tennes-tary chemical analysis to test the possibility acknowledged specialist in mycotoxins at see State Universit a James arnum
that mycotoxins reported in environmental the University of Minnesota, that high another East Tennessee pa o oglst; an
samples and the blood of refugees occur levels of trichothecene toxins (and their Christopher C Green former v the entral
naturally in Southeast Asia." They con- metabolic derivatives) were present in the Intelli ence A enc 's ellow rain ex ert,
cluded their joint statement, saying: "A blood and tissues of patients from the who holds an egree. a Ical
detailed scientific report of our findings same areas. What remains in question is eX concluded tat the a low rain vic
will be published." whether this fungus species has always ex- tim died from a c emicaI warfare aeent
fisted in nature in Southeast Asia, and and not ffom any natural warfa on.
Their article in Scientific American, whether its toxin might be present in the
however, includes no mention of the results kinds of plant foods consumed by people
of those chemical tests. during seasons of near starvation."
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/10: CIA-RDP91-00587R000100490003-7