Secrecy News for 05/11/05: "Dr. Thomas C. Butler, the distinguished physician and specialist in infectious disease who was sentenced to prison last year for improperly transporting medical samples, is the subject of an extraordinary profile in the latest issue of the medical journal Clinical Infectious Disease.

'Thomas Campbell Butler, at 63 years of age, is completing the first year of a 2-year sentence in federal prison, following an investigation and trial that was initiated after he voluntarily reported that he believed vials containing Yersinia pestis were missing from his laboratory at Texas Tech University,' the article begins. 'We take this opportunity to remind the infectious diseases community of the plight of our esteemed colleague, whose career and family have, as a result of his efforts to protect us from infection by this organism, paid a price from which they will never recover.'

Dr. Butler is credited with having saved literally millions of lives in developing countries through his pioneering work on oral hydration as a treatment for diarrheal diseases."

(Via Secrecy News.)