Word: meselson
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Researching recombinant DNA in the mid-'70s, he was embroiled in the then-contentious debate over what safeguards were needed to oversee the potentially hazardous materials. In 1970, Meselson went to Vietnam in the midst of war to monitor the usage of Agent Orange. In recent years, he has been an advocate of greater government attention to Vietnam veterans exposed to the defoliant. This spring, the biochemist's name appeared on an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hit list of some 90 scientists singled out for exclusion from EPA advisory boards because of their liberal political views...
...above all, Meselson--who won fame for demonstrating how DNA duplicates itself in dividing cells--has been associated with strong opposition to chemical and biological warfare. He was, as a government adviser, one of the moving forces behind the 1972 international treaty that banned the development of biochemical weapons. Now, Meselson is garnering headlines as the principal challenger to the U.S. Government's position that the Soviet Union or its allies are using deadly chemical weapons in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan...
...Meselson has long said that the evidence is suspect that the Soviets are spraying "yellow rain"--particularly the prohibited chemical trichothecene mycotoxin. And now, he has an alternative theory to what's going on. At the end of May, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Detroit, he and a few other scientists dropped the widely publicized' "be" bombshell. Essentially, Meselson and his colleagues are arguing that the spots on leaves and rocks cited by the government as evidence of yellow rain may well be nothing more than bee excrement. Samples...
...Meselson and these scientists acknowledge that the bee theory does not fully explain all parts of the chemical warfare riddle, among them persistent refugee reports of yellow rain, and illness and death associated with yellow rain: the discovery of trichothecene mycotoxins in alleged samples of yellow rain, as well as blood and urine, and a Soviet gas mask found in Afghanistan containing the illegal toxin. Nevertheless, Meselson sums up, "Whatever the source of these toxins, which we weren't able to explain, at least these spots that people are picking up are probably the excrement of bees...
...government is concerned, those things which Meselson et. al. can't explain loom larger than the bee theory itself. Their scientists have acknowledged that bees may be involved with the story--perhaps pollen is being used as a carrier for toxins, one has speculated to Science. But in general, the samples of leaves and rocks carry toxins in levels rot naturally found in Asia, the refugee reports, the Soviet gas mask--along with intelligence reports--have convinced the State Department and some highly reputable scientists that the Soviets are up to mischief...