THE 'BEE FECES' THEORY UNDONE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403600002-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 11, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: September 6, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403600002-0
WALL STREET JOURNAL
6 September 1985
The `Bee I'eces' Theory Undo~.,
LLIAM KucEWICL "They were all negative," Mr. Meselson The only thing left to dispute, in short,
BY WI
Harvard biochemist Matthew Meselson 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
article he and four colleagues have pub- yellow rain. U.S. government and ABC News is a "su-
lished in Scientific American this month. There wasn't room to include these neg- perb" individually more pot poteent c than han the
th - in oth In that piece, Meselson & Co. repeat at ative results in the article, Mr. Meselson toxins killer
toxin, a cocktail put rognther by someone
length their view that yellow rain is "a explained. He said that the editors at Sci- who knew what he was doing.
phenomenon of nature, not of man." They entific American had set strict length limi-
sup-
do not, however, report what Prof. Mesel- tations and "lots" of data had to be left Mr. Meselson, it would inquiry only by
son acknowledged in a telephone interview out. port reopening th old in of My di-
re~,s challenging
Mirocha t findings and ququJoseph ry f Minne-
last week: that samples of bee feces he Mr. Meselson said that he now gener- rectly
s n Bf
and a colleague brought back from a cele- ally accepts the work of Canadian toxicolo- Rutgers. a P Does oc think their laboratory
that," he
brated expedition to a Thailand jungle last gist Bruno Schiefer showing that trichothe- RuteD es " I'm not saying o
year show no traces of the mycotoxins that cene mycotoxins don't occur naturally in reeked.
are widely believed to have killed thou- Southeast Asia-at least not to any signifi-
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;.nd Soviet prop- ples 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 phemonenon 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 Qf the who's the perpetrator? For scientists 1 ifs. Mirocha and Rosen, meanwhile,
organisms. The U.S. government has who've cautioned against accusing the So- 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
vention.
No Mention of Results toxins to begin with. This takes the whole noted, the U.S. Army's laboratory had
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 "There is no question in anyone's mind has found bee feces, and t e govern-
"crapped on" by Asian honeybees. "We about the existence of mycotoxins pro- ment has found dead bodies. Indeed de-
were caught in one of these yellow rain tailed m ira data about a yellow rain
showers," they said. "It lasted about five duced by the from the leaves fungus and in the gam- tasualt a ared in the A nil 1985 issue of
minutes and deposited approximately 200 ples taken from the rocks in the peer-review ourno Forensic i-
spots per square meter." The scientists places where yellow rain attacks are said e We
collected samples of the bee droppings, to have occurred. Nor is there any doubt former chief pathologist for the U.S. mili-
along with foodstuffs from Thailand, "for about the reports by Chester Mirocha, an tary and now a professor at East Tennes-
chemical analysis to test the possibility acknowledged specialist in mycotoxins at see State University: James arnum}
that mycotoxins reported in environmental the University of Minnesota, that high another East Tennessee pathologist; and
samples and the blood of refugees occur levels of trichothecene toxins (and their Christopher C. Green dormer y the Central
metabolic derivatives) were present in the Intelligence Agency's ellow rain expert,
naturally in Southeast Asia." They con-
cluded their joint statement, saying: "A blood and tissues of patients from the w o holds an a ee. a ical
detailed scientific report of our findings same areas. What remains in question is experts c o n cl u d e d t at -11 y e l l o w rain vic-
will be published." whether this fungus species has always ex- tom died from a chemical warfare agent
isted
Their article in Scientific American, in nature in Southeast Asia, and and not from any natural Infection.
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."
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAG Ap .-a
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403600002-0
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403600002-0
As they explain for the first time, an en-
campment of Khmer Rouge guerrillas at
Tuol Chrey in Cambodia, near the Thai
border, was hit by an artillery bombard-
ment from Vietnamese forces on Feb. 13,
1982. Three shells exploded upwind of the
camp, and the soldiers smelled a sweet,
perfumelike odor and experienced the
rapid onset of incapacitation. There were
at least 100 casualties. They suffered from
tearing of the eyes, blurred vision, bitter
taste, nasal obstruction, vomiting, rapid
heartbeat, muscle tremors, and, in some
cases, collapse or paralysis.
One of the victims, taken to a hospital,
soon showed signs of recovery and was re-
leased. It was known that he had been a
victim of an earlier yellow rain attack the
previous September. On March 11, 1982, he
was again admitted to a field hospital after
his condition worsened. Five days later, he
died after vomiting and urinating blood-
typical signs of trichothecene poisoning.
An autopsy was performed, and tissue
samples were sent to the U.S.
Both Profs. Mirocha and Rosen found
traces of the mycotoxins in the samples.
Pathologic examinations of the tissues
showed severe damage to the heart, lungs,
kidneys, stomach and liver. The victim
died from "acute pulmonary edema." All
of these symptoms are associated with tri-
chothecene poisoning. The "pattern of in-
jury," said the pathologists, "suggests the
direct effects of toxic agents, as well as the
possibility of hypersensitivity reaction re-
lated to the previous chemical exposure on
19 Sept. 1981."
The Corpses Remain
Meanwhile, the Soviet Union has had a
field day with the bee-feces conjecture.
The Russians have used this theory in their
disinformation campaign to cover up their
chemical-warfare crimes in Southeast Asia
and Afghanistan. Most recently, Joseph
Adamov, a Radio Moscow "commentator"
who speaks English with a Brooklyn-like
accent, told an American television audi-
ence on CBS's "Face the Nation": "There
is a fantastic anti-Soviet campaign on in
the United States today, including the so-
called spy dust, which is completely ab-
surd, just like that yellow rain was, that
turned out to be the excrement of bees."
Nicholas Wade of the New York Times
shares the same sentiments. In a recent
editorial-page article, he wrote: "Yellow
rain is bee excrement, a fact so preposter-
ous and so embarrassing that even now the
Administration cannot bring itself to ac-
cept it." He called the U.S. government's
evidence "a speck of dubious data."
What remain, of course, are the corpses
and refugee reports.
Rep. Jim Leach (R., Iowa) was at the
scientific meeting in 1983 when Messrs.
Meselson and Seeley first announced their
bee-feces hypothesis. Mr. Leach's response
was direct: "We have the bodies, we have
the witnesses. When you listen to a father
describing his son dying in his arms from
a yellow and white rain falling from the
skies, you are not one to disbelieve."
Mr. Kucewicz is a member of the Jour-
nal's editorial board.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403600002-0