SPEAK OUT IN DEFENSE OF STEVE KURTZ
Related articles:Forum: The paranoid persecution of Steve Kurtz
The FBI investigation of a Buffalo art professor who works with biological agents found the materials harmless. But as the grand jury investigation widens, says Martin E. Rosenberg, artists and scientists are outraged by the degree of government intrusionSunday, June 27, 2004
For the past month, artists, scientists, academics and others interested in freedom of thought and expression have had their eyes on Buffalo and a bizarre grand jury investigation into the case of The Artists Who Play With Petri Dishes.
The case involves a heart attack victim, and then a range of claims and denials: wrongful death by bacterial infection, possession of biological agents suitable for warfare, public health threats, terrorism, sedition, artistic freedom and First Amendment violations, paranoid McCarthyism and Keystone Cops shenanigans. Artists and scientists are so united in outcry that you would think that C.P. Snow had never written his "Two Cultures" thesis that in the modern world, never the twain shall meet. The Bill of Rights makes for strange bedfellows.
On May 11 in Buffalo, Hope Kurtz suffered heart failure at home. Her husband, Steve Kurtz, called 911. Buffalo EMS technicians arrived and pronounced her dead. But during their routine investigation, the police were alarmed by what they found in the home of Mr. Kurtz, who is an internationally recognized artist and a faculty member at the State University of New York at Buffalo (and former art professor at Carnegie Mellon University). They discovered laboratory equipment, petri dishes and experimental samples of the following bacteria: bacillus globigii, serratia marcensens and a genetically sterilized form of E. coli. They also found DNA extracting technology, as well as a range of publications addressing genetic engineering, the human genome project, bioethics, bioterrorism and biowarfare.
The police called the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and FBI agents from Buffalo as well as Pittsburgh arrived, dressed in biohazard suits straight from the set of "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial."
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