One spring morning in 2004, Professor Steven Kurtz of the State University of New York (SUNY), Buffalo campus, woke to the horrid discovery that his wife of twenty years had died overnight from a heart attack. He called 9-1-1 for emergency services. Paramedics arriving at the Kurtz home noticed technical equipment that would normally only be found in a clinical or research laboratory. If the emergency responders had not been suspicious and had not acted on those suspicions, it would have been worrisome.

What happened later--the investigation of Kurtz and colleagues by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) Joint Task Force on Terrorism under bioterrorism statues--might have more worrisome implications for both academic research and limiting the threat of bioterrorism.

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