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  3. Handle With Care When Thomas Butler stepped off a

Handle With Care When Thomas Butler stepped off a

游客2023-12-11  60
问题                            Handle With Care
    When Thomas Butler stepped off a plane in April 2002 on his return to the United States from a trip to Tanzania, he set in motion a chain of events that now threatens to destroy his life. A microbiologist at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Butler was bringing back samples of the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis for his research. Yet on reentering the country, he is alleged to have passed right by US customs inspectors without notifying them that he was carrying this potentially deadly cargo. That move and its consequences have led the federal government to prosecute Butler for a range of offences. If convicted on all counts, he could be fined millions of dollars and spend the rest of his life in jail.
    The US scientific community has leapt to butler’s defence, arguing that his prosecution is overzealous, alarming and unnecessary. The presidents of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine have written to Attorney General John Ashcroft, claiming that the case could endanger research into countering the threat of bioterrorism. And the academy’s human-rights committee has asked its members to write letters on Butler’s behalf and to donate funds for his defense.
    Those who defend Butler argue that the rules governing the import of pathogens are so restrictive that bending them is the only option for researchers who are working to provide protection from deadly diseases that affect the developing world. Why, they ask, prosecute Butler for breaking the rules that made his work more difficult without serving a useful purpose?
    The supporters consider that the charge laid against Butler merely reflects the determination of federal prosecutors to throw the book at Butler to make an example of him to others. Many researchers now fear falling victim to an overzealous prosecution if they fail to dot all the i’s and cross all the i’s on their paperwork. Some US microbiologists are so frightened of being hauled off in handcuffs for a minor administrative error that they have decided to avoid biodefense research entirely—despite the current funding boom in the field.
    Whether Butler is a villain or a scapegoat is now for a jury to decide. But whatever verdict is eventually reached, scientists who are lobbying on Butler’s behalf would do well to consider public perceptions. If the rules governing the import of pathogenic bacteria make no sense, then microbiologists must make that case clearly, and lobby for the regulations to be changed. Researchers are also justified in making statements to help ensure that any punishment that Butler might receive is proportionate.
    But researchers risk a damaging public protest if the main message that emerges is that his peers think he was justified in carrying samples of the plague bacterium onto a commercial flight. Appearing to deny the importance of rules designed to protect the public from deadly pathogens—however unwieldy those rules may be in practice— will not generate trust. It will not foster a culture of responsibility. And it would show disregard for the public’s faith that scientific research will be conducted as safely and as competently as possible. [br] Thomas Butler was charged with______.
选项 A、carrying prohibited research materials
B、handling a potentially deadly substance illegally
C、posing the bioterrorism threat
D、shipping plague samples back to Tanzania
答案 B
解析 本题考查具体细节。第一段第三句指出，巴特勒被指控在没有通知海关检查人员的情况下携带有潜在致命性的物品入境。[B]项是原文carrying this potentially deadly cargo的改写，所以是正确答案。[A]项错在“违禁研究材料”，文中没有提到“鼠疫杆菌样本”是“违禁研究材料”，只强调它可能威胁公众的安全。[C]项中的“生物恐怖主义威胁”出现在第二段的倒数第二句话中，指的是科学界认为巴特勒案件背后反映的问题，而不是巴特勒被指控的罪名，所以排除[C]。Tanzania一词出现在第一段首句。根据第一段前二句可知，巴特勒把鼠疫病菌样本从坦桑尼亚带到美国。[D]选项与原文意思相反。
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