Arrest in US plague samples probe

A Texas university professor has been arrested for triggering a terror alert after claiming that 30 vials of bubonic plague were missing when he knew that they had, in fact, been destroyed.

Dr Thomas Butler, chief of the infectious diseases division of Texas Tech University’s department of internal medicine, was arrested on a complaint of making a false statement to a federal agent.

The department had been using 180 vials for research on the treatment of plague.

Authorities would not say whether Butler had made the initial missing report on the vials or say why the vials were destroyed.