Cleveland Plain Dealer (Internet / Print) 03/27/06 http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1143212106103910.xml&coll=2 Dr. Thomas Butler's re-entry to field research after a nearly two-decade hiatus was like popping out of a time warp. He was the same gung-ho researcher who had plied the jungles of Vietnam for plague in the 1970s, traveling "VIP." But the world was very different. An FDA medical officer called Butler a "valuable resource" and a "unique asset." He had done what Army and government doctors couldn't do – get boots on the ground in a foreign country and produce results. He was on the government's team. What he hadn't done was keep up with the government's vastly toughened rules. Across the state, the University of Texas Medical Branch's biodefense center had a lawyer on the payroll full-time to keep its researchers out of hot water. At Texas Tech, Tom Butler was mostly on his own. And he hadn't been getting along with some of his university bosses, either.