Harvard Prof Honored For `Yellow Rain' Work

A Harvard biochemist was honored last week by one of the nation's largest scientific bodies for helping rebuke U.S. government claims that the Soviet Union used biological weapons in Southeast Asia during and after the Vietnam War.

Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences Matthew S. Meselson received the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award for determining the origins of "yellow rain," a mysterious toxin that Laotian anti-communist rebels said caused serious illness in many villages.

In September, 1982, former Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig claimed yellow rain was a biological agent deliberately deployed by the Soviets against the Laotian rebels.

But Meselson said he became suspicious of the government's claims two months later when he read a State Department report stating that yellow rain contained traces of pollen.

"It did not make sense that pollen was in the chemical. I thought that if this were true, the Soviets had headed down a scientific blind alley," he said.

The biochemist added that his research, combined with an Army report in which Laotian refugees identified bee feces as the substance they had seen, convinced Meselson that yellow rain was not a biological weapon.

But when Meselson and his colleagues announced their findings, the government refused to accept them, and the Reagan Administration continued to classify the Soviet Union as a suspected producer of biological toxins, the professor said.

Meselson, whom Biochemistry Department Chair Steven C. Harrison called "one of the most outstanding scientist-statesmen in the last few decades," said ethical concerns also played a role in his work.

"I think it is against our standards of accountability to make a charge against a foreign government without checking all the facts first," Meselson said.

The science foundation said in a statement that it had given Meselson the award as part of an effort "to honor scientists and engineers whose exemplary actions, often taken at significant personal cost, have served to foster scientific freedom and responsibility." It will be presented at a meeting in February.

"The award makes freedom something more than anarchy because it gives the layperson an idea of what the professional community's consensus is and thus sets up a goal society should try to attain," Meselson said.

Officals at the American Association for the Advancement of Science could not be reached for comment yesterday.