The State - News from May 18, 1988

Police arrested nine people who barricaded themselves in a University of California office to protest research that they said could lead to germ warfare experiments. The protesters occupied the Sacramento office of Stephen Arditti, chief lobbyist for the university. At issue was a plan to move Navy research into encephalomyelitis from Alameda to the Berkeley campus. Encephalomyelitis is a virus disease of horses and other animals that sometimes is communicable to humans. Protest spokeswoman Poly Strand said the Navy’s research could pose the potential for germ or chemical warfare research and experiments. Arditti said the protesters were mistaken. “This isn’t germ warfare,” he said, “This is warfare on germs.”