1 whistleblower death is an outlier. Two is an eye raiser. Three will be a pattern and point to Boeing no?
The math works out to a 4.4% chance. That's a bit of an eye raiser, but still just believable. (Look, we all believe it can happen we roll a critical in D&D ;)
3 or more dying in a year, we're at 0.5% - I'd really assume that's deliberate.
[1] Actuarial tables: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
[2] Calculator if you want to play with probabilities: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=binomial+probability+ca...
- They get regular death threats.
- The opposing law firms probably have PIs digging into their lives for dirt to discredit them.
- Their careers in their line of work are over and as far as I know, there's no whistle-blower retirement fund.
- Everyone they knew and worked with for many years and who still works there probably cut them off for fear of being associated with them.
- Because of all this their sleep is probably horrible, they're much more likely to have unhealthy alcohol habits, and to have financial problems.
But the point I was trying to make (badly, based on where the discussion is going :) was that "two whistleblowers dying is still somewhat probable". Increased likelihood of death just makes it more probable.
― Ian Fleming, Goldfinger
Reminds the old soviet ricin umbrella injector
But as far as I know it is very treatable by knowledgeable medical professionals if caught early so in that sense it's not a guaranteed attack-vector and a poor choice for an assassination. Depending on a target who doesn't visit the doctor until too late, maybe less of an issue.
And yet, it worked.
Assassination seems unlikely here to me. The presentation of sudden illness with multiple agents flu B, MRSA, and strep all at the same time is unusual. The presentation probably IS consistent with a sudden exposure to a very high number of infectious organisms into his lungs which could overwhelm the immune system and potentially lead to death. It wouldn't be impossible to orchestrate but it sounds difficult, finicky, unreliable, and tough to correctly execute without collateral damage. It would almost certainly require a state actor.
It's also plausible he contracted influenza B and suffered from an opportunistic infection of the lungs.
By Occam's razor I think the latter is quite a bit more likely.