deadly virus goes missing

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by CATO, Mar 25, 2013.


  1. CATO

    CATO Monkey+++

    Nickjlancaster and Motomom34 like this.
  2. Motomom34

    Motomom34 Monkey+++

    I read about this yesterday. So we are to listen to the "officials". They stated that poses no risk. Well... it had a 23.1% fatality rate in Venezuela according to Wiki. And I guess the word mutation doesn't apply in this case. Also this virus has been assigned level four which is high risk, but they say don't worry???? If not dangerous then why assign the high biosafety level???
     
    ColtCarbine and tulianr like this.
  3. mysterymet

    mysterymet Monkey+++

    Hey Bob have you seen my deadly virus sample? I had it sitting right over here next to the small pox before lunch and now it's gone.
     
    ColtCarbine likes this.
  4. DMGoddess

    DMGoddess Monkey+++

    Outbreak, anybody?
     
    Nickjlancaster likes this.
  5. ColtCarbine

    ColtCarbine Monkey+++ Founding Member

    Just an outbreak of acne, thus far ;)
     
    ditch witch likes this.
  6. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    Mid-Life Crisis setting in, their CC.......
     
    ColtCarbine likes this.
  7. HK_User

    HK_User A Productive Monkey is a Happy Monkey


    I was an EMT in the early years of AIDS, we were told the same thing by the Docs, that being no problem, be happy, keep working. Yet we did not use gloves or other Blood Borne Patheogen protection at that time.

    I knew they, the medical profession as a whole, did not have a clue of how deadly aids was and how easy it could be transmitted in my work.

    Nothing has changed here. Move along sheeple.
     
    Motomom34 and 9h0s7 like this.
  8. kellory

    kellory An unemployed Jester, is nobody's fool. Banned

    Oh gee, don't I feel all warm and fuzzy,:"The federal government prioritizes it for research because it has the potential to be used a weapon by terrorists.":eek:
     
    JABECmfg and Motomom34 like this.
  9. DMGoddess

    DMGoddess Monkey+++

    Whose terrorists? Theirs, or ours?
     
    9h0s7 likes this.
  10. mysterymet

    mysterymet Monkey+++

    Yes
     
  11. Motomom34

    Motomom34 Monkey+++

    But don't worry there is no public risk. They must think we are morons.
     
    Brokor likes this.
  12. DMGoddess

    DMGoddess Monkey+++

    That's what I thought.
     
  13. VHestin

    VHestin Farm Chick

    I read some of the article to my mother and she was wondering why they thought it could possibly have gone 'missing' by one of the researchers getting it accidentally stuck to their glove without them noticing. I wouldn't be surprised if that actually happened because being a 'brilliant' scientist tends to mean your common sense is pffffffffffffffft.
     
    Motomom34 likes this.
  14. Motomom34

    Motomom34 Monkey+++

    If this did happen then that virus was not properly disposed of and could pose risk of spreading. I have no idea how labs handle their garbage but if it is not incinerated then it would go to a landfill and landfills have rats and rats spread this in Venezuela. I have no clue why Venezuela rats and American rats are so different cause to me a rat is a rat.
     
  15. kellory

    kellory An unemployed Jester, is nobody's fool. Banned

    Now there is where you are wrong....their's eat garbage, while our's run for office.;)
     
    mysterymet, JABECmfg, BTPost and 3 others like this.
  16. tulianr

    tulianr Don Quixote de la Monkey

    Reports warn of lax inspections, bioterror lab risks

    Alison Young, USA TODAY8:28a.m. EDT March 25, 2013
    Two new government reports raise concerns about the risks posed by labs experimenting with dangerous germs that have the potential to be used as bioterror weapons.

    EXCERPTS:
    The United States is at increased risk for accidents at laboratories conducting research on potential bioterror germs, such as anthrax, because federal officials have failed to develop national standards for lab design, construction and operation, according to a report to be released Monday by the Government Accountability Office. The GAO called for the standards more than three years ago.

    Meanwhile, another recent government audit has found significant failures by federal officials to detect security and safety violations during inspections of bioterror labs. The undetected issues included the transfer of anthrax and plague to an unauthorized facility, and allowing workers at multiple research facilities to remain on the job with expired security risk assessments.
    ........

    Security at bioterror labs has been an issue of particular concern since the 2001 anthrax letter attacks that killed five and sickened 17; a scientist at an Army biodefense lab was later implicated.

    USDA inspection program officials disputed many of the auditors' findings, called the report's language "unduly alarming," and refused to adopt many of the auditors' recommendations, the report says.
    .......

    Najmedin Meshkati, an engineering professor at the University of Southern California, said the USDA lab inspection program "may be suffering from a serious safety-culture problem," based on his quick review of the audit report.

    Richard Ebright, a biosafety expert at Rutgers university in New Jersey, said the repeated failures by USDA inspectors to detect problems is "significant" and it "erodes confidence" that regulations are being effectively monitored and enforced. Ebright noted that the USDA "rebuffed" auditors' recommendations. "This is one of the most striking parts of the report," he said.
    ........

    Incidents involving bioterror agents are rare, according to a CDC report last year in the journal Applied Biosafety. Between 2004 and 2010, there were no reports of thefts and only one confirmed loss, which occurred during the shipment of a fungus that can cause a type of pneumonia called Valley Fever. An FBI investigation of the lost fungus package concluded it was "apparently destroyed during processing at a commercial shipping facility," the CDC researchers' article said.

    The CDC report said there were 11 laboratory-acquired infections among 639 potential release incidents reported to the agency during those years among more than 10,000 people with approved access at organizations working with "select agents," the government's term for germs and toxins that have the potential to be used as bioweapons. None of the infections was fatal or involved the disease spreading to others.

    USA TODAY reported last month that the HHS inspector general has repeatedly cited the CDC for safety and security problems in the operation of its own labs in Atlanta and Fort Collins, Colo., including failing to secure potential bioterror agents and not properly training employees who work with them. At the time of those reports, issued in 2008 through 2010, the CDC was responsible for inspecting its own labs.

    CDC officials have said nobody has been endangered by the lapses because their labs have redundant layers of safety and security to protect employees and the public. When issues arise, they are fixed immediately, the agency says.

    Other incidents have also caused concern, including power outages at CDC labs in Atlanta in 2007 and 2008. In 2007, a leaky drainage system was suspected in the release of foot-and-mouth disease virus — a highly infectious livestock disease that can have significant economic consequences — from a vaccine research facility in the United Kingdom and an outbreak on nearby farms, according to the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress.

    In 2009, the GAO examined the potential risks posed by the proliferation of "high-containment labs" experimenting with dangerous germs, including bioterror agents, in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks and increased biodefense funding. The labs' research focuses on such things as developing treatments, vaccines, diagnostic tests and other countermeasures. The GAO concluded that a national oversight strategy was needed, including a periodic assessment of the nation's need for the labs. The report also said national construction, operation and maintenance standards were needed.

    But federal security and science officials in the Executive Office of the President have not acted on the recommendations, the GAO said in its new report scheduled to be released Monday. "There is still no one agency or group that knows the nation's need for all U.S. high-containment laboratories," the report said, noting that budget constraints make the need for a national strategy and prioritization "more critical today than 3years ago."

    The GAO said it remains concerned that there continue to be no national standards for lab design, construction and operation. "This will make it difficult to be able to assess and guarantee safety," the report said.
    ........
     
  17. CATO

    CATO Monkey+++

    Anybody remember the "duct tape" FUBAR?

    Airflow problems plague CDC bioterror lab | Federal Times | federaltimes.com

    A $214 million bioterror germ lab at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has had repeated problems with airflow systems designed to help prevent the release of infectious agents, government documents and internal emails show.
    While the agency says no one has been infected, a biosafety expert says the problems appear to be major violations of laboratory operating standards.
    The area of the building with problems involves Biosafety Level 3 labs that can be used for experiments involving anthrax, dangerous strains of influenza, the SARS coronavirus, monkeypox and other microbes that have the potential to be used as bioweapons.
    In February, air from inside a potentially contaminated lab briefly blew outward into a “clean” corridor where a group of visitors weren’t wearing any protective gear which raised concern about exposure risks, according to emails reporting and discussing what happened. Research animals in the lab had not yet been infected at the time of the incident, the records say.
    CDC engineers have raised written concerns about the air containment systems since at least 2010. At that time, scientists working with poxviruses, such as monkeypox, expressed concerns about airflow and said they “don’t want to go into that facility because they don’t feel comfortable with the way it is currently designed,” according to minutes from a February 2010 meeting to discuss reversing the way air flowed through the labs and animal-holding areas.
    According to the minutes, CDC safety manager William Howard said: “Bottom line is we can’t continue to operate the building the way it is … if (a bioterror lab inspector) finds out air is moving this direction they will shut this place down.”
    The CDC refused to grant interviews or answer any questions submitted in writing about the problems inside the high-containment labs and animal-holding area of the agency’s 11-story Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory, also known as CDC Building 18.
    In a statement, the CDC said there have been no releases of germs and no one has been injured. Experiments in the building’s high-containment labs are “done in an environment with highly skilled staff, technical equipment, and safety systems that unfortunately, at times, experience challenges. Fortunately, this unique facility has multiple systems in place that provide appropriate redundancy, so when there is an incident, the public’s safety, as well as worker safety, is not compromised.” The agency said it always takes “appropriate steps” to address incidents when they occur, but provided no details.
    BSL-3 labs are required under federal safety guidelines to have “sustained directional airflow by drawing air into the laboratory from ‘clean’ areas toward ‘potentially contaminated’ areas.”
    The airflow system is designed to protect against the release of microbes, especially those that have the potential to become airborne and infect workers who could spread disease in the community.
    The CDC is responsible for inspecting its own labs, as part of a federal program where it also oversees labs nationwide that work with germs or toxins that could potentially be used as bioweapons.
    Rutgers University biosafety expert Richard Ebright said excerpts of CDC documents provided to him by USA TODAY “raise serious concerns. There appear to be significant irregularities.” The problems seem to be the type that CDC’s inspectors “would flag as major violations in inspections of non-CDC facilities,” Ebright said.
    The same lab building, which opened in 2005 and was touted by the agency as the world’s most advanced laboratory, made news in 2007 when backup generators didn’t work to keep airflow systems working during a power outage, then again in 2008 for a high-containment lab door that was being sealed with duct tape. The duct tape was applied after a 2007 incident where a ventilation system malfunctioned and pulled potentially contaminated air out of the lab and into a “clean” hallway; nine CDC workers were tested for potential exposure to Q fever bacteria. None were infected.
    Most CDC staff quoted in the documents obtained by USA TODAY referred questions to the agency’s press office or did not respond to requests for interviews.
    Anthony Sanchez, the building’s high-containment lab manager, in a brief interview said that although no building is perfect, “the scientists are happy with the facility … It is safe, and we have highly professional persons working in there, and they don’t have anything to worry about.” Sanchez added: “I think the American public has gotten its money worth, and more.”
    The records show that other CDC staff have expressed safety concerns.
    The CDC “will do anything … to hide the fact that we have serious problems with the airflow and containment in this whole building,” wrote CDC animal resources biologist Kismet Scarborough in an April 9 e-mail to several agency officials, including CDC Director Thomas Frieden. Scarborough’s CDC voice-mail greeting describes her position as a high-containment lab manager for the agency’s Animal Resources Branch.
    Scarborough, e-mails indicate, was a witness to the Feb. 16 incident. where air blew out of a potentially contaminated BSL-3 lab into a “clean” corridor.
    Another witness was Eddie Jackson, a biologist and inspector with CDC’s Division of Select Agents and Toxins — the arm of CDC that is responsible for inspecting U.S. labs that work with bioterror germs. Jackson e-mailed a top CDC safety official the day the incident happened. Jackson described how he was part of an escorted group standing outside the door of a lab when an animal technician inside opened an interior door to an animal room. “As the door closed a very noticeable puff of air could be felt coming through the slit in the window out into the ‘clean’ corridor.”
    Jackson noted in his email that Scarborough told him the room didn’t house infected animals at the moment, but there is a room with infected animals on the same corridor. He asked whether there is any risk of exposure for people walking down the hallway without respiratory protection. “Don’t know whether this was a fluke or the norm, and the reason I’m commenting is one of the visitors seemed concerned and has been talking about it since we’ve come back,” Jackson wrote.
    It is unknown what answer Jackson received to his question. According to Scarborough’s April 9 email, CDC safety officials dismissed concerns about the incident saying “it doesn’t matter if the dirty BSL 3 lab blows positive into the clean corridor as long as it is not sustained.” Scarborough called this a “totally ridiculous response” and wrote that she is “horrified and dismayed at the events surrounding safety and the fact that even though this has been taken clear up the chain of command all the way to Dr. Frieden, no one is willing to admit the mistake or more importantly fix it.”
    The mistake Scarborough appears to reference is a decision CDC implemented around late 2010 to re-engineer the air movement within these labs and nearby animal-holding areas. CDC engineers warned in early 2010 that reversing the airflow in this area could have “unintended consequences,” including back-washing dirty air into clean areas when doors are opened and closed.
    According to presentation slides for a February 2010 meeting about reversing the airflow in the lab and animal areas, CDC engineers Karen Moss and Tom Blanchard wrote that with the proposed changes “the potential exists to create large airflow disturbances, vortices and flow mixing between corridor and rooms will result, rooms may become same pressure as dirty corridor.” If the airflow is going to be reversed, they wrote, anterooms — with negative air pressure — would need to be built to preserve airflow integrity.
    The records indicate that CDC never built the anterooms, in part because of concerns about cost and time delays, and because some safety officials questioned whether they were necessary.
    In a February 2010 email, Blanchard proposed sending a bluntly worded memo to the agency’s safety office warning that reversing the airflows in the lab area “represents an extreme departure from the existing design and operation” and that the change will result in “no safeguards against flow disturbances.” It noted that there was not universal acceptance of “such a radical change” by those involved in the building, including animal staff and researchers working with tuberculosis.
    After the air was reversed, air pressure problems developed in some areas resulting in fire code violations. Under certain circumstances, the pressure needed to open doors that scientists and other workers would need to escape through in an emergency is more than three times what the fire code allows, according to a contractor’s report from December 2010 and an e-mail from Moss in January 2011.
    The report noted: “Also, on some doors the excessive negative pressure prevented the release of the electronic security latch as commanded by the card reader; it was necessary to push/pull the door inward/outward before turning the handle and opening the door.” CDC assumed responsibility for reopening the lab area with the “known code violation” and was going to begin work to address it, the contractor’s report said. The CDC wouldn’t say whether the problem has been fixed.
     
    tulianr likes this.
  18. VHestin

    VHestin Farm Chick

    So the bottom line, CDC is too lazy/stupid to take care of the problems?
     
    DMGoddess likes this.
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