singular_me
18th June 2016, 09:40 AM
failures... yeah right, what could happen to those pathogens, many of which do not even exist in nature?
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CDC Covered Up 'Catastrophic Failures' At Level-4 Biosafety Labs Containing Ebola And Smallpox
18 June 2016 GMT
‘How safe are the government’s BSL-4 labs containing some of the world’s most deadly pathogens?
Turns out, not anywhere near as safe as you’d hope.
In fact, there is more reason than ever to think that things could play out like the plot of an unsettling pandemic movie – where, say, a virus escapes from a government lab and spreads rapidly throughout the population.
And unfortunately for all of us, the dense cities and sprawling suburbs of modern development are all-too-vulnerable to the rapid, viral spread of a contagion, as numerous flawed laboratories seem ready to fail and unleash something unspeakable.’
An exposé in USA TODAY shows the frightening potential for looming disaster:
Encased in spacesuit-like gear needed to protect them from the world’s deadliest viruses, four scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stepped into their lab’s decontamination chamber where a shower of chemicals was supposed to kill anything on them and make it safe for them to exit into an adjacent changing room.
But the shower wouldn’t start, and warning lights appeared as a cascading series of safety systems began to fail inside one of the world’s most advanced biosafety level 4 labs. That’s the highest level of containment and security, reserved for work with deadly Ebola and smallpox viruses and other pathogens that lack vaccines or reliable treatments.
[…]
The shower’s door back into the infectious disease lab “forcefully” burst open again and again – and they couldn’t even hold it shut. Meanwhile, air pressure alarms were blinking and monitors displayed the lab as “red,” according to records of the February 2009 incident recently obtained by USA TODAY under a Freedom of Information Act.
[…] “The incident summary reads like a screenplay for a disaster movie,” said Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University biosafety expert who reviewed the report at USA TODAY’s request and called it a major incident.
“Overall, the incident shows that failures — even cascading, compounding, catastrophic failures of BSL-4 biocontainment labs occur,” said Ebright, who has testified before Congress about CDC safety issues. “And the attempted cover-up within the CDC makes it clear that the CDC cannot be relied upon to police its own, much less other institutions.”
http://www.activistpost.com/2016/06/cdc-covered-up-failures-at-bio-labs-containing-ebola-smallpox.html
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/06/02/newly-disclosed-cdc-lab-incidents-fuel-concerns-safety-transparency/84978860/
--------------------------
CDC Covered Up 'Catastrophic Failures' At Level-4 Biosafety Labs Containing Ebola And Smallpox
18 June 2016 GMT
‘How safe are the government’s BSL-4 labs containing some of the world’s most deadly pathogens?
Turns out, not anywhere near as safe as you’d hope.
In fact, there is more reason than ever to think that things could play out like the plot of an unsettling pandemic movie – where, say, a virus escapes from a government lab and spreads rapidly throughout the population.
And unfortunately for all of us, the dense cities and sprawling suburbs of modern development are all-too-vulnerable to the rapid, viral spread of a contagion, as numerous flawed laboratories seem ready to fail and unleash something unspeakable.’
An exposé in USA TODAY shows the frightening potential for looming disaster:
Encased in spacesuit-like gear needed to protect them from the world’s deadliest viruses, four scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stepped into their lab’s decontamination chamber where a shower of chemicals was supposed to kill anything on them and make it safe for them to exit into an adjacent changing room.
But the shower wouldn’t start, and warning lights appeared as a cascading series of safety systems began to fail inside one of the world’s most advanced biosafety level 4 labs. That’s the highest level of containment and security, reserved for work with deadly Ebola and smallpox viruses and other pathogens that lack vaccines or reliable treatments.
[…]
The shower’s door back into the infectious disease lab “forcefully” burst open again and again – and they couldn’t even hold it shut. Meanwhile, air pressure alarms were blinking and monitors displayed the lab as “red,” according to records of the February 2009 incident recently obtained by USA TODAY under a Freedom of Information Act.
[…] “The incident summary reads like a screenplay for a disaster movie,” said Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University biosafety expert who reviewed the report at USA TODAY’s request and called it a major incident.
“Overall, the incident shows that failures — even cascading, compounding, catastrophic failures of BSL-4 biocontainment labs occur,” said Ebright, who has testified before Congress about CDC safety issues. “And the attempted cover-up within the CDC makes it clear that the CDC cannot be relied upon to police its own, much less other institutions.”
http://www.activistpost.com/2016/06/cdc-covered-up-failures-at-bio-labs-containing-ebola-smallpox.html
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/06/02/newly-disclosed-cdc-lab-incidents-fuel-concerns-safety-transparency/84978860/