It’s 10 o’Clock — Do You Know Where Your Bubonic Plague Is? - Laurie Garrett (Foreign Policy)
▻http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/07/10/it_s_10_o_clock_do_you_know_where_your_bubonic_plague_is_smallpox
Now that the security of all of these facilities has been proven — to put it politely — “flawed,” it seems wise to rethink the larger notion of “biosafety” in our time of gain-of-function research, synthetic biology, and directed evolution. As I recently laid out during a TEDx talk, we are hard pressed to demonstrate that public safety is intact for the organisms we know, like smallpox and anthrax, much less for the new, previously unknown ones that are being created now in less secure facilities, like high school labs.
After Lapses, C.D.C. Admits a Lax Culture at Labs - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/us/after-lapses-cdc-admits-a-lax-culture-at-labs.html
The report recalled other errors. In 2006, the agency accidentally sent live anthrax to two other labs, and also shipped out live botulism bacteria.
Several experts on biosecurity noted that the inspector general’s office of the Department of Health and Human Services sent official complaints to the C.D.C. in 2008, 2009 and 2010 about undertrained lab personnel and improperly secured shipments.
Both Dr. Frieden and his predecessor, Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, replied in letters over their signatures that the problems would be fixed.
The agency’s report Friday suggested that fewer labs should be handling dangerous microbes.
Avian Flu Diary: FDA Statement On Additional 300 Vials Discovered At NIH Campus Lab
▻http://afludiary.blogspot.ca/2014/07/fda-statement-on-additional-300-vials.html
Among these latest discoveries are vials marked as containing such diverse pathogens as dengue, influenza, Q fever, and rickettsia, and are believed to date back 50 years or more.
