Pentagon Halts Work at Labs For Dangerous Pathogens After Anthrax Scare 50
An anonymous reader writes: The Pentagon announced yesterday it is issuing a moratorium on work at nine different biodefense labs after live anthrax was discovered outside containment at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. The facility was discovered to have been shipping live anthrax specimens — instead of dead ones — to other labs. Work can only begin again after the shuttered facilities are certain to be clean of anthrax and assured of safe conduct. "The review calls for the military labs to ensure that personnel are properly trained on lab safety procedures and that necessary maintenance is conducted on biosafety level 3 lab facilities that work with some of the most dangerous pathogens. It calls for validating record-keeping and inventories of the military's 'Critical Reagents Program' — including 'ensuring that all materials associated with the CRP are properly accounted for.'"
Oops. (Score:4, Funny)
Han Solo: [sounding official] Uh, everything's under control. Situation normal.
Voice: What happened?
Han Solo: [getting nervous] Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?
On the other end of the line... (Score:1)
Voice: Good. Well, it's good that you're fine, and - and I'm fine. I agree with you. It's great to be fine.
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No, not "voice", but Merkin Muffley [wikipedia.org].
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It was a boring conversation anyway.
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I understand the specific order was (Score:4, Funny)
"If you can't keep your toys in your room, then you won't be playing with them at all. No, I really mean it this time."
The scientists' dessert privileges were also revoked in an unrelated incident.
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It beats me why, but I wish this came from a lost episode of "Better Off Ted".
Lem and Phil were my favorites.
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One of my favorite shows of all time. I only discovered it long after it had aired and was canceled.
Obvious Hashtag Alert... (Score:1)
The facility was discovered to have been shipping live anthrax specimens — instead of dead ones — to other labs.
#whatcouldpossiblygowrong ...
Re:Obvious Hashtag Alert... (Score:5, Insightful)
#whatcouldpossiblygowrong ...
Anthrax is found everywhere in nature. All over the globe. And it has been around for all of recorded history.
It has been a staple of anyone who works with wool or sheep, and even back in the earliest recorded medical history the effects of the bacteria have been present. It's been documented since the ancient greeks and egyptians.
Anthrax was even one of the first biological weapons, ancient Romans around bombarded cities with anthrax-diseased sheep corpses.Google brings up the name Manius Aquillius (150BC) as a commander who frequently used infected corpses in warfare.
This isn't like they sent out a nuclear bomb core. Some people didn't irradiate samples of a naturally occurring bacteria than can be easily collected on every continent already, it is even found on Antarctica.
Re:Obvious Hashtag Alert... (Score:5, Insightful)
Uranium and Arsenic can be found in many places too. It's the human-refined versions which are a bit more troublesome.
Toxicity is always a matter of concentration.
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Organisms found in nature vary in their virulence. Offensive and defensive Bio-warfare programs tend to collect the deadlier or more "interesting" strains suitable for the purpose.
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new shipping company? (Score:1)
Clearly the automated barcode reader tool which should have grabbed boxes of dead rather than live anthrax has been co-opted by Skynet. Not as much fun as nuking cities, but leads to the same mountains of skeletons in the end.
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Clearly the automated barcode reader tool which should have grabbed boxes of dead rather than live anthrax has been co-opted by Skynet. Not as much fun as nuking cities, but leads to the same mountains of skeletons in the end.
I wonder if they are using the same system as Amazon which kept shipping me size 11.5 shoes when I specifically ordered 10.5 shoes and which lists a slightly longer pipe for 3x the cost (Someone typed $92 when it clearly should be $42) of the shorter pipe ($38). The point is that most automated systems are only as good as the data input by the user.
Of course, there is always the chance that whatever is being used to kill the anthrax is malfunctioning.
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Re:I wonder... (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't need intelligence to follow procedure, you need to follow procedure to follow procedure. That's why there's a procedure to follow.
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So, would you call that a subroutine?
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> So, would you call that a subroutine?
Well obviously I'd have to check the procedure on naming procedures and follow that procedure...
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So, will we be replacing the microbiologists with a very small shell script?
Re: I wonder... (Score:2, Interesting)
Outlining a procedure isn't enough if you rely on faulty memory or you're plagued by monotony. Using a checklist rests compliance from the jaws of distraction.
Even highly trained intelligent people dealing with deadly procedures fall prey to oversight. Ask the Airforce, they developed checklists to keep flight crews alive. Decades later, hospitals adopted checklists to decrease fatal surgical mistakes.
The Checklist Manifesto is a book that promoted the use of checklists in medicine. Apparently it hasn't bee
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You don't need intelligence to follow procedure, you need to follow procedure to follow procedure. That's why there's a procedure to follow.
Procedures alone don't cut it. You have to understand the procedure, understand when the situation doesn't fit the procedure, etc.
That's why the Navy's nuclear program, for example - definitely no stranger to procedure - also recruits smart people, and trains the heck out of them, not just in procedure but in theory.
It's expensive, highly selective, and therefore deeply unpopular in today's world - yet absolutely necessary if you are dealing with dangerous stuff.
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Actually, for some people, the winter season around the mountains and minor cultural things like Sundance would be all they need. Besides, U of U has a pretty good med school as far as research goes - I'd tend to think they'd know them some pathogens.
If you relocated about 90% of the indigenous religious folk, SLC might be a decent place to live.
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How much of a minority? A sizeable minority is still a problem, and has a huge effect on the overall culture of a city. Face it, SLC simply isn't known to be a liberal city in any way, not like Seattle or Portland or SanFran. The kind of people who'd really like to live in one of those cities probably would hate it in SLC.
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Interesting)
I work in the parent organization for the lab in Edgewood Maryland. The lab in Utah belongs to a different command. I'm going to say what you probably expect me to say, which is that we've got really good people. We have people whose work was used in Africa against Ebola, who are working on bar-coding spores, synthetic biology, scanning suspicious mail for the White House and the UN, etc. If you remember the mission during which the U.S. neutralized the Syrian chemical weapons stockpiles, all the actual scientists and engineers but one or two came from our labs, and they also designed the equipment and went to sea to do the de-mil. You may remember it as the Cape Ray mission, but it should probably have been called the Edgewood mission.
One non-obvious reason people work for the Army is that we do things nobody else needs to do. So, for example, Edgewood lab is the only place in the country certified to remove level 4 hazards from explosives. You can't get that kind of excitement just anywhere.
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Edgewood lab is the only place in the country certified to remove level 4 hazards from explosives. You can't get that kind of excitement just anywhere.
oh yeah? well i work from home. [youtube.com]
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Edgewood lab is the only place in the country certified to remove level 4 hazards from explosives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level#Biosafety_level_4 is your level 4 explosive precaution required, or something your organization uses? And Anthrax was present in BSL-3 facilities (though I don't know the current status). So your comments about BSL-4 are irrelevant to handling anthrax anyway.
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Seattle sucks too, they don't even have high-speed internet service.
The suburbs of Seattle might be OK though. And at least they (and Denver) don't have the insane pollution levels that Utah has. Last I heard, SLC has the highest pollution in the US.
Construction concerns (Score:2)
I just hope that they make sure the contractors install all of the self-destruct deactivation substations properly.
=Smidge=
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The Stand (Score:2)
Didn't I watch this on TV? Oh yeah...it was The Stand.
acronym fixed (Score:2)
We heard this before... (Score:2)
A reminder to all Black Mesa personnel: Regular radiation and biohazard screenings are a requirement of continued employment in the Black Mesa Research Facility. Missing a scheduled urinalysis or radiation check-up is grounds for immediate termination. If you feel you have been exposed to radioactive or other hazardous materials in the course of your duties, contact your radiation safety officer immediately. Work safe, work smart. Your future depends on it.
- Half-Life Announcement
Planning a new TV show about this (Score:2)
Probably some way to get around paperwork (Score:2)
Didn't the lab just send live pathogens intentionally as a way to work around paperwork?
Like maybe the request for dead pathogens is interpreted by both party as a request for live ones but without the additional paperwork. Considering how overzealous regulators can be, the procedure required to send dead pathogens is probably secure enough for live ones.
Does Weaponized Anthrax Dream of Electric Sheep? (Score:2)
Go to a farm. Rub your face up against a sheep.
I pray the Lord your soul to keep.
And then through gamma, out of sight, but we decide which is right.
And which is an illusion.
You now have Anthrax all over your face.
Beauty to find, in so many ways.
...The Pentagon announced yesterday it is issuing a moratorium on work at nine different bio-defense labs...
Hear ye! A moratorium has been pentagonally squozen. All is frozen, as is in the Frozen River of Orange Stone.
Dark works be done there, just as did Melkor in secret breed the hideous race of the Orcs
in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes,
and so it goes, and so it goes. Naught moves there. Some poised as t