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CDC reassigns director
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arirish View Drop Down
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    Posted: June 23 2014 at 6:39am
Exclusive: CDC reassigns director of lab behind anthrax blunder


By Hilary Russ and Julie Steenhuysen

ATLANTA/CHICAGO Mon Jun 23, 2014 12:33am EDT


Reuters) - The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reassigned the director of the bioterror lab behind the potential anthrax exposure of dozens of scientists and staff, sources told Reuters, as the anthrax controversy intensified.

Michael Farrell, head of the CDC's Bioterror Rapid Response and Advanced Technology Laboratory, has been reassigned as the agency investigates the incident, two CDC scientists who are not authorized to speak with press told Reuters.

The possible exposure has forced as many as 84 employees at the agency's Atlanta campus to get a vaccine or take powerful antibiotics with known side effects to ward off potentially deadly anthrax disease.

CDC spokesman Tom Skinner declined to comment on Farrell. Calls and e-mail to Farrell were not returned.

On Friday, the CDC gathered staff at a meeting, where individuals in labs adjacent to the affected areas complained they had not been properly informed about the anthrax incident first discovered on June 13, Skinner said.

In a Friday e-mail to staff, CDC Director Dr Thomas Frieden apologized for delays in informing the wider CDC community about lapses in the high-profile bioterror lab.

"We waited too long to inform the broader CDC workforce," he wrote in the email obtained by Reuters.

According to the CDC, some time between June 6 and June 13, workers in the bioterror lab were trying out a new protocol for killing anthrax before sending the bacteria for use in two lower-security CDC labs.

CDC spokesman Skinner on Sunday said the bioterror lab sent the anthrax bacteria to other labs in closed tubes. The recipients agitated the tubes and then removed the lids, raising concerns that live anthrax could have been released into the air.

Both of the CDC scientists Reuters spoke with believe the risk of infection is very slight because only a tiny amount of anthrax was sent out of the bioterror lab.

On June 18, a team of CDC scientists used swabs and wipes to take samples from all lab surfaces that might have been contaminated.

Skinner said results from the first two days of tests have been negative, but the CDC will continue watching the samples for another six days to see if anything grows.

Dr. Paul Meechan, director of the CDC's environmental health

and safety compliance office, first disclosed the possible

anthrax exposure to Reuters on Thursday.


(Editing by Peter Henderson)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/23/us-usa-anthrax-idUSKBN0EY0A020140623
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^Thanks, you are right on top of this! 
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There is more dirt coming out all the time on mishaps at the CDC!


A second lab was closed after a sample of flu virus was contaminated by a deadly strain of H5N1 bird flu. The contaminated sample was sent from an Atlanta CDC lab to another government lab in Georgia.

The mistaken shipment took place on March 13, but was not discovered for weeks. It was reported to top officials this week and was included in the current report. There were no apparent safety problems after the shipment, the CDC said, but noted “unacceptable delays in reporting of the inadvertent shipment.”

The report also outlined three other questionable shipping incidents, including two in 2006. One 2006 incident involved the shipment of anthrax DNA that was thought to be inactive, but turned out to be viable. The other incident that year involved the botulism bacteria, which was shipped live from a CDC lab to an undisclosed facility. Botulism generally produces a nerve toxin that can cause muscle weakness and can kill if it spread to the respiratory system.

The fifth incident in 2009 involved the shipment of a strain of Brucella, which can cause a contagious bacterial infection called brucellosis. The shipment was incorrectly thought at the time to be a vaccine, the report said.
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Points: 20151 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote onefluover Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 14 2014 at 8:29am
So about one every other year average out of probably many thousands of experiments. Not too bad, considering. Not too good, considering it only takes just one similar mistake to wipe us all out....
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Originally posted by onefluover onefluover wrote:

So about one every other year average out of probably many thousands of experiments. Not too bad, considering. Not too good, considering it only takes just one similar mistake to wipe us all out....

All bad, especially when dealing with select agents = C. Botulinum 

This is not about experiments, but transport of biological materials.  One slip-up would make AFT the most popular site on the web, at least until all the power-plant workers died.  

Mixing H5N1 with H9N2 low-path avian influenza could have created a deadly new reassortment strain, if the culture was being used to inoculate fowl, swine, ferret etc. host animals in a lab with inadequate biosafety protocol.  Paging Captain Trips!  

After 9/11, all the US universities decided to jump on the bioterrorism funding bandwagon, so all sorts of programs were hastily devised & implemented.  The same thing happened with "bird flu" (H5N1), which still hasn't reassorted in nature yet. 

I think that the oversight process failed.  Kawaoa's work is a case in point.  I've posted this before, this is a really important article for us:
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Points: 20151 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote onefluover Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 14 2014 at 11:11am
Yeah, I understand that, Chuck. I just meant 5 foul ups in general over 8 years, whether shipping, abandoned in a cabinet, "un"intentional mixing, or unauthorized experiments, or...authorized but under great protest, there have been relatively few mess ups however, any one of them, along with the ones yet to be discovered or are otherwise classified, we really are flirting with a "Captain Tripps Moment". Nature may end up on the late-freight on this one.

AFT may well soon be the most popular site on the web...briefly. Funny how that works. Well not too funny.
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buh bye


Exclusive: CDC says lab director behind anthrax mishap resigns

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/23/us-usa-anthrax-idUSKBN0FS1TL20140723
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Points: 26660 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote CRS, DrPH Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 23 2014 at 10:54am
Originally posted by Satori Satori wrote:

buh bye


Exclusive: CDC says lab director behind anthrax mishap resigns

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/23/us-usa-anthrax-idUSKBN0FS1TL20140723



Ya beat me to it, including my sarcastic "See ya" type of commentary!! 


NEW YORK (AP) — The head of the government lab which potentially exposed workers to live anthrax has resigned, an agency spokesman said Wednesday.

Michael Farrell was head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lab since 2009. He submitted his resignation Tuesday, the spokesman said.
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There will be more.
"And then there were none."
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