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CDC Moved Dangerous Materials in Ziploc Bags |
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arirish
Admin Group Joined: June 19 2013 Location: Arkansas Status: Offline Points: 39215 |
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Posted: July 15 2014 at 7:25am |
CDC Misplaced Anthrax, Moved Dangerous Materials in Ziploc Bags
In addition to potentially exposing colleagues to H5N1 bird flu and anthrax, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had some trouble identifying their own safety violations. After CDC employees failed to note that the anthrax they shipped to other labs last month was live, the agency conducted an internal investigation and asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to conduct a parallel probe. Congress revealed Monday that APHIS found a long list of violations that the CDC didn't catch, including transferring dangerous materials in Ziploc bags, storing anthrax in unlocked refrigerators in an unrestricted hallway, and misplacing anthrax containers. (Thankfully, APHIS investigators found them). APHIS found that the CDC also made multiple mistakes after learning of the potential exposures. Researchers may have used expired bleach while attempting to decontaminate one lab, and another failed to post warning signs about possible anthrax exposure for days, allowing people to enter the room "without approval." It took the CDC's on-site clinic five days to examine some lab workers, and others were told that rather than visiting the clinic, they should just keep an eye out for signs of anthrax infection. A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee has a hearing scheduled for Wednesday about the anthrax incident last month, and it sounds like they'll have plenty to talk about. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/07/cdc-lost-anthrax-ziploc-bags.html |
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CRS, DrPH
Expert Level Adviser Joined: January 20 2014 Location: Arizona Status: Offline Points: 26660 |
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^Amazing, isn't it?? This is one result of this stuff, heads are rolling (I posted the link in another tread about the NSABB)
14 July 2014 6:45 pm
On the heels of several mishaps involving deadly pathogens, U.S. officials are reconvening an expert advisory panel that hasn’t met in nearly 2 years. But the government has also dismissed 11 of the original members of the 23-person panel, called the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB). “We had no inkling it was going to happen this way,” says Paul Keim, a pathogen genomics researcher at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff who formerly chaired NSABB and has been on the panel since it was formed in 2005. The 11 members learned they were being dismissed Sunday evening in an e-mail from the board’s executive director, Mary Groesch, who works at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), NSABB’s overseer. The e-mail prompted this tweet from NSABB member Michael Imperiale of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor: “#NIH just gave remaining inaugural NSABB members pink sheets. Bizarre time to eliminate all institutional memory.” |
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CRS, DrPH
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arirish
Admin Group Joined: June 19 2013 Location: Arkansas Status: Offline Points: 39215 |
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I read your other post and you're spot on with your remarks! Clean house and start over! This would make a good commercial though. I see a woman shaking an upside down ziploc bag of anthrax and saying " When you have dangerous material to store, use the brand guaranteed not to spill"!
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onefluover
Admin Group Joined: April 21 2013 Location: Death Valleyish Status: Offline Points: 20151 |
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"...these ones are best for weed!" |
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"And then there were none."
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