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High Security Animal Disease Lab Faces Uncertain Future
Dupple writes in with a story about the uncertain future of a proposed bio lab in the heart of cattle country. "Plans to build one of the world's most secure laboratories in the heart of rural America have run into difficulties. The National Bio and Agro defense facility (NBAF) would be the first US lab able to research diseases like foot and mouth in large animals. But reviews have raised worries about virus escapes in the middle of cattle country. For over fifty years the United States has carried out research on dangerous animal diseases at Plum Island, just off the coast of New York. However after 9/11 the Department of Homeland Security raised concerns about the suitability of the location and its vulnerability to terrorist attack."
The scientists owe it to the people there to reduce the risk of an escaped pathogen by as much as they can. Once they do that, there really shouldn't be anything to complain about--it would just be pure, irrational fear from what I can see.
I know people that work on plum island. They say that the place will be open till at least 2021. The decision to move it was purely political. At the time the local governments did not want a level 4 facility on the island, Once it was announced that the research would be moved to Kansas they recanted. There has also been much discussion about the wisdom of moving it to the middle of tornado alley and cattle country. Terrorism has had little effect on the decision, an island makes it very easy to control who comes and goes as compared to a facility reachable by foot. It would not surprise me to see them upgrade Plum island and cancel the project in Kansas, on the other hand it is up to the usual political backroom deals.
The Lunatick, Carpe Corpus!
I'm sure that security is better where God and the County Sheriff are packing.
Even a rather large virus will spatter like an overripe melon if hit with a mere .000012 caliber round. The real trick is in the aiming...
Meanwhile, everyone's been ramming through a BSL-4 facility which will study live human diseases, right smack in the middle of Boston:
http://www.wbur.org/2012/04/19/biolab-research-approval
They picked a poor minority neighborhood they and city officials could bully around, and despite public uproar, soon residents can look forward to being neighbors with Ebola.
Apparently BU just couldn't be bothered to build it, say, out somewhere in the suburbs where there'd be some isolation from the general populace. Let's put it right smack in the middle of a city with a big public transit system and an international airport, just so our researchers won't have to hop in a car for a drive. BRILLIANT.
Please help metamoderate.
Yes, surely no one will ever become complacent after working there for a long time.
Many biological safety and containment protocols are regularly disregarded at least in part because scientists think that their own lower assessment of the risk is more accurate than the "bureaucrats" who designed the protocols. Dealing with the lab moron(s) in BSL-2 is a pain. Dealing with them in BSL-4 is potentially deadly.
Stupidity finds a way. That's why designs must be as foolproof as possible.
I thought the first outbreak was in Queens, not right next to Plum Island. Considering West Nile Virus has virtually no symptoms in 80% of the people it infects, and was well spread in parts of Asian, Australia and western Europe by the 60s (not to mention Africa where it came from, where in the 50s it was found 90% of people tested in Egypt had West Nile Virus antibodies), it is kind of surprising it took another 30 years to get to the US.
I'm not worried about some virus spontaneously escaping into the wild. What I'm concerned about is a bunch of militant "animal rights" nitwits getting in and "liberating" diseased animals, causing all kinds of hell.
I've heard that one of the more difficult aspects of working in a level 4 lab is learning not to catch things that are falling, such as scalpels, and that when the scientists go home after work, they don't catch tableware and glasses and such, leading to much domestic strife.
(I don't know how true it is, but it seems to make sense.)
Oh, it's a surprise that SCIENTISTS ARE PEOPLE WITH FUCKING HUMAN NEEDS? Well fuck you up the ass with a goddamn railroad tie. Covered in railroad spikes. And razor wire. Coated in AIDS. And mutant lab rats. And radioactive compounds. And it's fucking on fire.
Don't hold back AC. Tell us how you *really* feel!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
This nearly literal pork-barrel facility (which is already built, BTW) is about a quarter mile up the street of the main campus of Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. It is however, within eyesight of the a) football stadium, b) basketball coliseum, and c) student recreational center. Bonus: just to the west of all of that is the only hospital in the city. Not that animal diseases *ever* jump to humans...
This was all mainly due to one of the worst US Senators in the modern age: Pat Roberts. His other claim to fame was putting off the investigations of the Iraq invasion lies until after the elections to 'take politics out of it'. After the election, he then claimed there was no point in investigating the lies as the past is the past, spilt milk, etc. Scumbag.