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Sloppy Biosafety Procedures Found At Federal Disease Center
schwit1 writes: An investigation of a federal center for studying dangerous diseases in primates has found serious biosafety procedure violations. "Concerns arose at the center in Covington, Louisiana, after two rhesus macaques became ill in late November with melioidosis, a disease caused by the tropical bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei. In January, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Department of Agriculture investigators traced the strain infecting the primates to a vaccine research lab working with mice. Last month, as the investigation continued, CDC suspended the primate center's 10 or so research projects involving B. pseudomallei and other select agents (a list of dangerous bacteria, viruses, and toxins that are tightly regulated). Meanwhile, a report in USA Today suggested the bacterium might have contaminated the center's soil or water. In addition, workers "frequently entered the select agent lab without appropriate protective clothing," the release says. No center staff has shown signs of illness. On 12 March, however, Tulane announced that blood tests have found that one worker has low levels of antibodies to the bacterium, suggesting possible exposure at the center, according to ABC News."
Training is needed for every employee, from the managers to the cleaning people. People need to how to don and doff PPE's and how to properly dispose of contaminated clothing. I worked in a facility with toxic chemicals and always brought clean clothes and took a shower before I left work.
Generally any time you do anything for the government there is a pile of safety proceedures, regulations, and minutia that is often contradictory. Often, the rules are so numerous that complying with them will take enough time to get you fired. Oh - doing the actual physical safety steps may not be out of reach, but complying with the paperwork required with each step takes a lot of time and catches attention. There's always people fighting for dominance in government organizations, doing the paperwork properly is likely to catch the attenion of someone from a rival contractor who's in charge of THAT part of the program, that person may invent a problem out of the paperwork to make YOUR organization look bad so that THEIR organization has a better chance at bidding the contract next time. Also complying with one rule calls another into question, and there can be months of meetings and discussion, during which time you're expected to fill out dozens of surveys, do hours and hours of training, and oh, BTW, why aren't you getting your work done?
No - in government jobs a fuck-all attitude is the only way to get work done. Sometimes there's fairly good worker on government contracts in spite of the rules. I personally tried to comply with the physical saftey aspects of every job I did even if shunning the paperwork, which was way more than my coworkers did. I've actually been talked to by supervisor who won't tell you to violate the rules - not in those words, but will give beat around the bush wordings as to what they actually want you to do.
Whether we're talking about handling level 4 agents, following protocol in a nuclear reactor, or paying attention working on a 14,400 volt transmission line, we always get complacent and stupidly comfortable.
After doing a dangerous thing enough times, humans lose that life-preserving fear reflex. That's one reason robots will be needed for space travel.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
*Citation needed