Having just succeeded in damping down public concern over escaped anthrax spores, the head of CDC now contemplates the fact that his agency accidentally sent the deadly H5N1 bird flu to a USDA lab instead of a more harmless one.
This, as experts told the NY Times, could potentially have wiped out the American poultry industry.
What the NY Times article does not mention is that if things had progressed to the point where H5N1 was rampaging through the US poultry industry, wiping out every chicken in the country, there would have been a high chance of the virus, which has shown itself capable of infecting humans, mutating to the form which the entire world fears - a form easily transmissible between humans.
Elena
From NY Times 13 July 2014
ATLANTA — Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, spent much of Wednesday completing a report that would let the public see, in embarrassing detail, how the sloppy handling of anthrax by scientists at its headquarters here had potentially exposed dozens of employees to the deadly bacteria.
But just as he was sitting down for a late-afternoon lunch at his Washington, D.C., office, an urgent call came in. There had been another accident, this one just as disturbing, if not more so — and no one in the agency’s top leadership had been informed about it until that Monday, though the C.D.C.’s lab had been told about it more than a month earlier.
C.D.C. workers had somehow shipped a dangerous strain of avian influenza to a poultry research lab run by the Department of Agriculture. Known as H5N1, the virus had killed more than half of the 650 people who had been infected with it since 2003. Continue reading the main story Related in Opinion
Editorial: The Disturbing Anthrax AccidentJUNE 26, 2014
“I was, just frankly, stunned and appalled,” Dr. Frieden said in an interview Saturday. Photo A mass spectrometer that the agency put out of commission over fears of anthrax contamination. Credit Dustin Chambers for The New York Times
The recent revelations have created a crisis of faith in the federal agency, prompting calls for an independent body to investigate such episodes in the future, as well as for sweeping changes at the agency and to a sprawling web of research labs that has grown after the 2001 terror attacks led to an intensified focus on microbes that could be used as biological weapons.
Dr. Michael Bell, a 19-year C.D.C. veteran who has been appointed by Dr. Frieden to a new position overseeing laboratory safety, said in an interview Saturday that he was most concerned about the “potential for hubris” among researchers who grow so inured to the daily grind of working with deadly microbes that they cease to follow safety protocols. The agency both conducts that research and is charged with ensuring that other labs adhere to federal safety standards.
The agency’s internal investigation of the troubling events, made public Friday, found that senior staff members had failed to write up a plan for researchers to follow in the anthrax study. It also faulted scientists who neglected to review the existing literature before working with the deadly pathogen, and found that the agency was ill-prepared to respond to a potential exposure episode.
“It is ironic that the institution that sets U.S. standards for safety and security of work with human pathogens fails to meet its own standards,” Richard H. Ebright, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, wrote in an email Saturday. “It is clear that the C.D.C. cannot be relied upon to police its own select-agent labs.”
Dr. Frieden has closed the agency’s flu and bioterror laboratories and has banned all shipments from the agency’s highest-security labs while safety protocols are reviewed — a move that could freeze work at many public-health labs that rely on such shipments
Later this month, the C.D.C. will invite outside experts to form an external advisory group on lab safety. But some experts say that the agency should not police itself. Continue reading the main story
Najmedin Meshkati, an engineering professor at the University of Southern California who teaches a course in investigating accidents, commended Dr. Frieden for his candor. But he said that the C.D.C. should turn to an independent institution like the United States National Academies, which includes the National Academy of Sciences, to address safety problems. Others suggested an agency with subpoena powers comparable to the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates airline crashes and can ground whole fleets it deems unsafe.
Dr. Frieden said the idea of an independent investigative agency was “certainly worth exploring.”
The anthrax accident occurred on June 5 in the agency’s bioterrorism rapid response lab. C.D.C. researchers in Atlanta had been preparing to test a faster way to identify dangerous substances. The lab used a virulent anthrax strain in the test when a weaker one would have worked.
The work was conducted in area classified as a “three” on the biosafety scale, with four being the highest security level. Such labs work with microorganisms that may lead to serious illness or death if inhaled, and follow strict safety guidelines: Workers wear safety hoods that filter air and typically work with infectious materials in special ventilated boxes called biosafety cabinets.
On June 2, according to the report, a lab supervisor called a scientist at another lab who had done similar work on a different bacterium, brucella, which can cause fevers and swelling in humans.
The written protocol for preparing brucella for the test was sent to the bioterrorism lab, and the supervisor told a scientist to follow it while preparing eight dangerous pathogens, including anthrax. But anthrax forms hardy spores, while brucella does not.
In addition, the brucella protocol required that bacteria be killed in a bath of formic acid for 10 minutes, and that small samples of it be incubated for 48 hours to be sure it was dead.
But a mix-up occurred when the instructions were conveyed over the phone. The scientist incubated the test samples for only 24 hours before sending the bulk of the bacteria to less-secure labs. Some of the bacteria were not filtered to remove spores. Continue reading the main story Related Coverage
A 1975 image of smallpox. Two of six vials of smallpox stored at the National Institutes of Health since 1954 contained live virus capable of infecting people, it was announced Friday. C.D.C. Closes Anthrax and Flu Labs After AccidentsJULY 11, 2014 Six Vials of Smallpox Discovered in Laboratory Near WashingtonJULY 8, 2014 C.D.C. Details Anthrax Scare for Scientists at FacilitiesJUNE 19, 2014 SWEEPING Since arriving at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in June, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden has scrapped most of the Bush-era changes. Scientist at Work: Dr. Thomas R. Frieden: At C.D.C., Obama’s Appointee Wields a Big BroomMARCH 15, 2010
After 24 hours, one scientist tried to sterilize the test plates in a high-power steam autoclave. But its door was stuck, so the plates were returned to the incubator. It was an inconvenience that would prove extremely lucky.
Over the next few days, scientists in two other labs where breathing equipment was not used agitated the bacteria and sprayed them with compressed gas, which could have blown spores into the air.
On June 13, one scientist checked the incubated plates and saw that anthrax was growing. If the door to the autoclave had opened properly and, as the report noted, the plates had been sterilized, “the event would not have been discovered.”
The troubling finding was reported immediately, according to the report. Rooms were closed off, and floors, tabletops, equipment and door handles were decontaminated. Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story
Lab tests would later determine that the chemical bath would have killed any live, growing anthrax sent out of the lab, but not all the dangerous spores. Staff exposure, the report concluded, was “not impossible,” but “extremely unlikely.”
By looking at videotapes and the use of door key cards, managers tried to figure out who might have been exposed. They discovered another safety violation: staffers often “piggybacked,” following colleagues through doors without using their own cards.
Ultimately, 62 employees were offered vaccines and antibiotics. None have shown signs of illness related to anthrax exposure.
C.D.C. officials learned of the avian flu blunder from the Agriculture Department’s poultry lab in Athens, Ga. It had received a C.D.C. shipment of what was supposed to be a relatively benign H9N2 bird flu virus. But it was contaminated with H5N1 bird flu and rapidly killed test chickens. H5N1 is deadly to humans but not easily transmitted between them. In birds, it can wipe out flocks overnight.
Fortunately, both labs had used high-security precautions. Had it slipped out of either laboratory, it might have killed some people and would possibly have devastated the American poultry industry, several experts said.
The near miss should have been reported immediately to top leadership, but was not. The flu lab heard from the Agriculture Department on May 23, but it was not reported to senior C.D.C. leadership until July 7.
Dr. Frieden said the delay shocked him because the agency’s flu lab is renowned in its field.
He and Dr. Bell said in interviews that the bioterror lab might have lax management and the flu lab might have workers who are afraid to speak out. Both problems are dangerous.
“It’s going to take a while to sort that out,” Dr. Frieden said.
The report recalled other errors. In 2006, the agency accidentally sent live anthrax to two other labs, and also shipped out live botulism bacteria.
Several experts on biosecurity noted that the inspector general’s office of the Department of Health and Human Services sent official complaints to the C.D.C. in 2008, 2009 and 2010 about undertrained lab personnel and improperly secured shipments.
Both Dr. Frieden and his predecessor, Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, replied in letters over their signatures that the problems would be fixed.
The agency’s report Friday suggested that fewer labs should be handling dangerous microbes.
-------------------- Justice will be ours. Posts: 786 | From UK | Registered: Oct 2007
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posted
I'm so upset with all of this information coming out and it's like no one believed that lyme+co wasn't a bio terror let loose from Plum Island. Everyone thought we were wackos who knew this and tried to get the word out so many years ago.
And still, the CDC fights our spokepeople on lyme treatment.....their hands are dirty and I'd just like to send an envelope full of deer ticks to them.
However, I am neither strong enough nor hateful enough to become a bio-terrorist like them.
Still, why haven't the news agencies picked up the connection we've been trying to prove for so many years?
Why doesn't everyone whose life has been affected personally by this attack on US soil contact their Senators and Congress reps to complain and call for an investigation?
I just don't get it......are we all too sick or is it that we know it's futile?
We are the hypochondriacs, the winers, the crazies who have no voice.
Does anyone know if the lyme activists are doing anything to let Americans know that the danger has already affected hundreds of thousands of us?
Posts: 19 | From PA | Registered: May 2014
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posted
I do not even know how to comment on this. It is born of human hubris and folly. And, tragically of greed or even evil intent, though I would like to hope for a better world. I guess it is up to us, even though many are debilitated. Most news agencies are selling a corporate or political agenda. It is through independent filmakers, local activists, social media etc that the truth is coming out. Actually, I am surprised this has been released in the mainstream. I believe some day things will get better. For whatever reason, it is us who are on the front lines of this particular crisis. Never give up. We do have a voice.
Posts: 172 | From ohio | Registered: Feb 2010
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Razzle
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