“Expired disinfectant, anthrax stored in unsecure freezers and labs, samples stored in Ziploc bags…”
This is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at your service, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which wandered into the CDC to take a look.
That tidbit comes from Jocelyn Kaiser in ScienceInsider, a blog at Science. I caught wind of it in Tabitha M. Powledge‘s On Science Blogs, which looks this week at lab safety and infectious organisms, among other niceties.
Powledge points to Maryn McKenna‘s continuing coverage of infectious diseases at her Superbug blog at Wired. Among many other things, McKenna reports that the six vials of smallpox found last week in an FDA storage room at NIH had company–a staggering 321 more vials, some containing agents “serious enough…to be considered potential bioterror agents.”
Powledge also links to a few posts on a disturbing Science cover featuring a photo of the bodies of sex workers in Jakarta.
It was not a wonderful week for science or Science.
-Paul Raeburn
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