Smallpox stored at the FDA

Parent Cafe
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<p>Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/07/08/smallpox-discovered-sitting-in-maryland-storage-room/”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/07/08/smallpox-discovered-sitting-in-maryland-storage-room/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>It is not that surprising to anyone who has worked in a research lab, xiggi. :slight_smile: Lab fridges and cold rooms are notorious black holes that hold samples and vials of god-knows-what-obtained-who-knows-when. The rusty metal flammable storage cabinet that we had in the attic storage room at my big research U… I would not touch that with a long pole. :)</p>

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<p>Oh, I see how things get stored without concern, but I thought smallpox vials had been inventoried on an international basis. </p>

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<p>A teaching facility near me accidentally let some rats escape from their lab. Problem was, they were infected with bubonic plague… The university said there was no danger since they would die soon. </p>

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<p>I saw that. :open_mouth: </p>

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<p>Yes, of course! I mean those vials were sitting there since the good old days when international inventory was not a concern. </p>

<p>Sent it to a friend, and the response was, “holy …!”</p>

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<p>The FDA isnt the only forgetful govt entity.
<a href=“http://www.seattlepi.com/news/us/article/4-DEA-employees-encountered-man-forgotten-in-cell-5607552.php”>http://www.seattlepi.com/news/us/article/4-DEA-employees-encountered-man-forgotten-in-cell-5607552.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>

LOL</p>

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<p>Scientists at private companies are just as forgetful - guess where they get their PhDs? In academia. Those were vials from the 70s, placed in the storage room, long before smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980, and forgotten. Maybe the virus was inactivated. Maybe not. Scientists can be pretty cavalier about dangerous stuff they are comfortable with - I knew some chemists who would not think twice about sticking a finger into a flask with battery acid. This lax attitude towards safety sometimes drives me nuts! </p>

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<p>When my daughter was in the UW nicu, she had quite a few xrays.
The radiologist did not wear either gloves or an apron.
( because of her age & illness, she had to be held during the procedure)</p>

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<p>Maybe the guys at the Maryland lab were keeping a stash tucked away of the smallpox virus in case of a World War Z like zombie crisis. Scary stuff the virus just sitting around in a storage room.</p>

<p>People can find a lot of crazy toxic stuff sometimes tucked away in their own homes under kitchen sink or in a utility room. We once found under a workbench in our garage an old box containing used liquor bottles filled with parathion. </p>

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<p>The article says that the vials originated in the 1950s. It also says that they were found in a lab operated by the FDA since 1972 (so perhaps they were moved then to the location they were recently rediscovered at).</p>

<p>Last wild Variola major case: 1975, Bangladesh
Last wild Variola minor case: 1977, Somalia
Last cases due to lab accident: 1978, UK</p>

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<p>Back when I was a chemist in Big Pharma, we had a walk-in storage freezer for commercially-purchased chemicals as well as for intermediates we made in lab. As Bunsen Burner said, it became a black hole repository for stuff you didn’t want to throw away (but didn’t want to keep in your lab fridge or on your benchtop.)</p>

<p>There came a time when the cold room was shut down and we had to clean it out. Of course, most of its contents went unclaimed. What a nightmare! 50-year-old flasks without labels, ancient beakers full of evil-looking solutions, bottles full of unknown crystals that could very will be toxic or explosive…the disposal bill for that cold room had to have been astronomical. </p>

<p>I’m not saying there were any smallpox cultures in there, but…</p>

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<p>Bethesda, where smallpox was found recently, is only about 40 miles from Fort Detrick. Detrick is where U.S. biological weapons program was based. I’m sure U.S. military could get its hands on weaponized smallpox if it wanted to…same with Russia.</p>

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<p>This is much worse:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/09/us-iraq-security-nuclear-idUSKBN0FE2KT20140709”>http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/09/us-iraq-security-nuclear-idUSKBN0FE2KT20140709&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Plenty of nuclear crap to make a dirty bomb.</p>