U.S. says 75 government scientists possibly exposed to live anthrax

June 19 (Reuters) - As many as 75 scientists working in U.S. federal government laboratories in Atlanta may have been exposed to live anthrax bacteria and are being offered treatment to prevent infection,

www.trust.org...

This is one of the reasons we shouldn't have live Anthrax in a lab. Is there anything they can do if you have been exposed to live Anthrax?

The article says they are offering treatment for the ones possibly exposed, so will that work if they were exposed and inhaled it?

They must have known too much.
Does this count as half credit towards all the bio scientists dying lately?

a reply to: alienjuggalo

While rare we do have Anthrax occurring naturally ... more so in the western states...
because it does they need to work on treatments, cures. Just makes sense.
CDC Anthrax Basics

a reply to: alienjuggalo

I see a possible Darwin Award being given to a highly trained government scientist.

Stories like this, make me question what level of training in dangerous substances is really going on.

Des

Yes, there is a vaccine, last I knew there was only one company in the US producing it.

I've worked construction there & it is a heavily armed compound.

I was just wondering if this had anything to do with the ISIL story of the terrorist organization getting their hands on chemical weapons. I think it would be more of just a coincidence if you see ISIL use anthrax in Iraq. If you hear a story about ISIL or levant using anthrax in Iraq, there is definitely something fishy going on. Guess we will wait and see

a reply to: alienjuggalo

Well...

That seems a tad careless. Of course, by a tad careless, what I mean to say is that everyone involved should be fired from their current jobs, and blacklisted to ever work in any laboratory carrying anything more intrinsically dangerous than a pipette.

Good grief!

Now, obviously anthrax is nasty stuff, and when thinking about matters pertaining to laboratory stocks of the stuff, one tends to think of engineered toxins, rather than good old fashioned vanilla anthrax spores. However, just an interesting little aside, anthrax can occur naturally, or at least, in unlikely places. One of those is on traditionally made, animal hide drum skins. People who build them are much more likely to come into contact with the stuff, which makes me think two things.

Number one, screw making traditional drums for a living, or owning a set for that matter. Also, that is some hell of a level of dedication "Yeah, I could get anthrax, but I love making drums, and I think everyone should have a beat in their life!".

The HELL with that!

Why OH Why must they play with this?
How hard can it be to figure out this crap is only intended to kill people, it is not for our well being at all.

It's popularity seemed to increase after the contrived 911 Murders.
Idiots every one of them.
ETA S&F
Regards, Iwinder

Why are we still screwing around with anthrax?

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: alienjuggalo

Well...

That seems a tad careless. Of course, by a tad careless, what I mean to say is that everyone involved should be fired from their current jobs, and blacklisted to ever work in any laboratory carrying anything more intrinsically dangerous than a pipette.

Yes... they bloody well should be fired.

The potential exposure occurred after researchers working in a high-level biosecurity laboratory at the agency's Atlanta campus failed to follow proper procedures to inactivate the bacteria. They then transferred the samples, which may have contained live bacteria, to lower-security CDC labs not equipped to handle live anthrax.

www.cbc.ca...

Up to 75 possibly being exposed, not to mention anyone else they may have been in contact with and who they subsequentially could also have exposed.



Not very professional, imho... downright careless, actually. This is what happens when you have a boring job handling dangerous materials.

Well i dont know why we need to know about this sorta stuff.

People make errors because ::human:: and in any field, explosives, radioactive, harmful chemicals, huge evil machinery, mining the list goes on.

we rarely hear about those accidents, if a bad nasty bug or toxin gets out, sure panic - but if its a contained incident (however bad, excuse my inhumanity) is it not better to not worry the public and deal with it rather than broadcast pure panic porn?

just saying, hate or love me.

biigs.

a reply to: Biigs

Sorry to tell you. But in the news tonight it was told, that the labs the LIVE anthrax was taken to. Are not secure nor set up for dealing with LIVE anthrax. That a couple of the lower level labs, the LIVE anthrax got into the air system.

The CDC is also refusing to tell how many of the 75 lab workers are being treated with a 2 month supply of ciprofloxacin.

CDC is saying they can't give the numbers of those being treated, due to ongoing testing of new people possibly exposed to the LIVE anthrax.

Researchers at a high-security CDC lab transferred the samples to three other labs not equipped for live anthrax. The agency is investigating whether the samples, which are handled under strict procedures, contained live spores when they were passed along. Believing the samples had been inactivated, scientists at the other labs handled the specimens without wearing protective gear.

Between June 6 and Friday, procedures followed at two of the three labs may have aerosolized the spores, CDC investigators also found.
www.usatoday.com...

Also remember, this was discovered last Friday. Workers had already been to other places and home.

Seeing as I live a short 3 hour drive from the CDC...it is of concern to me.

Des

a reply to: Biigs

Well Biggs, it's like this.

In a nation which is governed by an allegedly elected body of people, the public must be informed of the serious issues, so that they can vote for candidates who want the same things they do.

In this case, let's say that candidate A wants to ban all but the top five most secure bio labs in the country, from handling anthrax, and candidate B thinks everyone should be allowed a sample, the people can choose between them, based on their attitudes toward serious matters like these.

However, I really would not worry about that, because you can trust a campaign promise right up until a government is elected, and not one bit after that, no matter what party gets in. It's the same over here in the UK. People have been protesting about chemical weapons research and nuclear weapons around these parts for longer than I have had a pulse, but the government never listens to its citizens, and probably never will, unless they end up with a knife up one nostril and a pistol barrel in the other.

They better light up a cigarette quickly.

a reply to: Biigs

and in any field, explosives, radioactive, harmful chemicals, huge evil machinery, mining the list goes on. we rarely hear about those accidents

Oh yes we do indeed, we happen to live in a city with at least 7 world scale refineries and chemical plants.
If anything happens in our city we know it right away......toots sweet and fast too.

The only really slow notification I can think of is the danger of Asbestos and the horrible consequences after the 911 fiasco.

Now far too late the media is slowly reporting the deaths of first responders many years after the fact.
Reminds me of the Nuclear bombs dropped on North or South Carolina in the 50's or so...........armed and ready to go but for some reason they did not detonate.
Yes we are only told what to know when certain people deem it ok for us Peons to hear the truth.

But now with smart phones and sites like ATS all this crap comes to light whereas years ago it would stay in the cellar and for ever.

Regards, Iwinder

Anthrax....again?

smells a little bit like scare tactics to me.

Good thing it wasnt ebola or some of the nastier things they have there in the labs...

Some twisted individuals there at cdc and at ft. detrick md where they also research such things .. just hope the exposure is limited to the eggheads that work there and no innocent people get infected by the darwin candidate that exposed everyone ...

a reply to: alienjuggalo

Dang now they are saying 87 workers possibly exposed

U.S. CDC says 86 lab workers possibly exposed to live anthrax bacteria

www.trust.org...

87 workers exposed. How many employees though? Or civilians?

What were they doing? This is serious breach of containment. If anything like this happened where my husband worked, the government would shut them down faster than fast, so ... why isn't the CDC being shut down for negligence? Why are they so different from a private bioresearch facility?

Oh, don't answer that. It's government. They do no wrong and operate on different rules than the rest of the world, and we all know the private sector is stupid and evil and does this all the time right?