Army Lab Finds 9,200 Uncounted Vials

Originally posted by ZindoDoone
reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

 

Well, living very close to Plum Island, one of the original infamous places of viral research, I can say that keeping records and making sure stocks are accounted for are paramount to most who research the problem!


Zindo

You are a brave man Zindo! I know what that's like I grew up partially in Montgomery County Maryland and my Grandmother and Mother lived for a short spell in Frederick near Ft. Deitrich.

I can testify from my own personal experience those areas of the nation that have a high governmental presence have an added degree of policing and oversight locally that a lot of areas that lack such a high government or military presence don't.

Still it has to suck growing up next to a missile silo knowing there are a few ICMB's out there with your name on them!

Thanks for sharing Zindo.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

I would wage many a Doctor owes still being in practice and not having sky liability insurance rates because of nurses who have saved their butts on clerical and administrative mistakes.

Don't even get me started.

It's a little disconcerting to think of the lack of professionalism, lack of attention to detail, lack of work ethic, lack of conscientiousness or sense of pride in doing a job well exhibited by people who daily work with deadly, infectious diseases.

I expect professionalism, attention to detail and conscientiousness from the people handling my fast food. I demand it from those handling anthrax, botulism, bubonic plague! (Hopefully they're not the same person)

Originally posted by whitewave
reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

 

I would wage many a Doctor owes still being in practice and not having sky liability insurance rates because of nurses who have saved their butts on clerical and administrative mistakes.

Don't even get me started.

It's a little disconcerting to think of the lack of professionalism, lack of attention to detail, lack of work ethic, lack of conscientiousness or sense of pride in doing a job well exhibited by people who daily work with deadly, infectious diseases.

I expect professionalism, attention to detail and conscientiousness from the people handling my fast food. I demand it from those handling anthrax, botulism, bubonic plague! (Hopefully they're not the same person)



Indeed! I sure would hope they aren't the same person. You would think as fond of the government is when it comes to making policies and procedures that they would have had some better thought out and followed ones regarding these kinds of matters.

Thanks for posting.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

The man accused of sending out the Anthrax was not the one responsible ...
Not at all...
He was set up and committed suicide the day that the CIA offered his two children gazillions of dollars to say that their father was involved.
This man was an intelligent and well respected chemist.
How unfortunate this situation was.

Makes my stomach turn actually.

This facility has absolutely nothing to do with Anthrax at all.

On another note, I have never understood why the Army and the Navy operate facilities such as this and employ great minds to do so. Seems to me that this is the kind of operation that should be outsourced.
Go figure....


Peace...

Originally posted by Gyrochiral
reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

 

The man accused of sending out the Anthrax was not the one responsible ...
Not at all...
He was set up and committed suicide the day that the CIA offered his two children gazillions of dollars to say that their father was involved.
This man was an intelligent and well respected chemist.
How unfortunate this situation was.

Makes my stomach turn actually.

This facility has absolutely nothing to do with Anthrax at all.

On another note, I have never understood why the Army and the Navy operate facilities such as this and employ great minds to do so. Seems to me that this is the kind of operation that should be outsourced.
Go figure....


Peace...

Wow the CIA should have come and seen me, I would have said it was him for a paltry million or so!

Next time huh guys? You know business is a little slow with the economy and all!

I don't think they can really safely outsource this type of work. As long as the military wants to consider using weaponized pathogens even though they are against every treaty in existence and some yet to be invented yet, I don't think you can put that kind of research into the private sector and then risk having a non military person with no real allegiance to anything but money and vanity having to turn down offers from the Chinese to the Russians to the Arabs for his work.

My deceased Father was a chemist and a somewhat famed one who had a passion for women and ligour not always in that order who found himself in the drunk tank at the local jail more than one time. Each time within hours he would get an anonymous visitor telling him all his legal problems could go away if he would set up a lab for the boys with the bent noses and manufacture and illicit substance or two. He of course (I think) always turned them down, but based on his personal experiences in just holding a PHD in Chemistry and being well known in his local community and nationally for being a Chemist, I can just imagine the kinds of offers and approaches a private sector Chemist working with pathogens would likely get.

I think you do have to keep this kind of stuff within the military community for that reason.

Thanks for posting.

9200 forgotten vials? How many are there that weren't there? And what was in them, who had access to them. You don't just lose or forget vials of diseases and such.

Originally posted by Mekanic
9200 forgotten vials? How many are there that weren't there? And what was in them, who had access to them. You don't just lose or forget vials of diseases and such.

They do in the United States Military Research and Testing facilities for Biological Weapons!

You will be happy to know though that not one brown paper bag lunch has ever turned up missing at the facility!

Kortepeter said the inventory found nothing missing from about 70,000 items the institute began cataloging in 2005. He said Army criminal investigators have concluded that three vials of Venezuelan equine encephalitis that were discovered missing last year "were likely used up but for some reason were never recorded with the database."

The separate search of the institute's 335 freezers and refrigerators began Feb. 4 and ended May 27. Kortepeter said it was prompted by the discovery during a spot check in January of 20 samples of Venezuelan equine encephalitis in a box listed as containing 16.

He said the review was ordered by the institute's commander, not by higher officials.

That almost makes me wonder if higher officials normally take any interest in what goes on at facilities like Fort Deitrich?

Something that's never used from the military arsenal like biological weapons must be out of sight out of mind to the higher chain of command it would seem?