Deadly Bacteria Release Sparks Concern at Louisiana Lab

Hey! Our government is at it again.

A research lab at Tulane somehow let out a dangerous bug

A dangerous, often deadly, type of bacteria that lives in soil and water has been released from a high-security laboratory at the Tulane National Primate Research Center in Louisiana. Officials say there is no risk to the public. Yet despite weeks of investigation by multiple federal and state agencies, the cause of the release and the extent of the contamination remain unknown, according to interviews and records obtained by USA TODAY.

Don't worry. No one's at risk although they really don't know the extent of the contamination, and they don't know how it happened.

Yet at least four monkey-like rhesus macaques — that were never used in the experiments and were kept in large outdoor cages in another part of the 500-acre facility — have been exposed to the bacteria, initial tests have found. Two of the macaques became ill in November; both eventually had to be euthanized. Meanwhile, a federal investigator, who became ill 24 hours after visiting the facility in January as part of the ongoing release investigation, has also tested positive for exposure to the bacteria — though it remains unclear whether her exposure may have occurred during international travel and not at the lab.

The contamination is bad enough they have monkeys who were never near it getting sick, some dying. And they had an investigator get sick, too, although that may have been because they got exposed overseas. That's bad news when you have it spread that far over your facility that you have things not even related to your research getting sick from it.

Yet studies reviewed by USA TODAY indicate too few samples were taken to detect what can be an elusive bacterium. The Louisiana Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, which is leading the joint federal-state response, expressed concerns about "whether the organism has escaped the compound and whether livestock and domestic animals are at risk," in a Feb. 20 letter from the state to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The state provided a copy to USA TODAY on Friday.

The official story of the complex is that the monkeys got sick in the facilty's vet facility, not on the ground, and that soil and water samples have not shown the presence of the bacteria. But this bug lives in soil and water. So if the monkeys got sick and contaminated the grounds ... What happens if we have a new bio-agent loose in this country?

But there is no risk to the public.

Should I mention they were trying to develop a vaccine for it because it's a possible bio-terror agent?

I read about this today, and it baffles the bejeebus out of me how a BSL-3 can let something like this get away from it.

USA Today

That research was being conducted in a biosafety level 3 laboratory — the second highest containment level — with a wide range of high-tech safeguards, physical barriers and procedures that are supposed to ensure dangerous pathogens can't escape.

The lab, as Tulane describes it, is essentially a "box-within-a-box within a box." The research was being done in a completely contained lab under negative air pressure, inside Building 5. Air leaving the chamber passes through multiple HEPA filters before leaving the building.

Access to the BSL-3 lab is strictly controlled. To enter, staff must have an authorized access card and procedures call for employees to change into protective clothing and use personal protective equipment while in the laboratory. Contaminated gear can't leave a BSL-3 lab without being sterilized. Everything that goes in — cages, animal bedding, supplies — can't come out without being sterilized. Research animals that go into the primate center's BSL-3 labs do not come out alive and never go to the hospital, the center said.

How many lab breaches have there been now in the last few years since Tom Friedan was appointed CDC director?

a reply to: queenofswords

Yep there is a BSL-3 connected to where my husband works. He says it's akin to getting an anal prob to work in there, and they basically spend the majority of the year either being audited by various agencies or preparing to be audited by them because they have it. And if there is the tiniest suspect anything, those agencies jump so far down their throat as a private company that they are pretty much shut down.

Now, I am not complaining, but I am pointing out how tightly they are watched. And I wonder why Tulane wasn't under the same regimen, and if it was, how this happened?

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: queenofswords

Yep there is a BSL-3 connected to where my husband works. He says it's akin to getting an anal prob to work in there, and they basically spend the majority of the year either being audited by various agencies or preparing to be audited by them because they have it. And if there is the tiniest suspect anything, those agencies jump so far down their throat as a private company that they are pretty much shut down.

Now, I am not complaining, but I am pointing out how tightly they are watched. And I wonder why Tulane wasn't under the same regimen, and if it was, how this happened?

Same over here.

If the home office gets a hint at bad practice in a Level 3 they will come down on it like a ton of bricks.

Happened to a place I contracted at.


But the fact is kinks do appear.

And they normally appear with the interns or underpaid staff who normally overworked and underpaid.

They are left with the storage, stock, warehousing and cleaning duty s.

Poor pay attracts poor quality job applicants and encourages bad practices.

And cause the main lab staff have been cut people like me although better paid are normally overworked and too busy to supervise the newbies and interns to see if they are cutting corners.

If I have plate up 4000 samples in a few hours I dont have the time to be checking over storage.


It one of the reasons I left big pharma.
Fact is the companies get what they pay for

Research animals that go into the primate center's BSL-3 labs do not come out alive and never go to the hospital, the center said.

Some stupid people deserve what they get, but these animals don't deserve anything except a chance to live free and happy.

I forgot all about the leak after reading this.

a reply to: ketsuko

Wonderful,more crazy unknown nasties released into the once perfectly balanced environment of the great Mother Earth.
Just what we need.

The reason they use rhesus macaques BTW is they produce the nearest results to humans when they do nasty vivisection on them.
So this nasty bug has popped through the air and infected and killed some macaques,then escaped the lab.

Potentially Very Bad Sheeeiit indeed.

The "bug" in question is: burkholderia pseudomallei en.wikipedia.org... - urkholderia_pseudomallei Wiki

The lovely microbial that it is, causes the disease Melioidosis

www.cdc.gov... - Melioidosis - CDC

Has some rather unpleasant symptoms, which, are much like many others. So, this could easily be brushed under the rug by medical personel simply diagnosing the wrong thing.

Seems to like warmer temperatures tho, as it's preferred proliferation temperature is 40 degrees Celsius. It's a gram-negative bug, and also produces Exo and Endo-toxins (icky).

That is, at least, according to what I can find. Now who knows WHAT this particulate flavor of the bug is capable of.
If it was already weaponized, it could have mutated into something much more virulent. (I say weaponized already, as they were supposedly trying to make a vaccine for it.... )

Hmm... curious.

a reply to: crazyewok

To also add some if the CEO of some of the companies I have worked at have had zero scientific experiance of knowalage.
They are just lawyers, legacys ect

This means they can make dangrous decisions as they know financialy what they are doing but have no clue safety wise.

It means the lab staff are stuck between morons at the top and lowpaid under motivated incompetent lab assitants at the bottom.

originally posted by: crazyewok
a reply to: crazyewok

To also add some if the CEO of some of the companies I have worked at have had zero scientific experiance of knowalage.
They are just lawyers, legacys ect

This means they can make dangrous decisions as they know financialy what they are doing but have no clue safety wise.

It means the lab staff are stuck between morons at the top and lowpaid under motivated incompetent lab assitants at the bottom.

Of course, this is a university lab and not private at all.

Don't worry! Measles has the potential to wipe out the entire species so hurry up and poke those kiddos! The future of the human race depends on us wiping out chicken pox, measles, and whooping cough!

originally posted by: ketsuko

originally posted by: crazyewok
a reply to: crazyewok

To also add some if the CEO of some of the companies I have worked at have had zero scientific experiance of knowalage.
They are just lawyers, legacys ect

This means they can make dangrous decisions as they know financialy what they are doing but have no clue safety wise.

It means the lab staff are stuck between morons at the top and lowpaid under motivated incompetent lab assitants at the bottom.

Of course, this is a university lab and not private at all.

Surprising

Not renting out to the private sector?

Most uni labs I have been in have tighter controls.

Cock ups this side of the pond tend to be private sector.

a reply to: crazyewok

This means they can make dangerous decisions as they know financially what they are doing but have no clue safety wise.

As long as those fines fit into the end of fourth quarter, they are justified. I wanted to forget that I read your post, but sadly, it is the truth amongst certain companies who put profits over people. The damage done to their bodies will not be known for decades and few will have the money or knowledge to put a case together to bring justice to themselves.

I don´t see the fuss unless it´s high concentrated. In the first or second sentence it reads that those bacteria lives in soil and water anyways. That´s where they got them from.

Twice today I've looked at the list of recently active threads and saw this one - except in my brain it registered as "Deadly bacteria release sparks..." and I'm thinking "What could possibly cause bacteria to spark?"



But then the full sentence completely registers and I'm all .

Still, my initial idiotic mis-reading aside, this is rather unsettling news.

a reply to: eisegesis



There was one case on interns dumping hazzardes waste into a normal sink that fed into a stream cause they were not being supervisef proberly,

They were dismissed of cause but the higher ups never bothered to look at fixing the root of that issue.

a reply to: crazyewok

Recently over here it's been CDC labs and uni labs displaying incredible laxity.

As I said, my husbands job is so tightly regulated that they can't breathe without someone from somewhere inspecting. They joke that 2014 was the "Year of the Inspection." At one point, they almost had teams from both the Ukraine and Russia on-site at the same time inspecting. Oops! Whoever made those arrangements was stupid because once on-site, the inspectors for obvious reasons, are allowed to go anywhere whenever they choose to see just about anything, but they were trying to figure out how to keep each of those two teams from ever seeing each other.

I will say they have noticed a distinct difference in US and EU protocol. The US shows up when it wants, sees what it wants with no warning while the EU is always nice enough to notify well in advance and tell them exactly what they expect to be looking at. That may explain some of it.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: crazyewok

Recently over here it's been CDC labs and uni labs displaying incredible laxity.

As I said, my husbands job is so tightly regulated that they can't breathe without someone from somewhere inspecting. They joke that 2014 was the "Year of the Inspection." At one point, they almost had teams from both the Ukraine and Russia on-site at the same time inspecting. Oops! Whoever made those arrangements was stupid because once on-site, the inspectors for obvious reasons, are allowed to go anywhere whenever they choose to see just about anything, but they were trying to figure out how to keep each of those two teams from ever seeing each other.

I will say they have noticed a distinct difference in US and EU protocol. The US shows up when it wants, sees what it wants with no warning while the EU is always nice enough to notify well in advance and tell them exactly what they expect to be looking at. That may explain some of it.

Yeah thats pretty true.

Most audits you get a warning so the monkeys in suits at the top put on a good show.

Home office though are not so kind. Hence the lab that got hit pretty hard with a fine and temperoary closure.
They took exeception of haveing yersinia pestis in a liquid nitrogen tank in a unsecured warehouse with just a bycicyle lock on it

The freeze dried anthrax in broken vials sitting in the cat 3 storeroom with no log book didnt please them much either

a reply to: crazyewok

Don't know what to say except it sounds like things get run quite a bit differently across the pond. Might be why my the company my husband works for does so much of their R&D and similar work over in the US.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: crazyewok

Don't know what to say except it sounds like things get run quite a bit differently across the pond. Might be why my the company my husband works for does so much of their R&D and similar work over in the US.

Ironicaly the R&D contracts I have done have been ok.

Its the manufacturing jobs that have had the problems.

a reply to: crazyewok

I won't say which one he works for, but the division he works does both R&D and production in-house at the moment.

If they made this kind of mistake, heads would roll. Big-time all up and down the chain and depending on the kind of transgression and how profitable the division is, the company might divest entirely more or less putting everyone on the chopping block. They did that with one domestic division that stepped out of line.