More Than 9,000 Potentially Deadly Samples Forgotten In Lab Freezers
An inventory of potentially deadly pathogens at Fort Detrick's infectious disease laboratory found more than 9,000 vials that had not been accounted for, Army officials said today, raising concerns that officials would not know if dangerous toxins were missing.
After four months of searching about 335 freezers and refrigerators at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Frederick, Md., investigators found 9,220 samples that had not been listed in a database of about 70,000 items put together in November 2008, according to Col. Mark Kortepeter, the institute's deputy commander.
The vials contained some dangerous pathogens, among them Ebola virus, anthrax bacteria and botulinum toxin, and less virulent agents such as Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus and the bacteria that causes tularemia. Most of them, forgotten inside freezer drawers, had not been used in years or even decades. Officials said some serum samples from hemorrhagic fever patients dated back to the Korean War.
Kortepeter likened the inventory to cleaning out the attic and said he knew of no plans for an investigation into how the vials had been left out of the database.
"The vast majority of these samples were working stock that were accumulated over decades," Kortepeter said. He said the samples were left there by previous scientists who had retired or left the institute.
"I can't say that nothing did
, but I can say that we think it's extremely unlikely," Kortepeter said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/17/AR2009061703271.html?hpid=topnews
Why worry about swine flu?? Who knows what has gone? Morans!
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