[CPEO-MEF] BIOLABS: "Latest military lab concerns involve plague bacteria, deadly viruses"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Latest military lab concerns involve plague bacteria, deadly viruses

by Tom Vanden Brook and Alison Young
USA TODAY 
September 10, 2015


WASHINGTON - The Pentagon's most secure laboratories may have mislabeled, improperly stored and shipped samples of potentially infectious plague bacteria, which can cause several deadly forms of disease, USA TODAY has learned.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention flagged the practices after inspections last month at an Army lab in Maryland, one of the Pentagon's most secure labs. That helped prompt an emergency ban on research on all bioterror pathogens at nine laboratories run by the Pentagon, which was already reeling from revelations that another Army lab in Utah had mishandled anthrax samples for 10 years.

Army Secretary John McHugh ordered the research moratorium on Sept. 2, Pentagon officials say, out of an abundance of caution.

Moreover, officials point out that continuing testing has shown the suspect samples of plague contain a weakened version, and not the fully virulent form that was of concern to lab regulators at the CDC.

…

For the entire article, see
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/09/10/bioterrorism-military-labs-specimens-mistakes-plague-encephalitis/71888694/

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650-961-8918 or 650-969-1545
Fax: 650-961-8918
LSiegel@cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org

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