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Dangerous toxins accidentally released from labs every few days

All too easy to get lax about safety when you work with deadly materials every day

20-Mar-2019

Key points from article :

Bio research labs handle deadly pathogens, some with the potential to cause a pandemic.

Many different points of failure - machinery malfunctions, insufficient regulations, human error.

Rate of mistakes is quite low - but accident could kill millions of people.

66 select agents and toxins that pose a serious threat are regulated in US.

300 labs approved to work with them.

In 2014, FDA found 6 undocumented vials of smallpox in a cardboard box.

Other incidents include:

- lab accidentally prepared live anthrax instead of inactivated samples

- vial of bird flu contaminated with a far deadlier strain

- decontamination showers failure

1,059 release reports between 2005 and 2012.

Mentioned in this article:

Click on resource name for more details.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

National public health institute of the United States.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

Ensuring safety of drugs, medical supplies and food which is used daily.

Topics mentioned on this page:
Pandemics
Dangerous toxins accidentally released from labs every few days