by dauterman » Wed 13 Apr 2005, 18:51:52
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnemyCombatant', 'I')f I didn't know any better, I'd swear they were trying to kill us.
Hi,
I work in a hospital laboratory (not the one that screwed up) and can explain to some extent how this accident happened.
Every Hospital Lab is required to do proficiency testing. This is where a central reference lab (in this case it was the CAP - College of American Pathologists) sends you a sample of an unknown organism. You are supposed to run tests on it and return the results to the CAP. The CAP then grades you on how you did. You have to get 80% right to pass. If you fail 2 consecutive tests you have to close down the part of your Lab that failed and kiss your job goodbye.
So some dinglebrain at CAP or their subcontractor Meridian Diagnostics got the bright idea to send out a sample of an old influenza strain from the 1950s. They must have forgotten to inactivate it which is what they are supposed to do before sending it out. Anyone born after 1968 will not be immune to this particular strain.
The testing is supposed to be done under containment that will keep anyone from being infected by the virus. In other words, the person doing the testing would have to screw up the safety precautions and would have to by younger than 37 years old to get infected. IMHO this is too many "ifs". Most likely the only consequence from the screw up will be some dinglebrain at CAP and/or Meridian will be canned from their job.
Just thank God they didn't send out samples of Rabies.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnemyCombatant', '
')I doubt if they would release a super virus because these viruses take on a life of their own and mutate. It could mutate into something their vaccines can't cure. IT would be too risky.
Back in early 2003 for a month or two it looked like SARS was going to take out half the world's population. I am still amazed to this day that SARS got contained the way it did. My thoughts on SARS:
1. The mortality rate is much higher than flu. Maybe only one person in a thousand with flu will die. Older people (>65 yrs.) with SARS had 55% mortality, that's more than half dying. This was true even in Montreal where the medical care is as good as the US. Younger people were doing better with the caveat:
2. About 10% of young people infected with SARS would end up on a ventilator to keep them alive. Many of them took weeks to come off the ventilator. With 4000 people infected with SARS that meant 400 SARS patients on ventilators. That completely filled all the hospital beds in Singapore, Taiwan, etc that could handle ventilator patients. If another few thousand people got infected with SARS there'd be no more ventilators available - the mortality rate would go sky high. If millions got infected the medical care would be completely overwhelmed and could collapse.
3. SARS was going through a number of very poor countires in Asia that I figured would have inadquate Public Health measures to contain it.
4. SARS is still out there, hiding out in China in a kind of animal called a Civette Cat. This did not make big news but in 2003 or 2004 a worker at a restaurant in China that serves Citevve Cats got SARS. This is the last known naturally occuring case (one Lab worker got exposed later) but still it points out that SARS could come back.
Just my 2 cents worth.