Posted on 03/24/2013 5:28:52 PM PDT by markomalley
A vial containing a potentially harmful virus has gone missing from a laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch, officials said.
The missing vial, which contains less than a quarter of a teaspoon an infectious disease, had been stored in a locked freezer, designed to handle biological material safely, within the Galveston National Laboratory on UTMB's campus, officials said. During a routine internal inspection last week, UTMB officials realized one vial of a virus called Guanarito was not accounted for at the facility.
Scott Weaver, the laboratory's scientific director, said Guanarito is an emerging disease that has caused deadly diseases in Venezuela. The federal government prioritizes it for research because it has the potential to be used a weapon for terrorists.
On Tuesday, an investigator discovered that only four out of five vials were stored of the virus in the grid system. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was notified immediately.
Lab officials searched but has not been able to locate the other vial.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
“I’m feeling bettah...”
“...Guanarito is an emerging disease...”
Ahhhhh, ok...Meaning they have no idea how to counteract the infection...
So why are we assuming that the story they say that it was destroyed in their normal disposal protocols???
Why are they claiming they destroying it??? Are they done figuring out this little bug??? Don’t hear a peep???
Let’s not skip over this factoid. It’s missing from a Federal lab on campus:
http://www.utmb.edu/gnl/about/index.shtml
If they figure this out, it just may explain why socks disappear......
Yes—I attended the Nursing School at UTMB-Galveston.
I know prisoners are treated there...compliments of you and I ;)
Forgive me. Isn’t 100% false positive a good thing in this context?
Allow me to elucidate. When socks go into the dryer, some quantum mechanics principle causes their mutation into wire hangers which subsequently appear in the closet Socks, therefore, are actually coat-hanger larvae.
extra points if you catch the reference...
Probably.
That’s paperclips.
Yes. They have a very large foreign student population for researcher and MDs.I worked there in there in the area of research for the last 6 years. Read UTMB's comments in the Galveston County Daily News and the Houston Chronicle. There is this ridiculous story that they think the vial may have accidentally stuck to someone's glove and was "possibly" disposed of. Then there is the story that the virus occurs only in Venezuelan rats. Galveston is a port city. If there are ships from Venezuela coming into the port, then they most likely have the right kind of rats.
Security at the National Lab there is not what it should be.
Folks on the island are understandably concerned.
Thanks for the link. That’s impressive, but the UTMB was the only one with the word “Branch” in its name. It just struck me as odd.
I haven’t a clue why that is. Judging from the damage they suffered from Hurricane Ike, I’m wondering why it’s on Galveston Island.
That will teach me to read the article more carefully! :D
Answer A: Since I come from a family of plumbers..my intial thought was gas flame.
Answer B: I hope this is an open book quiz. Is it a Halo reference?
One of the stories in the Eric Frank Russell book “Wasp”.
This guy gets volunteered to be a wasp, the job title comes from another of the stories they use to introduce him to the concept; a wasp flies in a car window, distracts the driver causes a wreck that demolishes a 3000 lb car and kills two people. The wasp gets away.
In another vignette a man stand is a town square looks up at the sky and says blue flames! Blue flames! A crowd grows, some people swear that they too can see the flames, some else calls the air force, the crowd further excited by the jets gets unruly, police attempt to disburse it, dozens are hurt $100’s of thousands in property damage.
No one knows where the guy saying blue flames went...
That is one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time.
.
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