Ebola Comes to Campus

The theme
of the day seems to be "Reasons to be Afraid". Before all the hubbub
about the imminent terrorist attack on Boston, we were preoccupied
with the story that three researchers at a Boston University biolab have
managed to infect themselves with an infectious bacterium called tularemia.
In the interest of full disclosure it should be revealed that the Dowbrigade’s
main contributor is employed by said university and spends
a significant part of each day on the BU campus.

(It should also be revealed that while everyone associated with the
Dowbrigade is thankful of the fact and form of our employment, we DO NOT
TRUST the administration and that is a fairly widespread opinion, especially
among students, graduates, the faculty, the ex-faculty, the campus neighbors,
the American academic community, ex-NASA administrators and the Boston
Police)

Perhaps the most upsetting aspect of the story is that the infections
happened LAST YEAR and word of the incident is only now leaking to the
press and the public in general.  From a column
in today’s Boston Globe Business section:

”Last year’s mishap is doubly worrisome," says Philip Warburg,
president of the Conservation Law Foundation, which has pushed for
consideration
of alternative sites for the lab. ”First, it casts serious doubt on
BU’s assertion that it can handle infectious diseases in a manner that
guarantees
the health of the Boston community. Second, BU’s failure to let the
public know about the incident calls into question its willingness
to be candid
about the way it runs these sorts of facilities."

The news was especially upsetting in light of previously announced plans
by BU to open an Ultra Top Secret Level IV Bio-Defense Lab specifically  designed
to play with the most feared infectious diseases in the world. We are talking
Ebola, Anthrax, Botulism and Dioxin, the Plague, Typhoid and Smallpox.
The lab would be used for housing pathogens deemed highly transmissible
and
deadly. And these guys can’t be trusted with tularemia!

The BU researchers in question do not come off as the kind of world-class
scientists one would hope to have handling these kinds of materials.  This,
from today’s
Boston Globe:

"The deck was stacked against [the researchers] because they were
working with something they had no idea they were working with," Moore
said.

But Moore acknowledged that researchers in the lab had violated policies
requiring them to work with tularemia inside an enclosed box, called a
hood, that sends air through sophisticated filters.

Instead, the tularemia samples were sometimes worked with in the open,
in part because the enclosed research boxes were sometimes filled with
material that should not have been kept there, Moore said.

Well, we guess if the desk was stacked against them, then it’s understandable.  Accidents
will happen.  No need to excite the public unnecessarily.
Thankfully, to keep us on the edge of our seat and so we know what to look
out for,
the
Boston
Globe published a handy guide
to tularemia:

Can I get it? Tularemia is not known to be spread from person to person.
Most people get it from being bitten by an infected tick, deerfly, or other
insect; handling infected animal carcasses; eating or drinking contaminated
food or water; or breathing in the bacteria.

So as long as we stay away from ticks, don’t handle dead
animal carcasses, and refrain from eating, drinking or breathing, we should
be all right…