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Posted by on in Industry News & Updates

25/03/2015

 

Citing USA TODAY's reporting, a Senate committee wants the "scientific justification" for limited soil sampling to detect deadly bacteria.

 

The Senate's homeland security committee, citing reporting by USA TODAY, wants answers from three federal agencies about their handling of an ongoing investigation of the risks posed by the recent release of a deadly bioterror bacteria from a laboratory in Louisiana, according to letters sent Wednesday.

 

Understanding how the bacteria got out of a high-security lab at the Tulane National Primate Research Center near New Orleans is "imperative" because of the potential bioterrorism threat posed by the organism, said the letters signed by committee chairman Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and ranking Democratic Sen. Thomas Carper of Delaware. The letters were sent to top officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency.

 

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Posted by on in Industry News & Updates

26/01/2015 

WOOLWICH — A lab mishap involving lauric acid sent a dozen Gloucester County high schoolers to the hospital and forced a snowy school-wide evacuation early Monday.

Heavy smoke was reported at Kingsway Regional High School near 7:40 a.m.

Woolwich Township Police and the Gloucester County HAZMAT team responded to potentially toxic chemical fumes, according to Superintendent James Lavender.

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Posted by on in Industry News & Updates

24/04/2015 

After scientists shared memorable accidents, mistakes, and errors from their laboratory experiences on Reddit last week, The Scientistasked readers to share a #labblooper or two. Here are some reader responses from Twitter andFacebook:

Agar disasters

Tina Loane Peterson: “Automated agar plate dispenser mishap. The gasket was not correctly aligned in the reassembled machine. I set up to make a batch of plates and went to lunch. Returned to a room looking like Slimer attacked it. I had to clean agar off of the ceiling!”

Charli Evans: “As an undergrad I once lifted a Petri dish in excitement, the lid fell off, and the agar fell onto my face . . . complete with unidentified bacterial snot.”

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Posted by on in Industry News & Updates

22/04/2015 

Accidents happen. As any scientist knows, plenty can go wrong when working with potentially dangerous microbes, chemicals, or equipment. Last week (April 17), Reddit user mmm_whatcha_say opened a thread asking scientists to share “the worst thing that has happened in their lab.” The thread has attracted nearly 2,800 comments. Among the top 500:

Food-related flubs

AnthraxCat: “We had a grad student working with a relatively benign strain of Vibrio cholerae who didn’t wear gloves, or wash her hands before eating lunch. She got cholera. The doctors were baffled.”

Jfmorrison: “Postdoc ordered a pizza and ate part. Put the rest in the -80 C freezer. Next night, wants a snack, puts in microwave on defrost for a couple minutes. Cheese looks melted so he takes a bite. The center is still frozen solid and he gets ice burns on his tongue, mouth, and lips.”

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Posted by on in Industry News & Updates

29/01/2015

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has introduced camera monitoring of workers in its highest-level biosafety laboratories as it seeks to restore public faith in its procedures after a series of mishaps, agency officials tell Reuters.
One lab worker inadvertently risked contracting Ebola last month when they worked with the live virus that was supposed to have been inactivated, or killed. Since last June, the Atlanta-based agency has disclosed several incidents, one in which scientists unknowingly sent potentially live anthrax to a lower-security laboratory and another in which a deadly form of bird flu was sent to an external agency's lab.
The mishaps have raised major questions over safety practices at more than 1,000 laboratory and support facilities that make up the CDC, whose role is to monitor and prevent outbreaks of disease.
The move to monitor workers will allow lab directors and senior scientists to ensure they have followed safety protocols exactly, Leslie Dauphin, interim director of laboratory safety, told Reuters in an interview.
"You cannot deviate," she said. "That is what the camera system helps with."

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