Revealed: 100 safety breaches at UK labs handling potentially deadly diseases
Ian Sample
The Guardian, London
A longish article detailing numerous failures in biosafety containment in UK labs in recent history, aka since 2012. They range from simple to complex failures in systems surrounding the manipulation of agents such as virulent Bascillus anthracis and Ebola virus.
Richard Ebright (Rutgers University, USA), Brian Spratt (Imperial, UK) and Tom Inglesby (U Pennsylvania, USA) provide no nonsense comments. The article is easy and worthwhile reading.
While no system is failsafe, the simplicity of some of the "failures" reminds us that working with dangerous microbes is a more than normal risky business, and some people put their lives on the line. This is admirable. Because of this, if making microbes more dangerous is considered necessary, some sort of consensus as to the scientific merits should be forthcoming, or failing that solid reasons should be articulated that hold up to outside scrutiny. This is only fair to the researchers involved.
