Tag Archives: bio-hazards

America’s (and Russia’s) Smallpox Virus Stores: where will they be kept?

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Looks like we have plenty of deadly viruses, nerve agents, chemical and biological weapons, and bloodborne pathogens all around the country to get the Rapture going if God won’t.

WHO Grants Smallpox A Reprieve: NPR

The World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization, agreed to put off making up its mind on when to destroy the two remaining stocks of the virus until a meeting in 2014.

Back in the ’90s, WHO experts had recommended the virus be obliterated. Smallpox, after all, had been declared eradicated in 1980, and nobody wants to risk an accidental release of the virus back into the wild.

But the United States and Russia, which hold the last known stores of the deadly virus, weren’t so keen on the idea and wanted smallpox preserved for at least five more years.

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That should be no problem. Except three months ago in Utah…

(Reuters) – A mix-up over a tiny vial of a deadly nerve agent led to the overnight lock-down of the Army’s Dugway Proving Ground, a sprawling, remote base in Utah where the U.S. military conducts weapons tests, officials said on Thursday.

[...] A routine lab inventory on Wednesday indicated that a small quantity of VX nerve agent was missing, prompting the base commander to shut down the installation as a precaution while a search was conducted, according to a statement by the base.

[...] More than 1,000 employees were forced to remain within the confines of the 798,000-acre installation after their shifts ended during the shutdown on Wednesday and early Thursday. But no one was injured in the episode.

“The agent in question has been accounted for, and no one was ever in any danger,” the base statement said. “All personnel are uninjured and safe. The public is safe as well.”

The Proving Ground, covering a swath of desert about the size of Rhode Island some 90 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, is the Army’s principal facility for testing of conventional munitions as well as chemical and biological weapons.

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And a couple of weeks ago in Maryland — a dead scientist:

One killed in explosion at Aberdeen Proving Grounds “Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense” lab

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Body of Contractor Killed in Aberdeen Proving Grounds Explosion will be flown back to his native India Monday. ATF is investigating. (Emphasis mine):

As the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives continues investigating the explosion at Aberdeen Proving Ground last Saturday that killed contractor Dr. Nanaj Bhamare, a friend of the worker has told Patch that Bhamare’s body will be flown back to India for burial.

[...] “They also requested our assistance due to the complexity of the explosives, fire scene,” [Clare A. Weber, a representative from the ATF field office in Baltimore] said of APG. “In addition to the explosion, then subsequent fire, the scene contained chem, bio-hazards as well as bloodborne pathogens, which ATF has better capabilities to handle.”

The explosion and subsequent fire happened yesterday about 3:00 PM EST at a lab in the Edgewood area of the installation — specifically the Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense laboratory. No one else was injured. Bhamare was a subcontractor to Battelle under an Army contract, and had been working at APG for only a couple of months.

It makes you wonder.