Washington (ZWN) -- The Biosafety Level 3 lab at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta is the subject of a congressional investigation after a potentially dangerous airflow leak at that lab.
Building 18, which cost taxpayers $214 million, is a maximum security, research lab studying deadly diseases such as bird flu, monkeypox, tuberculosis and rabies.
It is also rumored to study necro-mortosis, the undead virus responsible for necrotism and reanimation of the dead.
The leak occurred on February 16. Apparently, air flowed the wrong way out of a germ lab into a clean-air corridor. Typically it flows through powerful HEPA filters first.
Congressional sources and CDC officials admitted that there were visitors touring the facility, and in the clean corridor when they observed a "puff of air" being pushed out from the lab through a slot in a door window.
According to U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, a Texas Republican and a medical doctor, the House Energy and Commerce Committee has asked the CDC for documents about that incident. The request came in the wake of a report on internal CDC e-mails about the incident, first reported by USA Today last week.
"The biggest concern was that there was a contingent of visitors who were walking through the building," Burgess said. "And had one of those people been stricken or made ill or worse, obviously that would have been devastating."
Pathogens
Small mammals such as rats, ferrets and mice are all handled in the lab. They are used as part of its experiments with pathogens, according to CDC officials. They say animals were in the lab at the time of the air leak.
There has been at least one other safety-related incident in building 18.
In 2008, it was discovered that a high-containment lab door was sealed with duct tape. That incident was first reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and later reported by CNN.
Robert Hawley, former safety chief at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, said the CDC has many safety layers in place at its labs. Hawley says researchers at the Biosafety Level 3 lab work in biosafety "cabinets" within the lab itself.
"Nothing is handled outside that cabinet," Hawley said. "So they're working with minute amounts of material, and the chances of aerosol are negligible."
But there are questions about a possible cover-up.
In an internal e-mail, reported by USA Today, CDC biologist Kismet Scarborough said the centers "... will do anything ... to hide the fact that we have serious problems with the airflow and containment in this whole building."
Skinner said the agency "intends to cooperate fully with Rep. Burgess and the committee to address any questions they may have about Building 18 at CDC."
Speculation
These serious incidents help fuel speculation as to the cause of the recent rash of zombie related attacks throughout the USA
For more information on necro-mortosis and the reanimation of it's victims: visit the World Health Authority web site |
