quote: But after 1968, H2 flu disappeared - so anyone born after that year will have no immunity to H2 flu and any escape of the virus in the test kits could be as lethal to them as the Asian flu of 1957.
I'm safe. You youngsters are screwed.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote: so anyone born after that year will have no immunity to H2 flu
I was born after that year, so I must have it. At least, I'm going to think that so I can sleep tonight.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Thanks... I caught snippets of this on the radio this morning, but didn't hear how it had happened. I knew it would show up on Hatrack sooner or later. My, I feel pathetic -- y'all are my favorite news source.
That said -- holy! The fact that it was initially identified outside of the test kit does not make me feel any safer about this.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Well, this is really going to affect children and the elderly. Most children should be fine, doctors and all that jazz, but old people...even with the antibodies...well, lets just say that we may not have to worry so much about Social Security...
Posts: 1480 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
Oh, freaking crap. How do you just "accidentally" release a pandemic strain of flu? I hope someone was fired.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
kq, maybe they should keep the guy who accidently released this under wraps. I don't really want to run into him in the unemployment line.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Why are we blaming the poor schmoe who chose this strain? What I want to know is why such a lethal strain was being stored with the ones usually used for these tests. Why doesn't Meridian have nasties like that stored completely separately, and not available for inclusion in test kits?
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Rivka, While older people may be more immune to the virus, those who do contract it will be less able to fight it because of the often-suppressed immune systems of the elderly.
Posts: 1480 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
Target, possibly. But it's rather hard to predict which will be more significant -- the immunity they are likely to have, or the current state of their health.
Regardless, as one infectious disease specialist put it this morning, the odds are very low of this hitting the general population; but if it does, the risks are very high.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Being responsible for tracking and shipping packages, I'm curious as to what procedures and protocols they have in place.
Anything that dangerous should have major red flags going off any time a quantity is shipped or moved - such that it isn't possible to make an accident moving hazardous materials.
posted
I was reading about this last night, and I read that the H2N2 strain is considered a Level 3 hazard in much of the world, but a Level 2 hazard in the States. Could this have been one way it made it into the tests, having an outdated risk assessment?
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Crap. Now I'm worried. If I got the flu, it could kill me normally, and I'm not vaccinated against a flu that's older than me. Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Uh, it would remove from a position capable of causing great harm someone careless enough to release a virus capable enough of causing an epidemic around the world including into labs accessible to terrorists?
posted
Depending on the nature of the mistake, I have to agree.
If someone was grossly incompetent and/or ignored protocols in place to prevent something like this, termination is in order. And they should lose their jobs.
However, if the system is haphazard and makes no distinction or effort to seperate distinct categories of dangerous materials, then the system and not the person is at fault and should be addressed. Right. Fragging. Now.
posted
I think that termination is a pretty severe penalty for a single mistake. Sometimes it's appropriate, but without knowing more about this particular situation, it seems too harsh to me.
Posts: 751 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Termination is quite clearly not the solution here (though it may well happen). Proper book keeping would have stopped this from happening and you've got to wonder about the practices of the company if a mistake like this made it all the way to market. That involves a heck of a lot more people than the guy who grabbed an old sample of Influenza-A.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
What scares me Bob is that it might have been just that simple.
I don't know enough about how they track their inventory and if the mistake could be judged as "viable deniable responsibility" or if its serious, serious operator error.
For example, if the difference between a crate of C-4 and a crate of teddy bears in the inventory system is a singular digit, something is wrong with the system.
When you're dealing with something amazingly hazardous, the inventory controls need to tighter than an accountant's nerves during an audit.
-Trevor
Edit: Protocols and procedures are only as good as the people who follow and enforce them.
posted
So uh, why hasn't anyone sued the contractors who prepared the kits yet? It said in the article they AREN'T SUPPOSED to put lethal viruses in the kits and the kits are assumed to have nothing that dangerous in them, yet they did. That could be considered potential bioterrorism, why isn't anyone jumping on them yet?
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
When we used to analyze industrial accidents in order to make our lab safer, it usually came out that it was not a single mess-up that caused the really big disasters, but a series of problems that were consistently overlooked. Often this was due to a prevailing attitude that the little problems were insignificant, but in practice those little problems add up (or perhaps multiply).
It makes it very hard to finger one particular person who actually caused the problem in those situations, but whoever pulled the switch gets fired (or blamed posthumously).
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
You and me both, Aunty. And I'm double d****d by age and family medical history. <hitting mapquest for directions to Hemingford Home, Nebraska>
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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