I had often wondered about the accident rates in these labs-- Student Infected With Debilitating Virus in Undisclosed Biolab Accident An Intercept investigation based on over 5,500 pages of NIH documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act has uncovered a litany of mishaps: malfunctioning equipment, spilled beakers, transgenic rodents running down the hall, a sedated macaque coming back to life and biting a researcher hard enough to lacerate their hand. Many of the incidents involved less dangerous pathogens that can be handled with basic safety equipment, and most did not lead to infection. But several accidents happened while scientists were handling deadly or debilitating viruses in highly secure labs, and a few, like the Chikungunya virus slip-up, did lead to illness. “People have it in their minds that lab accidents are very, very rare, and if they happen, they happen only in the least well-run overseas labs,” said Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University and an advocate for better biosafety standards. “That simply isn’t true.”
Its a legitimate issue in broad terms and as far as what is needed (stringent safety regs, which I assume we have, but that is something that demands diligent oversight). Unfortunately during the pandemic these sorts of issues are used by right wing propagandists for fear mongering, rather than productive discussion. It’s not like science will stop studying evolving and newly discovered pathogens, and only a fool would want them to. Personally, rather than overly worry about pathogen labs (which have been around for a long time, including for possible weaponization during the cold war), I’m much more concerned that scientists successfully created a black hole. My initial take on that was… they did WHAT!? On EARTH!?
What is "the intercept"? Accidents happen. Wow what news, I have never heard tha...... Remember back 30 or 40 years ago when we celebrated people that made things. The only way to have clout now is to destroy.