Investigation reveals hundreds of accidents, safety violations and near misses put people at risk
I recently met with people at a very large enzyme manufacturer in NC. Immediately I was struck by the security in place as well as the obvious culture of "safety." I'm not sure how dangerous enzyme production is, but this place seemed to treat it like it was very volatile. They, like many plants, had a large sign saying something like, "2034 days since our last accident." which made me want to ask what exactly happened 2034 days ago...?
Am I the only one who finds that difficult to believe? Any chemist could have told you that!Of particular concern are mishaps occurring at institutions working with the world's most dangerous pathogens in biosafety level 3 and 4 labs — the two highest levels of containment that have proliferated since the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001. Yet there is no publicly available list of these labs, and the scope of their research and safety records are largely unknown to most state health departments charged with responding to disease outbreaks. Even the federal government doesn't know where they all are, the Government Accountability Office has warned for years.
"What the CDC incidents showed us ... is that the very best labs are not perfectly safe," says Marc Lipsitch, a Harvard University professor of epidemiology. "If it can happen there, it certainly can happen anywhere."