Texas biolab loses deadly Guanarito virus
The Galveston National Laboratory lost one of five vials containing a deadly Venezuelan virus, according to the University of Texas Medical Branch, which owns the $174 million facility designed with the strictest security measures to hold the deadliest viruses in the country.
Like Ebola, the missing Guanarito virus causes hemorrhagic fever, an illness named for “bleeding under the skin, in internal organs or from body orifices like the mouth, eyes, or ears,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“This is clearly an incident that is very discomforting and embarrassing to the University of Texas Medical Center and their national biosecurity lab that they have there,” said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. “You can be sure there are a lot of sweating people down the chain at that institution.”
The Galveston biolab requires the most stringent safety measures because it studies biosafetly level BSL-4 materials, or dangerous infectious diseases that have no vaccines or cures. BSL-4 materials include Guanarit, Ebola and smallpox.
The Galveston researchers were conducting a routine inspection on March 20 and 21 when they noticed there were only four Guanarito vials instead of five. They announced the lapse on March 23.
The university does not believe this was the result of a security breach or any wrongdoing, but it notified the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An investigation is ongoing, but researchers suspect the vial was destroyed “during normal laboratory sterilization practices,” according to Callender’s statement.
A University of Texas professor says the Earth would be better off with 90 percent of the human population dead.
Eric Rodger Pianka (born 23 January 1939) is an American biologist, whose work includes herpetology and evolutionary ecology.His textbook, Evolutionary Ecology (1983) is considered a classic, and his writings for the general public and television appearances have made him an influential figure.
Doctor Doom, Eric Pianka, Receives Standing Ovation from Texas Academy of Science
I watched in amazement as a few hundred members of the Texas Academy of Science rose to their feet and gave a standing ovation to a speech that enthusiastically advocated the elimination of 90 percent of Earth’s population by airborne Ebola. The speech was given by Dr. Eric R. Pianka (Fig. 1), the University of Texas evolutionary ecologist and lizard expert who the Academy named the 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist.
Something curious occurred a minute before Pianka began speaking. An official of the Academy approached a video camera operator at the front of the auditorium and engaged him in animated conversation. The camera operator did not look pleased as he pointed the lens of the big camera to the ceiling and slowly walked away.
This curious incident came to mind a few minutes later when Professor Pianka began his speech by explaining that the general public is not yet ready to hear what he was about to tell us.
check out the links and the speech pianka gave in 2006..this guy is genuinely scary..and this vial just happens to go missing at his university..now they may have just misplaced a vial of this deadly shit but thats not usually how things work in a lab that holds the deadliest viruses ever conceived..did one of his students go rogue? and if not..where is the vial?
just takes one person with a virus to get in a plane..sounds like a movie doesn’t it?