Re: [DIYbio] Safety

I'm sorry for this guy, but it boggles my mind that he was knowingly working with a deadly disease without the readily-available vaccine.

d wright <djwrister@gmail.com> wrote:

>Lab tech dies after handling rare strain of bacteria
>By Paul Elias The Associated PressAssociated Press
>Posted: 05/04/2012 08:00:13 AM PDT
>May 4, 2012 3:1 PM GMTUpdated: 05/04/2012 08:00:18 AM PDT
>
>SAN FRANCISCO - Lab workers at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs
>medical
>center will be urged to get vaccinations for the diseases they study as
>a
>precaution as investigators continue looking into a researcher's death
>after he handled a rare strain of bacteria, officials said Thursday.
>
>Richard Din, the meningitis research associate who died Saturday in a
>possible lab exposure, wasn't vaccinated for the illness despite
>Centers
>for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations to the contrary.
>Nonetheless, the VA's Harry Lampiris said a vaccine may not have
>protected
>Din, 25, because he was helping to develop a vaccine for a meningitis
>strain resistant to vaccine.
>
>Lampiris also said about 70 people who came into contact with Din
>recently
>- including family members, co-workers and medical personnel who
>treated
>him - received antibiotic treatments that are "100 percent effective"
>in
>combatting infection.
>
>Din, who lived on San Francisco's Treasure Island, fell ill with a
>headache
>and other flu-like symptoms about two hours after leaving work Friday
>evening, Lampiris said.
>
>He awoke Saturday feeling worse and with a rash all over his body, and
>he
>was rushed to the VA hospital by friends.
>
>Lampiris said Din lost consciousness in the car and died in the
>hospital of
>a heart attack at about 2 p.m. The vaccine-resistant strain of bacteria
>was
>found in his bloodstream.
>
>Lampiris said it is unclear how Din was exposed to the bacteria
>Because he had a reputation as a safe, by-the-book research associate
>at
>the VA hospital's Northern California Institute for Research and
>Education.
>Lampiris said lab workers are expected to wear gloves and gowns, and
>they
>do their work behind a protective "safety cabinet," or hood, while
>isolating the bacteria.
>
>"He was an excellent lab worker and very fastidious," said Lampiris,
>chief
>of infectious disease at the San Francisco VA research institute.
>Lampiris
>said there were no signs of spills or mechanical failure in the lab
>where
>Din worked, which was decontaminated and temporarily closed pending
>investigations.
>
>Officials with the California Division of Occupational Safety and
>Health
>and the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration have
>opened a
>joint investigation into Din's death. The CDC is researching whether
>the
>bacterial strain found in Din's bloodstream is the same strain he
>worked
>with in the lab.
>
>Cal-OSHA spokeswoman Erika Monterroza said her office has six months to
>conclude its investigation and can levy fines if workplace regulations
>were
>violated.
>
>"We're very early in the process," she said.
>
>So-called laboratory-acquired infections are "rare occurrences,"
>according
>to CDC spokesman Tom Skinner. But they do happen.
>
>According to a 2005 paper published in the Journal of Clinical
>Microbiology
>- the most recent study of its kind - 16 cases of probable
>laboratory-acquired meningitis occurred worldwide between 1985 and
>2001,
>and eight of them were fatal.
>
>Other infections also occur, including a Chicago researcher who died in
>2009 after exposure to bacteria that causes the plague, and a
>University of
>Illinois student who came down with a mild case of cow pox the next
>year
>after a laboratory exposure. The CDC reported last year that 73 people
>in
>35 states were infected with salmonella in lab-associated incidents
>between
>August 2010 and March 2011.
>
>The CDC also reported to Congress that seven researchers were infected
>with
>a so-called "select agent" between 2003 and 2009. Select agents include
>dangerous pathogens such as small pox and anthrax but not meningitis.
>
>"Laboratory-acquired infection represents an occupational hazard unique
>to
>laboratory workers, especially those in the microbiology laboratory,"
>Kamaljit Singh of Chicago's Rush University Medical Center concluded in
>a
>2009 scientific paper published in the journal Clinical Infectious
>Diseases. Singh estimated that 500,000 lab workers handle dangerous
>germs
>in the United States.
>
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