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Safety concerns at a prominent military germ lab have led the government to shut down research involving dangerous microbes like the Ebola virus.
"Research is currently on hold," the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, in Fort Detrick, Md., said in a statement on Friday. The shutdown is likely to last months, Caree Vander Linden, a spokeswoman, said in an interview.
The statement said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decided to issue a "cease and desist order" last month to halt the research at Fort Detrick because the center did not have "sufficient systems in place to decontaminate wastewater" from its highest-security labs.
[...] The suspended research involves certain toxins, along with germs called select agents, which the government has determined have "the potential to pose a severe threat to public, animal or plant health or to animal or plant products." There are 67 select agents and toxins; examples include the organisms that cause Ebola, smallpox, anthrax and plague, and the poison ricin.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/health/germs-fort-detrick-biohazard.html
(Score: 1) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Friday August 09 2019, @10:27AM (10 children)
Gosh golly this bloated federal government wasting our tax dollars on all manner of things that may kill every last one of us.
Wal Mart is going into crypto currency, why not sub contract the development of weaponized ebola out to them and their cutting edge Benton Arkansas team of blue vested scientists?
What could go wrong!?
Frankly I'm surprised that the oversight entities had anywhere near enough power to shut down a research base, it's unheard of. They must have been some kind of super-incompetent. Who cares about the viruses getting loose and killing us, well I do, but the priority here is the local economy and the health of the contracting corporations which are getting hit super hard by this.
Our hearts and prayers are with their bottom line. /s
It is getting pretty obvious that actual human well-being here on planet earth calculates about 0, -10, -1000, idk whatever the lowest possible factor is, into the decisions of the decision-makers. These are the policies and practices I would implement if I was trying to wipe out all human life and seem outright oppositional to the concept of 'defense.'
Like with cyberdefense, it is more important to maintain the offensive capacity to shut down traffic lights in siberia than it is to establish a means to protect the civilians who are paying through the nose for defense. I have been hearing about this base and its scary problems for literally decades now and nearly all of it has been ignored by the news media until now. The one time their expertise mattered during a certain thrax attack they provided no help whatsoever besides being on the short list of sources for the attack itself.
You could not make up anything this incompetent and terrifying, ticks escaping with contagious incurable diseases etc., no one would believe it. For these reasons I wonder, who and what kind of people are these? That they make more money than I do and likely maintained steady jobs through it all is a real kick in the shorts too. I have gotten fired for things like not commenting an address out of a long string of forwarded emails when it didn't even matter, by comparison. These guys aren't washing their hands after working with ebola and are getting raises and paid vacations probably.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DavePolaschek on Friday August 09 2019, @11:09AM (1 child)
It’s not just us. The Russians may have nuked [reuters.com] some of their own population accidentally. Oopsie.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 09 2019, @04:24PM
No worries, Mate! Russians are white people, so an accident like that falls in line with our globalist agenda.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 09 2019, @11:49AM (7 children)
We need to raise taxes on the rich to fix this problem!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday August 09 2019, @01:25PM (6 children)
That would fix a lot of problems.
Nevertheless, it is good to always strive to make good efficient use of taxpayer money. How many billions are we wasting on SLS that could be used to develop ways to better train AIs to be good at phone sex.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 09 2019, @01:52PM (5 children)
No, it wouldn't fix any problems. It would just give people who cause problems more resources. If you want people to pay their "fair share", no one making below $200,000 should pay any income taxes at all (this was the original lowest tax bracket when adjusted for inflation).
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday August 09 2019, @03:20PM (4 children)
>. It would just give people who cause problems more resources
Yeah, like road builders. Who needs roads? Or how about police. I mean police, what do they do that doesn't involve doughnuts? On OUR taxpayers dollars? Railways! Pah! Shove your railways where the sun doesn't shine (and I don't mean rail tunnels).
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday August 09 2019, @03:33PM (2 children)
Things we don't need:
* roads
* bridges
* parks
* traffic signals
* street lights
* public edumacation - is our children learning
* public libraries
* drivers licensing, inspections
* police
* courts
* jails
* national weather service
* geological survey
* environmental protection
* food safety -- who needs food to be safe, if they don't like it, don't eat it
and many other things we take for granted
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday August 09 2019, @03:34PM (1 child)
* GPS
* military
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(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @04:39AM
> military
Well, arguably, we (USA) could cut back a whole hell of a lot on our military spending, and even with extreme cuts, the only noticeable effect would be a bunch of unemployable folks currently on military welfare going on (the much less expensive to the taxpayer) regular sort of public assistance welfare. That, and trillions of dollars, not wasted murdering folks in far away lands to steal their natural resources, that could go to useful things. We could fund a proper national health system, and make universities free again. Not to mention, all those people, in those far away lands, who won't be murdered/tortured/raped/orphaned/widowed/etc. in US wars of aggression anymore.
And, an additional bonus since the US military is a larger greenhouse gas emitter than many entire countries, we could substantially reduce our negative impacts on climate-- overnight!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 09 2019, @07:43PM
Your taxes don't go to "road builders", they go to people who take 75% to piss away on god knows what like this "ebola factory", then choose which road builder to give it to based on patronage and kickbacks so another half is wasted. All in all you probably get 10% of the roads vs just paying road builders yourself.