The U.S. military mistakenly sent live anthrax bacteria to laboratories in nine U.S. states and a U.S. air base in South Korea, after failing to properly inactivate the bacteria 11 months ago. The anthrax was initially sent from a Utah military lab and was meant to be shipped in an inactive state as part of efforts to develop a field-based test to identify biological threats. No one appears to have developed any symptoms, but have been given treatments as a precaution.
What went wrong? What are the best way to handle diseases such as this?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 29 2015, @04:32AM
You can't put the genie back in the bottle. Once the DNA sequence is widely-known, you aren't subject to the multi-million dollar research efforts of today, but the bioprinting capabilities of 20 years from now, available to non-state actors with a few thousand bucks and time to spare.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Joe on Friday May 29 2015, @06:34PM
The genie is already out of the bottle. Disease-causing bacteria and viruses are already here.
As Sir Finkus mentioned, there is endemic anthrax in livestock. There is also endemic H5N1 ("bird flu"), plague, MDR tuberculosis, MRSA, and many other pathogens. All you need to do is find a sick animal/person and do basic microbiology to get more or induce new mutations.
This is without DNA sequencing or a multi-million dollar lab and the information/technology is available now.
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=7671&cid=189383 [soylentnews.org]
- Joe