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U.S. shuts high-security labs over concerns about air hose safety

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has closed down its highest security laboratories after discovering that hoses that supply air to scientists wearing special protective suits were never approved for that use, the agency said on Friday.

"We have no evidence that anybody has suffered ill health effects from breathing air that came through these hoses," Stephan Monroe, associate director for laboratory science and safety at the CDC, told Reuters.

Monroe said he was confident that scientists were not exposed to pathogens because the air they breathed passed through HEPA filters. The suits they wear also use positive air pressure to prevent pathogens from entering the suit.

[...] The air hoses are part of the building's infrastructure. They drop down from different ports within the lab, and scientists plug the hoses into their suits from different work stations.

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