Yesterday’s Global Security Newswire has a hilarious story about a Laboratory Preparedness Survey in 2007 (an exercise in which labs are required to identify an unknown pathogen). Obviously, it’s funny for all the wrong reasons. Here’s a taster (or should that be a sniff):
Written instructions included with the testing kits directed laboratory personnel to handle the samples using safety cabinets inside the confines of a Biosafety Level 3 facility. However, not all workers handled the material safely, some going so far as to smell open culture plates while trying to identify the unknown material, according to documents.