Years of Research Swept Away by Katrina's Rising Waters-AP-"Hot Labs"

[fed-up]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBOM2ZNKDE.html

By Paul Elias and Alicia Chang Associated Press Writers
Published: Sep 13, 2005

As rising floodwaters swamped New Orleans, Louisiana's chief epidemiologist enlisted state police on a mission to break into a high-security government lab and destroy any dangerous germs before they could escape or fall into the wrong hands....

...Armed with bolt cutters and bleach, Dr. Raoult Ratard's team entered the state's so-called "hot lab," and killed all the living samples....

...At least Ratard's team was able to retrieve laptop computers containing vital scientific data. Many other scientists in the region weren't so fortunate, losing years of research, either through storm damage or voluntary destruction....


...One thin silver lining to all the lab damage: It appears that no deadly diseases were released from the area's "hot labs," where researchers routinely handle and store some of the world's most dangerous germs...

edited to add that I have still not decided if I believe all of the above...TFH time...

[ret5hd]

1. another piece to the puzzle...

as to why assistance was kept from the city and evacuees were kept in.

[Olney Blue]

2. This is a heart-breaking loss to science.....

The article also reports:

One of the biggest blows is the likely destruction of frozen urine and blood samples from thousands of patients enrolled in the Bogalusa Heart Study, the world's longest-running racial study of risk factors for heart disease.

Samples collected and frozen since 1973 thawed out when the hurricane knocked out electricity and backup generators failed at a Tulane lab in New Orleans.

"It's irreplaceable. That's decades of research," aid Dr. Paul Whelton, senior vice president for health sciences at Tulane. "It makes you want to cry."

[ignatius 2]

3. AW shit..just what we needed to hear.

n/t