Mice, Infected With Bubonic Plague Missing From New Jersey Lab

[matcom]

<snip>

NEWARK, N.J. -- Three mice infected with the bacteria responsible for bubonic plague apparently disappeared from a laboratory about two weeks ago, and authorities launched a search though health experts said there was scant public risk.

The mice were unaccounted-for at the Public Health Research Institute, which is on the campus of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and conducts bioterrorism research for the federal government.

Federal official said the mice may never be accounted for. Among other things, the rodents may have been stolen, eaten by other lab animals or just misplaced in a paperwork error.

If the mice got outside the lab, they would have already died from the disease, state Health Commissioner Fred Jacobs said.

The possibility of theft prompted the institute to interrogate two dozen of its employees and conduct lie detector tests, The Star-Ledger of Newark reported Thursday.

The FBI said it was investigating. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also investigating, the newspaper reported.

University officials did not immediately return a call seeking comment Thursday morning.

The mice were injected as part of an inoculation and vaccination experiment, investigators said.

http://www.wftv.com/irresistible/4978749/detail.html

[Shell Beau]

1. Great, just great!

[kick-ass-bob]

2. mmmm - purple hippo....

Mice? What mice? Oh shit!
Damn you MATCOM!!

[matcom]

3. its a gift

:D

[rexcat]

4. In all reality...

the mice probably did not get out of the building before they died of the disease. Also they probably did not have fleas since they were lab animals. It is the fleas that spread the Yesenia pestis, the bacteria that causes bubonic plague, not the mice. per say. Fleas feed off of live animals (they are blood suckers) and once the mice die fleas evacuate to a live animal. That is how the black plague spread in the middle ages.