Citizens worried about Fort Detrick biolab

A $680 million biolab is being constructed in Maryland; people living in the neighborhood told a panel that the military has not fully considered the possibility of a release of deadly germs by a disturbed or disgruntled worker

A $680 million laboratory building under construction at Fort Detrick will likely be safer than the decades-old complex it will replace, an Army biodefense official told a scientific review panel Tuesday.

AP reports that a citizens group critical of the expansion, however, told the National Academy of Sciences panel that the military has not fully considered the possibility of a release of deadly germs by a disturbed or disgruntled worker.

Overshadowing the committee review of the new U.S. Army Medical Institute of Infectious Diseases is the specter of Bruce Ivins, a USAMRIID scientist whom the FBI identified last year as the lone perpetrator of the 2001 anthrax mailings.

Those mailings killed five people and sickened seventeen others. Ivins died of an apparent suicide in July 2008.

It's all going to be fine. No need to worry, folks. The US Army is ON THE JOB. (cough)

This story has everything a good CT'er could want. Danger, placation and a little bit of Anthrax thrown in with an 'apparent suicide.'

Awesome.




homelandsecuritynewswire.com...

reply to post by KSPigpen


Americas government likes to accuse other nations of creating weapons of mass destructions while here in our own backyard they play with bio engineer weapons without even taking in consideration the people in this nation that can succumb to lab mistakes.

Incredible, oh, I forgot we don't call it bio wepons they are biodefense.

reply to post by KSPigpen


I lived in a town named Damascus MD. when I was a kid. I remember the adults always talking about weird stuff going on. One year it was earthworms everywhere, the next it was praying mantises. Just odd things. It would be stupid to think tests were not conducted. It just makes you think about all the things that nobody told you. I am glad I am not there anymore. It's sad that so many people commit "suicide" just before they get to tell their side of the story. Like the DC madame. She killed herself in her moms tool shed just before she could tell all the names of her clients. Sad indeed.

reply to post by KSPigpen


S&F

But it's ok. Not a real safety issue. Interesting story though. . .

reply to post by mikerussellus


Hey Mike. Thanks for stopping by with a little calm. Do you think that people just get really bent out of shape when they hear the prefix BIO attached to anything and find out it's going to be in their backyard?

The story talks some about the main focus being vaccines and methods of detections and such...but do you think we are warranted in looking at something like this with a little bit of skepticism?

I guess it brings up images of 'The Stand' or something like that...do you think it's especially 'bugs' that we worry about, or is the mistrust based a bit more on the track record of the military and there sometimes admittedly less than stringent safeguards?

So do you think the people of that community are overreacting? Is it sort of like the Frankenstein villager type thing? To be completely honest, anybody playing with bugs in the continental US really creeps the hell out of me.

reply to post by KSPigpen


The Stand is a MUST READ where I work. Sorry, little dark humour.
From what I understand there are safeguards on top of safeguards there. It's routine.

The protests, and concerns, routine also. You would be surprised to learn what things travel in the dark of night, but as anal as the Army can be, I sleep pretty well at night.