A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

A student researcher was infected with the bioweapons agent brucella [1] more than a year ago during a Texas A&M experiment, but the university illegally failed to report the incident. Sunshine Project [2], the organization that revealed the cover-up, says that such cases are not uncommon in America.

The researcher was cleaning a chamber that had just been used to expose mice to the bioagent when the bacteria entered her body, probably through her eyes. Supervising was the professor who invented the chamber, which he has characterized as "foolproof" but has caused at least two similar contaminations. The researcher was sick at home for several weeks before being diagnosed with the disease.

E-mails obtained by Sunshine Project reveal that Texas A&M officials knew they were required by state law to report the exposure, but they failed to do so. At the time, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was president of the university.

Sunshine Project claims to have documented several other unreported incidents, but that there are undoubtedly many more that have been successfully burried "due to the absence of effective federal regulation."

Texas A&M is on the short list of bidders for a $451 Homeland Security Contract [3] to build and operate the proposed National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility, which is expected to bring in up to $6 billion over 20 years. The other competitors don't look so hot [4], either.

The government is not only allowing places like Texas A&M to play with dangerous bioweapons without any regulation or accountability, it is encouraging them to do so.

"It is common knowledge in the biodefense business that lab accidents with bioweapons agents are routinely buried in order to avoid negative publicity and endangering funding," said Sunshine Project Director Edward Hammond.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

Bookmark/Search this post with:

buzzflash [5] | delicious [6] | digg [7] | technorati [8]