samsamsam

Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Germ Laboratory
by Michael Christopher Carroll

Just finished this book a couple of hours ago and found it a pretty good read. Got it for S$8 at a book warehouse sale months ago. The reason why I picked it up is because the synopsis talked about West Nile, which I am working on in the lab.
However, West Nile is covered only sparingly in the book, instead, the author talks alot about other diseases like Foot and Mouth, Anthrax, and Lyme. The book isnt primarily about diseases, its about a federal lab that was not well run. At first part of the army then handed over to the FDA and just recently to the Homeland Security, the lab languishes because of inadequate funding, lack of trained personnel and self-centered directors.

At first the army with its fat budget raises up the lab (against public will) and tests out really biohazzardous viruses in the hope of creating a bioweapon. Still, its ok because the island was well guarded and had strict biosafety rules. Then decades later, it gets transfered to FDA who starts flaunting the rules by terrible safety lapses, cuts in budget which means the already old buildings cant even be kept in shape with decontamination facilities and electricity failing frequently. Then there was two admitted incidences of a virus leak, scores of personnel who came down with strange diseases and directors who are just too self centered to care for the island or who dont give an atom about safety ( in the name of doing better science).
So the island starts to collapse as the 1930's built infrastructure not just cant be upgraded, it could not even be maintained. The FDA privatizes the island's running, causing dissent amongst long serving workers and cost cutting in safety spending. Politicians, local leaders, scientists, media and even the island's own people start speaking up against the lab but still nothing happens. (the government cant sue itself). There was also a biological meltdown when a hurricane hit the island and another time some viruses leached from the lab to infect clean animals on the island outside the labs.
When the book comes to a close, I expected it all to be ironed out and the "happily ever after" but not so for this lab. Its still functioning at a low budget and the list of biologicals they handle and the safety levels it operates at is still anyone's guess.

I felt the book was very informative although I spotted a couple of misexpressed scientific terms. One which I remember is when the author said prions were DNA in nature, which is false as its actually a protein. The other one had to do with transfection in bacteria but I cannot remember the exact fault.
As one who actually handles viruses (though attenuated strains), this book is a reminder that people outside the lab constantly view the closed doors with curiosity and if not given correct information from inside, they will formulate their own stories. The other thing is responsibility of scientists to be cautious with infectious and transmissible living things that could escape the lab, no matter how docile.
It was an eye opener because the book tells of two breakthroughs Lab 257 had in its research (diamonds lost in the mud of mess it came to). It was the first to proof that a recombinant protein could be made into a vaccine (one of the staff in my lab is also doing the same thing, when i read this part, I went WOW!!) and secondly they created a rapid detection kit for Foot and Mouth disease that only takes 90 minutes compared to the traditional 2 days. The other interesting thing to me was the lab's connection with Fort Detrick which has been renamed the US army medical research for infectious disease. The fort that once tried to create bioweapons now publishes peer-reviewed journals that I come across so often when reading up on the latest West Nile research.

I was always wondering why the heck the army was playing with the same virus I was researching on...