Seems like ethics are now really passe' in all avenues.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/6772Texas A&M Failed to Report Student Stricken With Brucella During Bioweapons Experiment
by Sherwood Ross | Apr 14 2007
Texas A&M University failed to report in a timely manner to Federal authorities that a biology student was stricken with the dangerous brucella pathogen in its College Station laboratory for bioweapons agent research on February 9th of 2006. The university made its disclosure this April 10th, 14 months later, and only after insistent prodding by the Sunshine Project, an Austin, Tex.-based arms control watchdog organization.
Under Federal law, such incidents are supposed to be reported within seven days to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention.
The student was seriously ill for several months with brucellosis but recovered. The disease is believed to kill between two to three percent of those it infects. The student, whose name and gender has not been disclosed by Texas A&M to Sunshine, apparently came down with the disease, also known as undulant fever, attempting to clean what is called a Madison Aerosol Chamber (MAC) where mice had been exposed to aerosolized brucella particles.
The accident occurred under the supervision of Texas A&M professor David McMurray, inventor of the MAC. According to Sunshine, the case of the stricken student is the third report of a serious illness in connection with the chamber's use. On one occasion, a leaky aerosol chamber was responsible for three tuberculosis infections in a Seattle lab in 2004.
The MAC is used to infect animals with disease through their lungs. Cultures of the organisms causing tuberculosis, or the bioweapons agents brucella, anthrax, or Q fever, are placed in the MAC's nebulizer, which mixes them with the air. The resulting aerosol is directed into a metal chamber in which animals placed on racks breathe in the agent.
The Texas A&M work is being funded by the Department of Homeland Security(DHS) and the National Institutes of Health(NIH).Texas A&M's professor Thomas Ficht is the Principal Investigator.
E-mails that Texas A&M finally released to Sunshine late on Tuesday night (April 10) reveal the University broke federal law by not reporting the infection, Sunshine's Edward Hammond said. The Select Agent Rule required A&M to report the infection immediately upon its discovery and for the school to file a formal report, called APHIS/CDC Form 3, within 7 days. Failure to do so means Texas A&M could face fines of up to $750,000 and lose Federal funding for its research.
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