On 8 September 2014, the Federal Public Service (FPS) Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment in Belgium confirmed that samples of mud and water taken from the Rosieres treatment plant, river Lasne and river Dyle, all tested negative for the presence of polio virus.
But... 45L of "concentrated polio virus"? Although it'd probably be classified, I'd love to see the full detailed report on how and why this happened.
I'm not sure it is 45 liters of polio virus. The expression used is "concentrated polio virus solution". I guess that includes whatever they use to produce the virus, or maybe it is a concentrated version of the end product that is taken orally and contains ??? percent of non-virus stuff.
One could even parse that phrase as "a concentrated solution of the stuff we use to create polio vaccin; wasn't used yet, so it should not contain polio virus, but it was in our security zone, so we take this seriously."
Other sources speak of 45 liters of liquid contaminated by live polio virus, which is something different yet.
In summary: I do not know how to interpret that number.
>I'm not sure it is 45 liters of polio virus. The expression used is "concentrated live polio virus solution".
AFAIK, polio-virus only exists/survives in solution/bodily fluids. So "45 liters of polio virus" would be sort of nonsensical if one interpreted it literally. Parsing the second part, the word "concentrated" also means that it wasn't simply some incidentally contaminated wash water or anything like that, but rather it was "concentrated polio virus solution".
>One could even parse that phrase as "a concentrated solution of the stuff we use to create polio vaccin; wasn't used yet, so it should not contain polio virus, but it was in our security zone, so we take this seriously."
Yes, one could parse the statement in a way most favorable to GSK (and to everyone's hopes), but that is not a prudent way to treat such accidents, especially if we have no evidence to support such a generous interpretation. Fortunately, the article links its source: http://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications/Publications/commu...
>>On 6 September, the Belgium authorities informed the European Commission, the Netherlands, ECDC and WHO about an
incident that occurred on 2 September 2014. Following a human error, 45 litres of concentrated live polio virus solution were
released into the environment by the pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), in Rixensart, Belgium.
The press release is very brief and concise. It leaves little room for linguistic gymnastics.
>I do not know how to interpret that number.
Here, I'll try. If you live downriver from the Belgian GSK plant, don't drink river water, or swim in the river. Also, confirm your polio vaccination status.
>>On [2 Sep 2014], following a human error, 45 litres of concentrated live polio virus solution were released into the environment by the pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), in Rixensart city, Belgium. The estimated viral rejection of live virus Saukett (Salk) serotype 3 was of 10 to the 13th, cell culture infectious dose 50 percent (CCID 50). The liquid was conducted directly to a water-treatment plant (Rosieres) and released after treatment in river Lasne, affluent of river Dyle, which is affluent of the Escaut/Scheldt river.
So, one could also parse the information in a worst-case way, that is that the 45L of concentrated live poliovirus solution was released into a sewage treatment plant where they had a polio-party and subsequently became many hundreds of thousands of litres of poliovirus solution.
I've worked in labs with far less threatening (but still deadly) microorganisms and I could never imagine making a mistake with such a giant flask. It had to have been mislabelled or maybe someone used used autoclave tape to seal something on the top? Only a idiot would pour an unlabelled solution of that size down the drain...
Indeed, the article mentions that this was "released into the environment by the pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline".
I originally read about this at this excellent site I'm following for Ebola news, http://promedmail.org/ (and also now using to learn a lot about plant pathogens etc.)
Their item quotes a source with more info and has some very good editorial content on potential problems, including details on recent downstream outbreaks: http://promedmail.org/direct.php?id=2771817
>let's cross fingers this doesn't become the obvious "vaccine manufacturers are spreading viruses" that anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists need.
Well, considering the historical behavior of for profit enterprises, it's not something that would be beneath them.
If it wasn't for tight regulation and the huge media backslash they'd be pouring the stuff by the tons. But in any place/country/era where they could bypass such stuff, businesses have done so.
Just so we are clear, you believe that the individual people working at this pharmaceutical company- many thousands of people- are all mass murderers, held in check only by the orders of their PR department.
I think a better way to look at it is a pharmaceutical company is full of people that would obey the ignorant orders of a middle manager in a hierarchy with incorrect safety procedures or obey the orders of a small group of evil managers colluding to bypass those procedures without the knowledge of their subordinates.
There's no reason you need more than a handful of people to be deliberately evil. Plenty of people will follow them unknowingly or under the threat of losing their jobs.
Do you believe that the German people in 1933-1945 were all (or many millions of them) mass murderers and "evil"? The reality of it is that they just followed orders, and that doing a little part doesn't directly feel like being a murderer, especially if its celebrated by your peers and superiors. The "banality of evil" and all.
But in the case we're talking about it's even easier. For one, it doesn't have to be "many thousands of people" working in the company. Just a few, entrusted by the upper echelons. In the same way that companies historically employed thugs, mafia etc, to beat and even murder union members and strikers. It's not like it was something openly decided in a company meeting. Usually it takes the form "take care of the problem, the less I know the better" from some superiors (with an implicit knowledge of what that entails).
Well as much as I hate it, it is indeed a case of a vaccine manufacturer spreading the virus it makes vaccines against. Let's just hope that there is a a deep inquiry and that they do more than just fire the employee who did a mistake.
Single employees, no matter how senior they are, shouldn't be able to perform an action like this. There's got to be systemic gross incompetence to even allow a single employee opportunity to access a large batch of fatal disease carrying material without oversight. I doubt very much this was a case of "oh the intern threw out the wrong barrel of disease, shucks".
On 8 September 2014, the Federal Public Service (FPS) Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment in Belgium confirmed that samples of mud and water taken from the Rosieres treatment plant, river Lasne and river Dyle, all tested negative for the presence of polio virus.
But... 45L of "concentrated polio virus"? Although it'd probably be classified, I'd love to see the full detailed report on how and why this happened.