Monday, May 09, 2005

Boston University

Boston University officials admitted that the workers handling the tularemia vaccine did not follow safety procedures. They removed the principal investigator, Dr. Peter A. Rice, from his post as chief of infectious diseases but he’s still hanging around looking for a handout. Rice was supposed to be the one training workers for a new high-security laboratory that will work with much more lethal creatures – right in Boston.
The tularemia vaccine researchers thought they were working with a harmless "vaccine strain" of the Francisella tularensis bacterium but was really a manufactured mutant that was combined with a dangerous bacteria.
Dr. Thomas J. Moore, acting provost of the university's medical campus did not report anything to state health authorities until Nov. 9 even though infection was confirmed on October 29, a delay he said he could not explain. But he defended the decision not to tell the public.
"I feel comfortable about the decision not to make a public announcement because there wasn't a public risk, since tularemia can't be passed from person to person." Dr. Moore said. The only problem with that statement is it wasn’t tularemia but a mutant that had infected the workers.
It is my opinion that Dr. Thomas J. Moore is an incompetent who has placed not only the campus of Boston University at risk but the entire city of Boston and indeed the United States. His immediate resignation would be welcomed and his retirement is recommended.
He obviously demonstrates no concept whatsoever of the imminent dangers posed by microbial, viral and recombinant work.

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