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Comment by gweinberg | Hacker News Reader

I'd like to know why anyone even has 45L of concentrated polio virus.

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...

45L is not a flask. That's almost half a barrel.

That's how much gas it takes to fill my car. Someone emptied a tankful of polio somewhere.

Presumably they're manufacturing polio vaccine

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.

Even if that were true wouldn't you still want the vaccine to protect you from the virus these guys are supposedly unleashing?

I would, assuming it was the best, but I also wouldn't pay them for it.

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.

>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".

Here are examples of domains where the two-man rule is used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-man_rule

Given that most people are effectively vaccinated for polio, I can see this plant being not quite so strict.

Or if one employee involved happends to be muslim, that this become labelled a terrorist act.

Only if it were determined to not have been human error, but human intentional action.

>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).

Glaxo has a huge facility in Rixensart, it's not far from where I live. I'd imagine they do a lot of R&D there

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