Lab Leaks Have Increased By 50% Since COVID Pandemic: Report
Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,
The Telegraph reports that it has found a FIFTY PERCENT increase in leaks and accidents at laboratories in the UK since the outbreak of COVID in 2020, warning of “potentially catastrophic consequences” in the future.
The report notes that a Freedom of Information Act request sent to all British universities, government research bodies and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) yielded results showing that “dozens of dangerous viruses and bacteria including anthrax, rabies and Mers (Middle East respiratory syndrome) are being stored close to large populations, potentially placing citizens at risk.”
The investigation also found that since January 2020, there have been 156 reports of lab leaks or accidents, around 42 per year. That is a rise of 50 per cent on the years between January 2010 and December 2019, when 286 incidents were recorded in total, approximately 28 per year.
🔴 Lab leaks and accidents up 50pc as fears grow dangerous viruses and bacteria could escape https://t.co/ZJtdocHiIM
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) January 7, 2024
Some of the incidents recorded since 2020 include a worker dropping plates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bug responsible for TB at a former Public Health England lab at Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham. At the same lab a worker was pricked with a needle containing HIV, human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 2, and Candida albicans.
At other facilities, avian flu leaked from a cracked sample tube, an accident involving the bacteria responsible for life-threatening sepsis was recorded, and a worker was stabbed by a needle containing the Vaccinia virus, similar to smallpox.
At another lab, workers “lost” a mouse that they had genetically modified.
The Telegraph notes that not all incidents were disclosed because “some of the biological agents involved are listed in the Terrorism Act.”
American molecular biologist Richard H. Ebright, who has been vocal regarding his opinion that the COVID pandemic was a gain of function lab leak, further highlighted several terrifying quotes from the Telegraph report:
"The HSE, which had to be threatened with contempt of court by the Information Commissioner’s Office before it would release the data, said it could not disclose full details of the incidents because some of the biological agents involved are listed in the Terrorism Act."
— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) January 6, 2024
David Harper, former director general in UK Department of Health: "Accidental breaches in laboratory biocontainment can have potentially catastrophic consequences. The accidents that are reported today without doubt provide an underestimate of the true scale of the problem.'"
— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) January 6, 2024
"Col Hamish de Bretton Gordon, former commander of Nato’s Chemical, Biological and Nuclear Defence Forces, said: 'The apparent lab leaks in this country alone show we are all sitting on a ticking time bomb. "
— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) January 6, 2024
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