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jmg257

(11,996 posts)
8. Here's a 2017 Newsletter on the labs...
Thu Apr 16, 2020, 08:11 AM
Apr 2020
https://www.nature.com/news/polopoly_fs/1.21487!/menu/main/topColumns/topLeftColumn/pdf/nature.2017.21487.pdf?origin=ppub

A laboratory in Wuhan is on the cusp of
being cleared to work with the world’s
most dangerous pathogens. The move
is part of a plan to build between five and seven
biosafety level-4 (BSL-4) labs across the Chinese mainland by 2025, and has generated
much excitement, as well as some concerns.
Some scientists outside China worry about
pathogens escaping, and the addition of a
biological dimension to geopolitical tensions
between China and other nations. But Chinese microbiologists are celebrating their entrance
to the elite cadre empowered to wrestle with
the world’s greatest biological threats.
...
BSL-4 is the highest level of biocontainment:
its criteria include filtering air and treating water and waste before they leave the laboratory, and stipulating that researchers change
clothes and shower before and after using lab
facilities. Such labs are often controversial. The
first BSL-4 lab in Japan was built in 1981, but
operated with lower-risk pathogens until 2015,
when safety concerns were finally overcome.
...
But worries surround the Chinese lab, too.
The SARS virus has escaped from high-level
containment facilities in Beijing multiple
times, notes Richard Ebright, a molecular
biologist at Rutgers University
in Piscataway,

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