Infected Monkeys and Other Cautionary Tales From the Biolab
On May 27th, the Pentagon admitted that it had shipped live anthrax to facilities in multiple U.S. states, and to a U.S. airbase in South Korea—by accident. Anthrax is usually kept in highly secure biolabs with multiply redundant safeguards. But we’ve always known there is room for human error.
The history of the biolab revolves around events like those of 1921, when two French scientists presented the world with a powerful weapon against tuberculosis. “The Great White Plague,” as it was called, had been infecting and killing humans with relative impunity for over 5,000 years before Albert Calmette and Camille Guérin unveiled
