Word: usamriid
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...Hartford Courant revealed last week that some 27 samples of anthrax, Ebola and other pathogens were missing during a 1992 inventory at USAMRIID. According to several former employees and at least one current one--as well as internal Army documents released in response to a 1998 lawsuit and first made public in December--it was surprisingly easy for employees to get hold of highly infectious bacteria. Walking out with some in your pocket would have been no problem...
...clear from the same documents that discipline and morale at the lab in the early 1990s were a mess. USAMRIID at the time was roiled by alleged racial and sexual harassment, factions warring over the lab's leadership, accusations of incompetence and even theft of research. One particularly nasty clique formed a "Camel Club," whose symbol was a toy camel outfitted with outsize sex organs and whose members wrote lewd limericks mocking co-workers and sponsored notorious hot-tub parties. In short, USAMRIID had become a breeding ground of resentment and hateful high jinks...
...least two dissatisfied former employees are suing. Richard Crosland, 55, a microbiologist suing for age discrimination after his 1997 layoff, worked primarily with botulinum toxin. "7-Eleven had better inventory controls than USAMRIID," he says. "The inventories were pretty much a joke. People often just filled them in using last month's forms. In my 11 years there, they never once asked for my botulinum toxin records. If I had taken it all home--which of course I didn't--no one would have known." How can he be sure? "After I was fired," says Crosland, "I made three trips...
...while he admits that there were problems at USAMRIID in the past, Colonel Edward Eitzen, the lab commander, says the allegations of easy access to toxins and lax security are grossly exaggerated. "It would be very difficult to stop a determined insider from removing samples even if you were stopping everybody on their way out," he concedes. But, he says, "even prior to 9/11, we were as good or better than any other laboratory in terms of our security and our safety." Of the 27 missing samples, 26 have been tracked down, he maintains, and in any case, they...
...turn out that the dysfunctional environment and lax controls at USAMRIID have nothing to do with the anthrax killer. But if not, all that means is this particular ticking bomb didn...