Without comment. From [The Atlantic](http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/when-viruses-escape-the-lab/371202/):
> **Scientists Are Creating New, Incurable Diseases in Labs**
Swine flu, or H1N1, had been dead for 20 years when it suddenly re-emerged in 1977 with a curious twist. The new strain was genetically similar to one from the 1950s, almost as though it had been sitting frozen in a lab since then. Indeed, it eventually became clear that the late-70s flu outbreak was likely the result of a lowly lab worker’s snafu. > > Lab accidents like that are extremely rare. Still, two scientists are now arguing that it’s not worth continuing to create new, transmissible versions of deadly viruses in labs because the risk that the diseases will escape and infect the public is too great. > More: > That worries people like Marc Lipsitch and Alison P. Galvani, two epidemiologists who [write in a PLoS Medicine editorial today](http://www.plos.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/plme-11-05-Lipsitch.pdf) that creating these types of new infectious agents puts human life at risk. They estimate that if 10 American laboratories ran these types of experiments for a decade, there would be a 20 percent chance that a lab worker would become infected with one of these new super-flus and potentially pass it on to others. > > “The concern is that you're making something that doesn't exist in nature and combines high virulence for people with the ability to transmit efficiently,” Lipsitch told me. > > Accidents involving lab-grown pathogens aren’t just the stuff of sci-fi movies. A Singaporean lab worker was [inadvertently infected with SARS](http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/24/world/lab-infection-blamed-for-singapore-sars-case.html) in 2003. In 2004, a Russian scientist died after accidentally sticking herself with a needle contaminated with Ebola at a Siberian lab. In April, [Paris’ Pasteur Institute lost 2,000 vials](http://www.france24.com/en/20140416-paris-sars-samples-institute-pasteur/) containing the SARS virus. And in March, the Galveston National Laboratory in Texas [lost a vial](http://abcnews.go.com/Health/galveston-texas-biolab-loses-deadly-guanarito-virus/story?id=18809363) containing [Guanarito virus](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8166352), which causes "bleeding under the skin, in internal organs or from body orifices like the mouth, eyes, or ears.” > Just lovely
Swine flu, or H1N1, had been dead for 20 years when it suddenly re-emerged in 1977 with a curious twist. The new strain was genetically similar to one from the 1950s, almost as though it had been sitting frozen in a lab since then. Indeed, it eventually became clear that the late-70s flu outbreak was likely the result of a lowly lab worker’s snafu. > > Lab accidents like that are extremely rare. Still, two scientists are now arguing that it’s not worth continuing to create new, transmissible versions of deadly viruses in labs because the risk that the diseases will escape and infect the public is too great. > More: > That worries people like Marc Lipsitch and Alison P. Galvani, two epidemiologists who [write in a PLoS Medicine editorial today](http://www.plos.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/plme-11-05-Lipsitch.pdf) that creating these types of new infectious agents puts human life at risk. They estimate that if 10 American laboratories ran these types of experiments for a decade, there would be a 20 percent chance that a lab worker would become infected with one of these new super-flus and potentially pass it on to others. > > “The concern is that you're making something that doesn't exist in nature and combines high virulence for people with the ability to transmit efficiently,” Lipsitch told me. > > Accidents involving lab-grown pathogens aren’t just the stuff of sci-fi movies. A Singaporean lab worker was [inadvertently infected with SARS](http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/24/world/lab-infection-blamed-for-singapore-sars-case.html) in 2003. In 2004, a Russian scientist died after accidentally sticking herself with a needle contaminated with Ebola at a Siberian lab. In April, [Paris’ Pasteur Institute lost 2,000 vials](http://www.france24.com/en/20140416-paris-sars-samples-institute-pasteur/) containing the SARS virus. And in March, the Galveston National Laboratory in Texas [lost a vial](http://abcnews.go.com/Health/galveston-texas-biolab-loses-deadly-guanarito-virus/story?id=18809363) containing [Guanarito virus](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8166352), which causes "bleeding under the skin, in internal organs or from body orifices like the mouth, eyes, or ears.” > Just lovely
