Human Error.
"Well, you know, I was just taking my 12-gallon tank of polio for a walk down by the water treatment plant, and whoops! Butterfingers!"
I just. I don't. How.
My best guess is that a technician accidentally hit the "dump waste" button before the vessel was decontaminated/when it had the wrong solution in it/before the virus was deactivated, etc.
This incident is especially worrisome, but having seen the control boards for one of those giant reactors, I'm not surprised that mistakes are made on occasion.
It was likely some polio introduced into secondary and they didn't process it correctly in that area.
There was a case of a nurse who injected the wrong compound in a baby and killed it a decade ago (in a military hospital in France, one with a stellar reputation): two viles were strikingly similar (one containing vaccine, the other Potassium) even after being told what those were, you would confuse them.
In this case, I'm assuming concentrated virus is not meant to be near water release, therefore no one noticed until yesterday that there were stored in vats that look like possibly fat-digesting bacteria, or chlorine. 40L is a large quantity: the only container I can think of for those is either a metallic oil drum, or that omnipresent industrial blue plastic barrel (the one you see in that infamous scene in Breaking Bad).
On 8 September 2014, the Federal Public Service (FPS) Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment in Belgium confirmed that samples of mud and water taken from the Rosieres treatment plant, river Lasne and river Dyle, all tested negative for the presence of polio virus.
But... 45L of "concentrated polio virus"? Although it'd probably be classified, I'd love to see the full detailed report on how and why this happened.
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...
http://www.biopharma-reporter.com/Downstream-Processing/Prod...
The word 'concentrated' seems to have been picked up over the last few days.
>(CS) Authorities have decided to stop using water from the Lac de la Haute Sûre for drinking water treatment, following the spread of a pesticide in the water after a spill in Belgium.
So thanks for your unneeded geography lesson and now if you would be so kind to open the link you'll read why Luxembourgish newspaper were talking about some pesticide in a Belgian lake...
[1] and if we want to be really really precise, the south province of Belgium at the border with Luxembourg and France is called Province of Luxembourg, so we should talk about Province of Luxembourg and Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
Someone broke something, or opened something, or knocked over something. 45 liters of water is about 100 US pounds, so it was probably a single smallish, somewhat portable storage unit that got affected.
I agree the wording is less than ideal, but I'm not sure there is a 'coverup'.
Polio requires level 4.
It was 45L of concentrated polio virus solution. 45L is about the upper limit of a human portable storage vessel for liquids. 10 gallon portable water coolers are common, and we're talking 12 gallons here.
My guess is someone was corner-rolling it to transport it a short distance rather than getting a coworker or using a dolly. All it takes is the lid being improperly secured and all that liquid is going down a floor drain.
The virus doesn't live long outside the body, with the exception being an infected person faeces.
This is likely not receiving much media attention because it's not a big incident. Aside from a few waste treatment workers who'll have to be extra cautious the city will simply cut back on workers going down into the sewers for a couple weeks.
Unless faeces are getting into the water supply, there's negligible risk. And if faeces were getting into the water supply, there'd be a bigger news story here than this incident.
That's an extraordinary claim - I presume you have extraordinary evidence? I mean... this is Hacker News, not a conspiracy website.
Indeed. Are you going to study 45L of it under a microscope though? The Polio part I'm OK with its the "45L of concentrate" that I can't understand.
You have 100 tons of explosive? Yes...I need it...for research. And 1kg will definitely not be enough for my research....has to be 100 tons. See what I'm getting at?
Hypothesizing brings me to conclusion that this has to be caused at least in part by companies probably trying to streamline by merging branches or departments.
If I'm a fly on the wall in the board room I'm sure I hear something like: "Sure, of course it makes financial sense to manage all barrels of stuff headed for water-treatment facility in the same warehouse, and by the same team, as where we keep our barrels full of polio and other harmful viruses. Layoff the other department, close down the other warehouse, and merge the two asap"
I think the points (yes I think sarcasm can be a valid channel through which to voice your concerns) I'm trying to make here are:
1) People making decisions for corporations as large as GlaxoSmithKline tend to be disconnected from the impact of their decisions.
2) There are only 2 reasons something like this can happen. (a) Malice, or (b) incompetence. I reluctantly choose 'b'.
3) In general it's the people who actually make the mistake who get fired, and not the incompetence in the board room that creates the environment where these kinds of mistakes can actually be made.
As a side-note, I live in midwest in U.S. and am not a reporter or involved in media, so I'm pretty ill-equipped to go seeking out facts which I'm sure even a skilled reporter will have a difficult time trying to uncover.
You are probably confusing it with smallpox which has been eradicated.
People like you are the whole reason the US' media is complete shit.
No personal attacks, please, even when you find a comment asinine.
That's what you were going to day next, wasnt it?
One could even parse that phrase as "a concentrated solution of the stuff we use to create polio vaccin; wasn't used yet, so it should not contain polio virus, but it was in our security zone, so we take this seriously."
Other sources speak of 45 liters of liquid contaminated by live polio virus, which is something different yet.
In summary: I do not know how to interpret that number.
AFAIK, polio-virus only exists/survives in solution/bodily fluids. So "45 liters of polio virus" would be sort of nonsensical if one interpreted it literally. Parsing the second part, the word "concentrated" also means that it wasn't simply some incidentally contaminated wash water or anything like that, but rather it was "concentrated polio virus solution".
>One could even parse that phrase as "a concentrated solution of the stuff we use to create polio vaccin; wasn't used yet, so it should not contain polio virus, but it was in our security zone, so we take this seriously."
Yes, one could parse the statement in a way most favorable to GSK (and to everyone's hopes), but that is not a prudent way to treat such accidents, especially if we have no evidence to support such a generous interpretation. Fortunately, the article links its source: http://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications/Publications/commu...
>>On 6 September, the Belgium authorities informed the European Commission, the Netherlands, ECDC and WHO about an incident that occurred on 2 September 2014. Following a human error, 45 litres of concentrated live polio virus solution were released into the environment by the pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), in Rixensart, Belgium.
The press release is very brief and concise. It leaves little room for linguistic gymnastics.
>I do not know how to interpret that number.
Here, I'll try. If you live downriver from the Belgian GSK plant, don't drink river water, or swim in the river. Also, confirm your polio vaccination status.
Or, look here (thanks to hga for the link): http://promedmail.org/direct.php?id=2771817
>>On [2 Sep 2014], following a human error, 45 litres of concentrated live polio virus solution were released into the environment by the pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), in Rixensart city, Belgium. The estimated viral rejection of live virus Saukett (Salk) serotype 3 was of 10 to the 13th, cell culture infectious dose 50 percent (CCID 50). The liquid was conducted directly to a water-treatment plant (Rosieres) and released after treatment in river Lasne, affluent of river Dyle, which is affluent of the Escaut/Scheldt river.
So, one could also parse the information in a worst-case way, that is that the 45L of concentrated live poliovirus solution was released into a sewage treatment plant where they had a polio-party and subsequently became many hundreds of thousands of litres of poliovirus solution.
Usually the cause is wider than just "Bob didn't follow procedure", and includes things like "Management had Bob working 56 hour weeks in scattered locations which caused fatigue".
People incentivise the wrong thing; they misunderstand the psychology of work[1]; they use poor design; etc.
Other examples include surgeon's resistance to counting equipment before and after surgery - this WHO protocol saves lives and reduces adverse events but some surgeons strongly resisted implementing it.
And then you have outright forging of paperwork. from 1999 - http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news/nn10199.htm
> BRITISH NUCLEAR Fuels has admitted that it has discovered twice as many faked safety checks on its highly dangerous mixed-oxide fuel as previously thought.
> The nuclear fuel was destined to be part of a second export consignment to Japan, where environmentalists are planning huge protests against the scheduled arrival of the first consignment later today.
> The company originally estimated that quality-control data relating to 11 lots of mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel had been falsified, but an internal investigation has identified 22 lots that were forged. British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) launched its inquiry last week after The Independent revealed serious lapses in its quality-control procedures relating to MOX fuel for Japan. Three employees have been suspended.
Humans make mistakes, and people are humans.
In the software world this manifests as redundant-but-required input. Don't ask the user for a value that can be safely calculated or determined an already known value.
...our first choice should be to see if we can remove the hazard—the inherently safer approach. For example, could we use a nonflammable solvent instead of a flammable one?...the second best choice is to control the hazard with protective equipment, preferably passive equipment, as it does not have to be switched on. As a last (but frequent) resort, we may have to depend on procedures. Thus, as a protection against fire, if we cannot use nonflammable materials, insulation (passive) is usually better than water spray turned on automatically (active), but that is usually better than water spray turned on by people (procedural). In some companies, however, the default action is to consider a change in procedures first, sometimes because it is cheaper but more often because it has become a custom and practice carried on unthinkingly. [1]
[1] Trevor Kletz. Still Going Wrong!: Case Histories of Process Plant Disasters and How They Could Have Been Avoided. Burlington, Massachusetts: Gulf Professional Publishing, 2003. ISBN 978-0750677097, page. 208.
> Wild polioviruses are classified as risk group 2. The rationale for the minimal biosafety levels is the near universal immunization of the population with OPV and/or IPV. Biosafety Level 2 (BSL-2) is the currently recommended minimal standard for all countries. To ensure safe handling of wild polioviruses and potentially infectious materials as eradication nears (Pre-Eradication), BSL-2, hereafter referred to as BSL-2/polio, should be enhanced by specific practices described in this document (Box 10).
>>Drake demonstrated that poliovirus is able to undergo multiplicity reactivation.[23] That is, when polioviruses were irradiated with UV light and allowed to undergo multiple infections of host cells, viable progeny could be formed even at UV doses that inactivated the virus in single infections.
1. Because vaccine manufacture likely requires large amounts.
2. Because polio isn't particularly dangerous in Belgium.
3. See 2.
4. Because that drain was probably for safe waste fluids, not polio solution.
5. See 2.
I originally read about this at this excellent site I'm following for Ebola news, http://promedmail.org/ (and also now using to learn a lot about plant pathogens etc.)
Their item quotes a source with more info and has some very good editorial content on potential problems, including details on recent downstream outbreaks: http://promedmail.org/direct.php?id=2771817
Well, considering the historical behavior of for profit enterprises, it's not something that would be beneath them.
If it wasn't for tight regulation and the huge media backslash they'd be pouring the stuff by the tons. But in any place/country/era where they could bypass such stuff, businesses have done so.
There's no reason you need more than a handful of people to be deliberately evil. Plenty of people will follow them unknowingly or under the threat of losing their jobs.
But in the case we're talking about it's even easier. For one, it doesn't have to be "many thousands of people" working in the company. Just a few, entrusted by the upper echelons. In the same way that companies historically employed thugs, mafia etc, to beat and even murder union members and strikers. It's not like it was something openly decided in a company meeting. Usually it takes the form "take care of the problem, the less I know the better" from some superiors (with an implicit knowledge of what that entails).
Single employees, no matter how senior they are, shouldn't be able to perform an action like this. There's got to be systemic gross incompetence to even allow a single employee opportunity to access a large batch of fatal disease carrying material without oversight. I doubt very much this was a case of "oh the intern threw out the wrong barrel of disease, shucks".
Given that most people are effectively vaccinated for polio, I can see this plant being not quite so strict.