Lynn Klotz, a senior science fellow and member of the Scientists’ Working Group and Chemical and Biological Weapons, spoke with the Columbia Daily Tribune about biocontainment labs.
Lynn Klotz, senior science fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, has written and researched extensively about the biocontainment labs. A February 2019 piece in “Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists” is titled “Human Error in High-Biocontainment Labs: A Likely Pandemic Threat.”
A larger concern for him is the release of a bird flu, Ebola or Marburg virus.
No matter how technologically advanced a lab is, human error can thwart the technology, Klotz said. He cited one incident at a Biosafety Level 4 lab in which a researcher wearing shorts spilled some of the 1918 flu virus. People at those labs are supposed to be fully clothed in protective garb.
The researcher was quarantined, and the National Institutes of Health “really wrote the riot act” for that lab, Klotz said. Read more
