In the world of European medical research, few names carry more clout and prestige than the Institut Pasteur. In 1983, the French non-profit discovered HIV, and three years later found another strain of the disease. It has posted groundbreaking research in the study of diseases from yellow fever to tetanus to diphtheria. In all, its scientists have netted numerous Nobel Prizes, one of which came in 2008.Now it's in the news for something equally remarkable -- but for a very different reason.
Days ago, the Paris institute announced that it lost more than 2,300 vials of SARS, a disease that killed more than 770 people and infected 8,000 more a decade ago, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
A routine inventory turned up the disappearance of the tubes. The institute suspects they've been missing since January, and as of Wednesday morning, no one knows what happened to them.
| Nor, apparently, did they worry very much over it. Glass of wine and a baguette at the local café can so soothe the nerves... |
| "Say, you monsieur's have any of our deadly virus vials?" "Non!" "Hokay!" |
But don't worry, Pasteur says. "The tubes concerned have no infectious potential," its statement said. "Independent experts referred by health authorities have qualified the risk as 'nil.'"
| We'll be the judge of that... |
"We knew from the beginning that the samples were not infectious, as the independent experts confirmed," said Christian Brechot, Pasteur's president, in an interview. He added that a malfunctioning freezer door would have killed the virus.
| So do they know the freezer malfunctioned? |
Nonetheless, the disappearance of a deadly respiratory virus isn't the sort of thing one shrugs off. The disease ripped through China in 2003 and hopped to Taiwan and Singapore, where dozens more died before it was stamped out.
It's anyone's guess what happened to the missing vials. "The theory of human error is the most probable, but we are not ruling anything out," Brechot said.
| It's most likely human stupidity (not error). But anything less than a full investigation and the resignation of the director of the lab will mean that the fix is in... |