[userbinator]

Here's the reassuring part from the linked PDF:

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.

[Someone]

I'm not sure it is 45 liters of polio virus. The expression used is "concentrated polio virus solution". I guess that includes whatever they use to produce the virus, or maybe it is a concentrated version of the end product that is taken orally and contains ??? percent of non-virus stuff.

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.

[fnordfnordfnord]

>I'm not sure it is 45 liters of polio virus. The expression used is "concentrated live polio virus solution".

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.

[gweinberg]

I'd like to know why anyone even has 45L of concentrated polio virus.

[anthracis417]

I've worked in labs with far less threatening (but still deadly) microorganisms and I could never imagine making a mistake with such a giant flask. It had to have been mislabelled or maybe someone used used autoclave tape to seal something on the top? Only a idiot would pour an unlabelled solution of that size down the drain...

[lawnchair_larry]

45L is not a flask. That's almost half a barrel.

[StavrosK]

That's how much gas it takes to fill my car. Someone emptied a tankful of polio somewhere.

[aheilbut]

Presumably they're manufacturing polio vaccine

[hga]

Indeed, the article mentions that this was "released into the environment by the pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline".

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

[riffraff]

let's cross fingers this doesn't become the obvious "vaccine manufacturers are spreading viruses" that anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists need.

[coldtea]

>let's cross fingers this doesn't become the obvious "vaccine manufacturers are spreading viruses" that anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists need.

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.

[evan_]

Just so we are clear, you believe that the individual people working at this pharmaceutical company- many thousands of people- are all mass murderers, held in check only by the orders of their PR department.

[k-mcgrady]

Even if that were true wouldn't you still want the vaccine to protect you from the virus these guys are supposedly unleashing?

[tomjen3]

I would, assuming it was the best, but I also wouldn't pay them for it.

[bsaul]

Or if one employee involved happends to be muslim, that this become labelled a terrorist act.

[themartorana]

Only if it were determined to not have been human error, but human intentional action.

[Iv]

Well as much as I hate it, it is indeed a case of a vaccine manufacturer spreading the virus it makes vaccines against. Let's just hope that there is a a deep inquiry and that they do more than just fire the employee who did a mistake.

[pbhjpbhj]

>the employee who did a mistake //

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".

[stef25]

Glaxo has a huge facility in Rixensart, it's not far from where I live. I'd imagine they do a lot of R&D there