You are here

3/28

Submitted by lpotter on Thu, 03/28/2019 - 11:34

The people that work there, not the actual facility itself poses the biggest risk for pathogens to escape a biosafety level 4 lab. In order work in a lab like this you must go through extensive background checks. Even your family must go through extensive checks and are subject to heavy scrutinization. This is because the pathogens in labs like this are so incredibly powerful that many people would want to try and use them to cause harm. People in the lab could either try and smuggle out samples of the virus for a payment or to cause serious damage by themselves or both. What I mean by this is that the pathogens could be sold to terrorists, radicalized militant groups, or anyone who wants to cause harm to the general public. Not only would these pathogens be very destructive to the population but they would also be very easily released and spread. If you think about how many people push open a turning door at the subway or airport in a single day you would realize how big of a threat these pathogens pose to the public. If some cases thousands of people could touch that spot in a given day. Now there are thousands of people who bring the pathogen with them and touch something else. They go home to their apartment complex, go to their work at a grocery store, go to the movies. All places where they will come in contact with thousands of more people. This is why the people in these facilities as well as the facilities themselves must be so heavily monitored.

Post: