BIOTECH WORKER AND PUBLIC SAFETY

Former Pfizer scientist, Becky McClain, went public about being infected by a genetically engineered virus in 2002-2003 at the Pfizer lab where she worked.  In April 2010 a federal jury awarded McClain $1.37 million, ruling that the pharmaceutical giant had violated her free speech and whistle-blower protections.  McClain, an AHB Advisory Board member, now works to raise awareness about lab worker rights and public health and safety.  She is the recipient of the 2010 Nader Trust Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage.

Watch one of her presentations.

See also:  

Council for Responsible Genetics video on Biolab Health and Safety

Center for Disease Control: Recognize the Four Biosafety Levels

More videos RE biolab safety:

RECOMMENDED READING

Pandora’s Gamble: Lab Leaks, Pandemics, and a World at Risk. Alison Young (2023)

COVID-19 Origins: Investigating a “Complex and Grave Situation” Inside a Wuhan Lab, Vanity Fair

“Did the Coronavirus Escape From a Lab?,” Intelligencer

“Why Gain of Function Research Should be Banned: the Author of ‘Biotech Juggernaut’ Speaks Out on Covid 19,” Interview with Stuart A. Newman

"A Roach in the Kitchen,"  Genewatch Interview with Becky McClain

"A Cruel and Unusual Corporation:  Becky McClain's Crusade Against Pfizer,"  Ralph Nader

"A Pfizer Whistle-Blower is Awarded $1.4 Million," New York Times

more INFORMATION ON NEED FOR BIOTECH SAFETY:

Biolab Watch. Works for transparency, oversight, civic participation, and community involvement in the siting and operation of biolabs. 

Biosafety Now! Advocates for strengthening oversight of research on pathogens

Global Biolabs Tracks maximum containment labs around the world.

Global Pandemic threat: ‘Human error’ leak of lab virus now a ‘substantial probability”

Death of California Researcher Spurs Investigation, Science, 2012

Laboratory-Acquired Meningcoccal Disease -- United States, 2000

One Person Dead After Exlosion at Menlo Park Lab

Airflow Problems Plague CDC Bioterror Lab

First US Cowpox Infection: Acquired from Lab Contamination

Risk Assessment of US Agro-Bio Safety Lab Found Wanting

"A Synthetic Biology Lab in Berkeley," GeneWatch, June-July 2011, Jeremy Gruber, Tina Stevens, Becky McClain

Worker Safety in Biological Laboratories, a report by the Council for Responsible Genetics

Same School, New Infection?  For the second time in two years, a University of Chicago researcher falls ill to a laboratory-acquired infection.

Lab Project Suspended at U of C After Researcher Gets Sick

UCLA to Hold Grand Opening of Global Biolab

Information about Maryland Biolabs Scarce

Safety Rules Can't Keep Up with Biotech Industry, The New York Times, Andrew Pollack and Duff Wilson, May 27, 2010

Fatal Laboratory-Acquired Infection With an Attenuated Yersinia pestis Strain—Chicago, Illinois, 2009, The Journal of the American Medical Association 

Biotech Awareness:  The Case of David Bell

Researchers Must Be Wary of Contracting Infections

Give Them an Inch:  Why Don't private biolabs like Pfizer's live up to the National Health Institute's guidelines?  Because they don't have to. By Michael Siciliano,GeneWatch, March-April 2010

“SARS in the City” by Lynn C. Klotz, GeneWatch, Vol 24, Issue 2, April-May, 2011