As rising water swamped New Orleans, Louisiana’s chief epidemiologist enlisted state police on a mission to break into a high- security government lab and destroy any dangerous germs before they could escape or fall into the wrong hands.
Armed with bolt cutters and bleach, Dr. Raoult Ratard’s team entered the so-called “hot lab” and killed all the living samples.
“This is what had to be done,” said Ratard, who put a sudden end to work on dangerous germs, which he wouldn’t name.
At least Ratard’s team was able to retrieve laptop computers containing vital scientific data. Many other scientists in the region weren’t so fortunate, losing years of research, either through storm damage or voluntary destruction.
Not since the torrential floods from Tropical Storm Allison, which badly damaged the Texas Medical Center in Houston in 2001, has scientific research been disrupted on such a large scale. Doctors and researchers in New Orleans became exiles overnight, indefinitely locked out of their labs and unable to see patients.
Thousands of laboratory animals – many genetically engineered with human diseases and painstakingly bred and cared for – perished along with vital tissue samples.
Important work on heart disease, cancer, AIDS and a host of other ailments may be lost forever to scientists at Tulane and Louisiana State universities’ medical schools in New Orleans.
One thin silver lining: It appears no deadly diseases were released.
Tulane’s high-security National Primate Research Center reported minor damage and said none of its 5,000 research animals escaped.
All the labs in Katrina’s path that handle bioweapons defense research reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that their security wasn’t compromised, according to CDC spokesman Von Roebuck.
