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Health

Infection blunder revealed at animal testing lab

18 April 2007

YOU might lean into your fridge to wipe it down with disinfectant – but an aerosol chamber used to infect lab animals with potential bioweapons agents? Not such a good idea, as researchers at Texas A&M University in College Station found out last year when one of them contracted the bacterial infection brucellosis.

Worse, the university failed to report the incident to the federal government until details were forced into the open last week by the Sunshine Project, a pressure group based in Austin, Texas.

The disease is caused by bacteria of the genus Brucella, and normally affects animals such…

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