In 2014, a Lassa infected rat escaped its cage at RML. Staff searched “for 1–2 hours” in BSL4 spacesuits but couldn’t find it, so they closed the door, posted “Do Not Enter” signs, and caught it the next day. They still concluded the containment system worked perfectly.
In 2015, an Ebola needlestick but the risk is "negligible" since it's like working in Africa!
RML used Raid Flea Killer in their deadly plague (Y Pestis) flea experiment.
- Cameras in the RML BSL4 but not available to CDC select agent inspectors
- a "distracted" postdoc was bitten by a mouse infected with Lyme disease
- a "7th generation" African rat, bred in RML for Lassa and Hantavirus, bit a tech
- by 2014, Heinz Feldmann studied CoVs in pigs
- aerosolizing CWD (from NA wt deer) under BSL2 conditions, but no dual-use concerns
- by 2015, Feldmann researched self-spreading or "disseminating" vaccines using CMV-based viruses
- Feldmann relies on others (e.g. Baric) to produce his vaccines, so no dual-use issues
- In 2015, Fauci's #2, Hugh Auchincloss, was DIR at RML
- Feldmann has RGS for Hantavirus, but wiggles out of dual-use concerns
- I think RML classifies deer under "sheep and goats"
- marmoset ran up the arm and onto the shoulder and bit the tech in the neck!
- Vincent Munster appears for 1st time on pg 257. Using a MERS spike in a Copenhagen virus for a vaccine. Ironically, Munster doesn't want to take the Smallpox vaccine, so he will work in BSL4
5 years later, a "Copenhagen virus" became a mutated SARS2 strain (Cluster 5) in Danish mink farms, which prompted a cull of 17 million mink.
- lots of drama on the (anti-vax) RML campus
- Feldmann and Marshall Bloom studied Zika during the 2016 Brazil outbreak
- ironically Fauci said he almost died from WNV in 2024
Baric and Munster's WIV1 bat experiments started in Feb 2016. @TylerAStepke please FOIA all RML docs related to PRD-12-143 and PRD-17-143. They even redacted Munster's name from this 2015 doc on pg 299
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.