Technology and Biological Weapons: Future Threats

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RETHINKING BIOLOGICAL HAZARD RISK ANALYSIS AFTER PANDEMIC COVID-19

The paper underlines the importance of biological hazard risk assessment today especially analyzing the Covid-19 pandemic lack of good biological hazard management all over the world. We discuss biological hazard, types, classifications and analysis of the risks. We suggest some main tools and frameworks to be used to assess, monitoring, control and prevent biological hazards. As a result we strength the importance of such methodology to be known by decision makers, improved, developed. The risk management method must be coordinated all over the country and the world to be successful. Everybody (people, firms, government organizations) is responsible for the success of the implementation plan and prevent risks. So education and professional competence of risk management must be developed and certified by independent authority using general accepted standard protocols to complement a governance system of biological hazard risk analysis.The paper underlines the importance of biological hazard risk assessment today especially analyzing the Covid-19 pandemic lack of good biological hazard management all over the world. We discuss biological hazard, types, classifications and analysis of the risks. We suggest some main tools and frameworks to be used to assess, monitoring, control and prevent biological hazards. As a result we strength the importance of such methodology to be known by decision makers, improved, developed. The risk management method must be coordinated all over the country and the world to be successful. Everybody (people, firms, government organizations) is responsible for the success of the implementation plan and prevent risks. So education and professional competence of risk management must be developed and certified by independent authority using general accepted standard protocols to complement a governance system of biological hazard risk analysis

Bloodborne Exposure Control Plan

Bloodborne Exposure Control Pla

Case Study: Asilomar Conference on Laboratory Precautions When Conducting Recombinant DNA Research

This case is an in-depth summary on an extensively controversial conference held at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove California, in 1973, where approximately 100 leading scientists in the field convened to formulate safety measures to direct the development of recombinant DNA technology in the United States. It resulted in subsequent discussions, including the conception of a proposed regulated guidelines and risk categories for rDNA experiments. These procedures were adopted and widely used by the US Government today. Appendices include: A.) Chronology; B.) Views on the Asilomar Process; C.) Members of Groups Central to the Scientists’ Debates about rDNA Research 1973-76; D.) Biographical Notes on Scientists involved in the Asilomar Process; E.) Ethical Evaluation of Recombinant DNA Research; F.) Contemporaneous Perspectives on Recombinant DNA Research; G.) Teaching Notes; and H.) Useful Websites

Bloodborne Pathogens Program

The University of Maine System\u27s Bloodborne Pathogens Program. It was designed to meet the regulatory requirements of the OSHA Bloodborne Pathogens Standard and applies to all University employees who may encounter human blood or other potentially infectious materials (as defined by OSHA in the Bloodborne Pathogen Standard (29 CFR 1910.1030) in the performance of their job duties

Implementation of the Louisville COVID-19 Surveillance Protocol: Experiences from the University of Louisville Center of Excellence for Research in Infectious Diseases [CERID]

The lack of available testing for SARS-CoV-2 has been one of the primary challenges in the development and implementation of a comprehensive approach to infection prevention and transmission in the United States (US). In response to the need for increased testing capacities and capabilities, the University of Louisville (UofL) Division of Infectious Diseases, Center of Excellence for Research in Infectious Diseases (CERID) initiated the Louisville Coronavirus Surveillance Program, a comprehensive approach to surveillance and testing of patients and healthcare workers. The first specimens were accepted on March 12, 2020 and parallel testing was done using a high-capacity testing process and the Division of Infectious Diseases CLIA-certified laboratory to ensure concordant results. Steps in the testing process began with validation of the testing methods and included database development, acceptance of specimens, tracking and cataloging the specimens, testing, and reporting of results. Quality metrics were developed and used to prevent error and facilitate rapid reporting. Between March 12, 2020 and April 30, 2020, more than 5500 tests were performed identifying more than 850 patients and healthcare workers infected with COVID-19 in the Louisville, Kentucky area. Although the process used high-capacity robotics for testing procedures, the methods described here are applicable to settings employing a variety of laboratory testing methods

Paper biological risk detection through deep learning and fuzzy system

Given the recent events worldwide due to viral diseases that affect human health, automatic monitoring systems are one of the strong points of research that has gained strength, where the detection of biohazardous waste of a sanitary nature is highlighted related to viral diseases stands out. It is essential in this field to generate developments aimed at saving lives, where robotic systems can operate as assistants in various fields. In this work an artificial intelligence algorithm based on two stages is presented, one is the recognition of paper debris using a ResNet-50, chosen for its object localization capacity, and the other is a fuzzy inference system for the generation of alarm states due to biological risk by such debris, where fuzzy logic helps to establish a model for a non-predictive system as the one exposed. A biohazard detection algorithm for paper waste is described, oriented to operate on an assistive robot in a residential environment. The training parameters of the network, which achieve 100% accuracy with confidence levels between 82% for very small waste and 100% in direct view, are presented. Timing cycles are established for validation of the exposure time of the waste, where through the fuzzy system, risk alarms are generated, which allows establishing a system with an average reliability of 98%

It came from outer space: the virus, cultural anxiety, and speculative fiction

This study seeks to explore and interrogate the “viral reality” of the 1990s, in which the virus, heavily indebted to representations of AIDS for its metaphorical power, emerged as a prominent agent in science and popular culture. What becomes apparent in both fictional and non-fictional texts of this era, however, is that the designation of “virus” transcends specific and material viral phenomena, making the virus itself a touchstone for modern preoccupations with self and other. As constituted by the human body’s interaction with pathogenic agents, the binary of self and other may be deconstructed by an interrogation of the virus itself, a permeable and mutable body that lends itself to any number of interpretive possibilities. A uniquely liminal agent, the virus refuses categorization as either life or non-life. However, it is not the liminality of the pathogen that allows for this deconstruction, which serves to frustrate such boundaries in the first place. Rather, the notion that viruses are (always) already a part of who we are as human beings, and that “self” is not necessarily a self-enclosed autonomous entity, suggests that the binary cannot hold. A virus is unique; an insider/outsider that crosses artificial boundaries, it destabilizes the boundaries themselves, and thus the traditional framework of self and other. Examining viral accounts in popular science writings, film, television, advertisements, philosophy, science fiction, and naturalistic fiction, this study examines the ways in which science and popular culture have characterized both the virus and its psychological and material effects, and suggests that the pathogen-as-signifier may be read in ways that point to the virus’s utopian potential as a theoretical category

Management of health risk related to use of engineered nanomaterials. An analogy with biosafety

Safety of nanomaterials is a new scientific field, which draws increasing attention in literature. Among the challenges the field is facing are the insufficient amount and quality of nanotoxicological data and the ambiguity in the metrics describing the exposure. This results in substantial difficulties in the actual quantification of risk in terms of dose-response relationships and exposure limits, which is a cornerstone of chemical risk assessment. While there is no golden standard for risk assessment and management several pragmatic systems have come into being. All of these employ some form of categorization and grouping of materials into hazard groups. The present review aims to draw analogies between the nascent field of nanosafety and the well established field of biosafety, where the risk is also difficult to quantify. Biomed Rev 2017; 28:100-104

Airborne biological hazards and urban transport infrastructure: current challenges and future directions

Exposure to airborne biological hazards in an ever expanding urban transport infrastructure and highly diverse mobile population is of growing concern, in terms of both public health and biosecurity. The existing policies and practices on design, construction and operation of these infrastructures may have severe implications for airborne disease transmission, particularly, in the event of a pandemic or intentional release of biological of agents. This paper reviews existing knowledge on airborne disease transmission in different modes of transport, highlights the factors enhancing the vulnerability of transport infrastructures to airborne disease transmission, discusses the potential protection measures and identifies the research gaps in order to build a bioresilient transport infrastructure. The unification of security and public health research, inclusion of public health security concepts at the design and planning phase, and a holistic system approach involving all the stakeholders over the life cycle of transport infrastructure hold the key to mitigate the challenges posed by biological hazards in the twenty-first century transport infrastructure