Your tax dollars at work
When President Obama bails out a bank that talks out of both sides of its mouth, you pay. When a grovelling automaker holds out the tin cup without so much as an entertaining two-step or flaming juggle, you pay. I pay. We all pay through increased tax payments.
We make our daily pilgrimage to the altar of taxation, where we leave our cash advance loans and installment loans. Sure, we’re repaid with a wide range of services and security, but I didn’t sign up for an Army research lab that “misplaces” dangerous pathogens like Venezuelan equine encephalitis. That’s not part of the deal.
“I’m not saying we won’t get our hair mussed…”
Nelson Hernandez and Ann Scott Tyson report for the Boston Globe that the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Frederick, Maryland, is under investigation by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command. It seems that a few vials of some deadly stuff has disappeared from the inventory, according to an Army spokesman.
The Frederick News-Post reported that since at least February 2009, Army agents have been trying to uncover what happened to the bacteria that may have gone missing between 1987 and 2008. Nothing like a prompt response, eh? Most research has been suspended at the Army lab because the inventory system is under investigation, but I’m sure they’re still lobbying for your tax dollars in some Washington D.C. office. Because it takes money to pay highly trained staff to lose things. It takes money to place human beings in danger of infection. It takes our money.
Brain inflammation and death
Christopher Grey, PR Chief for the Criminal Investigation Command, has confirmed the nature of the investigation. “We have an ongoing investigation at Fort Detrick,” Grey said. Since he feels no shred of duty to the public trust, he disrespectfully declined to reveal further detail about when this investigation would be completed. Thank you, Mr. Grey. You make me want to throw more of my tax dollars at you. At least let me fold the bills into paper airplanes. At least the points might poke you.
What we have here is a failure to communicate the location of some vintage Venezuelan equine encephalitis. This mosquito-borne virus typically causes a flu-like illness, but it can readily cause brain inflammation and death. To further comfort you, understand that it can be used to create biological weapons. Fortunately it isn’t as lethal as anthrax or Ebola virus.
Tax dollars…at… work?
According to Hernandez and Tyson, The News-Post names two Army staff who said they’d been questioned by investigators from Fort Meade, Maryland, about the missing samples. One of them, Alan Schmaljohn, was questioned two or three months ago. He had access to the virus.
“They caught me on my cellphone on the road and I stopped and talked to them for quite a long time,” he said.
“The number of vials is utterly meaningless. Three vials missing is no indication of any evildoing… it’s almost equivalent to saying you’re missing three cents out of the national budget.”
This is not what taxpayers paid you for, sir
But he goes on: “From the scientists’ point of view it is inconsequential, but from the regulator’s point of view it is an indication of sloppiness, and they are finally going to take rugged action.”
Good. You recognize the value of rugged action. Attaboy, Schmaljohn. Perhaps it’s just a filing problem. For the sake of citizen-funded employees like yourself, you’d better hope so. Because people will eventually revolt if their tax dollars are continually abused. I’m not talking tea parties here. A spot check in January found 20 vials in a box, while the corresponding database only listed 16. Errors can happen, but you must make sure any dangerous substance is accounted for. Every microgram of it.
Things have been difficult for the Frederick lab since 9/11. Anthrax attacks in 2001 killed five people and sickened 17 others, and the FBI has reason to believe that the strains used may have originated from that lab. Their prime suspect, Bruce Ivins, researched anthrax there. He committed suicide in 2008, write Hernandez and Tyson.
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This is not the sort of thing you misplace. You misplace your car keys, not samples of a dangerous infectious disease. What were they thinking? “It’s like missing 3 cents out of the national budget.” No, it isn’t. 3 pennies do not potentially cause brain inflammation and death. Thankfully it isn’t something as bad as Anthrax or Ebola, but that doesn’t excuse anything.