Madison Chambers

12 April 2007 - An aerosol chamber mishap at Texas A&M University in February 2006 caused a researcher to be infected with the bioweapons agent brucella. Texas A&M University then violated federal law by not reporting the brucellosis case to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and now faces severe penalties. This information has only come to light as a result of persistent Texas Public Information Act requests by the Sunshine Project.

Texas A&M Unversity (Go Aggies!) kept secret this accidental infection of a student worker at a BSL-3 lab for over a year. It wasn't until the watchdog Sunshine Project kept hammering on them that the situation came to light.
What caught my eye was that the accident stemmed from a mishap with something called a Madison Chamber. This faulty product is built and sold by the University of Wisconsin. It goes without saying that it is probably used in labs at the UW like Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka's. This news won't help anyone get a good night's sleep. Of course, who in Madison will even hear about this?

The Sunshine Project
News Release
18 April 2005

Faulty Aerosol Chamber Infects Three

NIAID Encourages Use of Leaky Device in Biodefense
Chambers are Located in Nine US States, India, New Zealand, and Northern Ireland

(Austin, 18 April 2005) - A leaky aerosol chamber manufactured by the University of Wisconsin at Madison was responsible for three laboratory-acquired tuberculosis infections in a Seattle BSL-3 lab last year.... The Sunshine Project

Government oversight is such a joke.