By Juan Montoya
A rumor spreading rapidly through the Internet blogs that a prominent, well-established medical laboratory in West Brownsville might have been one of the the recipients of the live anthrax samples mistakenly sent by the U,S, Department of Defense has been declared false by the owner of the laboratory.
Nick Serafy Jr., owner of Proficiency Testing Service and Serafy Laboratories on 205 W. Levee St., said that his was not one of the 51 labs in 17 states and the District of Columbia and three foreign countries where the anthrax was sent mistakenly by the Pentagon.
"There's no truth to that rumor," Serafy said.
He said that most of the companies that might have received the samples were probably laboratories used by the Dept. of Defense to test biological weapons.
Defense Robert Work announced Wednesday he expects the numbers of labs suspected of receiving live anthrax to go up as the Pentagon continues its investigation into the shipments, some of them made via FedEx.
When put in the mail, the samples were not believed to contain live samples of the disease.
Nick Serafy Jr., owner of Proficiency Testing Service and Serafy Laboratories on 205 W. Levee St., said that his was not one of the 51 labs in 17 states and the District of Columbia and three foreign countries where the anthrax was sent mistakenly by the Pentagon.
"There's no truth to that rumor," Serafy said.
Defense Robert Work announced Wednesday he expects the numbers of labs suspected of receiving live anthrax to go up as the Pentagon continues its investigation into the shipments, some of them made via FedEx.
When put in the mail, the samples were not believed to contain live samples of the disease.
Before the disclosures Tuesday, the Pentagon had said that 24 commercial, university or military research labs in 11 states plus South Korea and Australia had received the errant shipments.
The 11 states were California, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.
When the announcement was made that some labs in Texas may have included Serafy Labs, this blog received emails such as the one posted above. And like that message, they mentioned that at least one employee of the lab may have had to take Cipro,an antidote used to treat different types of bacterial infections, including patients who have been exposed to anthrax.
This is not the first time that Serafy Laboratories has been caught up in a national medical crisis. In 2005, the company – as a middle man – was involved in distributing packages containing the deadly 1957 flu to laboratories nationwide
At the time, some of the packages that were shipped from Brownsville as test kits for thousands of laboratories were thought to contain an ordinary flu strain.
But later the World Health Organization announced they contained the deadly flu, which killed up to 4 million people worldwide after it began spreading in 1957.
The samples were sent by Meridian Bioscience Inc. of Cincinnati to PTS in Brownsville and then distributed to labs across the United States. Other companies were responsible for sending it to 17 other countries.
"All we did was package them and ship them," Serafy told the daily back then. "The manufacturing was done in Ohio. We just got them in a bigger box and put them in a smaller box."
When the announcement was made that some labs in Texas may have included Serafy Labs, this blog received emails such as the one posted above. And like that message, they mentioned that at least one employee of the lab may have had to take Cipro,an antidote used to treat different types of bacterial infections, including patients who have been exposed to anthrax.
This is not the first time that Serafy Laboratories has been caught up in a national medical crisis. In 2005, the company – as a middle man – was involved in distributing packages containing the deadly 1957 flu to laboratories nationwide
At the time, some of the packages that were shipped from Brownsville as test kits for thousands of laboratories were thought to contain an ordinary flu strain.
But later the World Health Organization announced they contained the deadly flu, which killed up to 4 million people worldwide after it began spreading in 1957.
The samples were sent by Meridian Bioscience Inc. of Cincinnati to PTS in Brownsville and then distributed to labs across the United States. Other companies were responsible for sending it to 17 other countries.
"All we did was package them and ship them," Serafy told the daily back then. "The manufacturing was done in Ohio. We just got them in a bigger box and put them in a smaller box."
3 comments:
Wow! Serafy lab still exists?
And we the public are susposed to just BELIEVE Mr. Serafy because he says so?
And we are to BELIEVE some moron that doesn't even know where the lab is located?
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