Additional Tularemia Exposure Incidents Revealed at Boston University Microbiology Laboratory

The tularemia exposures of three researchers disclosed by Boston University last week were not the first at the Clinical Microbiology and Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory, New Scientist reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 24).

In 2000, 12 people at the facility were exposed to samples from a patient who contracted tularemia from a wild rabbit and died. All but one, who was pregnant, were treated with antibiotics and none became infected, according to New Scientist.

Steve Hinrichs of the University of Nebraska — which provided Boston University with the original, supposedly benign, tularemia culture that led to the three infections last year — criticized Boston University for failing to disclose the exposures, in light of plans for a controversial Biosafety Level 4 Laboratory.

“That was not appropriate,” Hinrichs told New Scientist. “They’ve circled their wagons without going through the typical academic process of discovery and exchange of information” (Jeff Hecht, New Scientist, Jan. 24).

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