Alison Young on how top labs have jeopardised public health with repeated biosafety failures

Abstract

In today’s episode, host Luisa Rodriguez interviews award-winning investigative journalist Alison Young on the surprising frequency of lab leaks and what needs to be done to prevent them in the future.

They cover:

• The most egregious biosafety mistakes made by the CDC, and how Alison uncovered them - - through her investigative reporting
• The Dugway life science test facility case, where live anthrax was accidentally sent to labs across the US and several other countries over a period of many years
• The time the Soviets had a major anthrax leak, and then hid it for over a decade
• The 1977 influenza pandemic caused by vaccine trial gone wrong in China
• The last death from smallpox, caused not by the virus spreading in the wild, but by a lab leak in the UK
• Ways we could get more reliable oversight and accountability for these labs
• And the investigative work Alison’s most proud of