
Handling the Nastiest Pathogens as a Day Job - happy-go-lucky
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/12/04/502132637/what-its-like-to-handle-the-nastiest-pathogens-as-your-day-job
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micro_cam
My wife and I moved to Hamilton, MT where that lab is located after searching
around for the best mountain town to work remotely from.

It's a unique little town with amazing local mountains and rivers, some good
restaurants and breweries and not too many tourists. The lab brings in
educated young people including many climbers and skiers.

People joke that they government will let you live somewhere this awesome if
you're willing to work on ebola.

In reality the lab was founded originally to study a tick born illness first
observed in the area in the early 1900's and was eventually chosen as a BSL-4
site do in part to its isolated location and the fact that all access to the
valley can be cut off by blocking a relatively few number of roads.

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poisonarena
What are your days like? Sounds like an amazing job, and Montana is beautiful.
Would you stay there, or do you plan to move back to somewhere busier later in
life?

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micro_cam
Honestly not much changed work wise except that instead of commuting i can go
for a trail run or quick ski tour or head to the local bouldering area. I was
already on a distributed team with most meetings done via video call and heavy
use of issue trackers and chat for communication.

I lived in a big city for 10+ years and can't see going back. I've actually
changed jobs once since we moved here and we plan to stay.

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sndean
I've worked in a BSL-3 lab, not BSL-4. It's pretty similar. Almost identical
danger to the individuals in the lab, but different level of danger to the
surrounding community...

So if I screw up, I might die, but you'll be safe. In BSL-4, everyone might
die. (At least that's roughly the reasoning behind the categorization of
pathogens.)

> You can't do anything else other than what you're doing at that moment. It's
> kind of a nice mode to be in while you're working. And it's very quiet.
> Because you're on that air hose that blows air into your suit continuously,
> you can't talk to anyone unless you're wearing a radio. So, you're in your
> own little bubble doing your own thing.

This really is one of the best parts of the work. At certain times of the day
/ week, you literally had no way to contact anyone, and no one could contact
you.

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anta40
"...working at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana. The
450-person facility, which is part of the National Institutes for Allergy and
Infectious Diseases, is nestled in a town of 4,000. It's surrounded by
mountains and national forests. Only one road passes through."

And suddenly Resident Evil comes in mind....

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smnplk
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx6GxmNqJ4I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx6GxmNqJ4I)
3:39 A man in the video removed the pressure hose from his hazmat suit before
leaving his chair. Is that allowed ?

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hueving
Yes, how do you think they would leave otherwise? You can see earlier in the
video they walk into the facility without a hose attached.

FTA

"As you move through the lab to a different spot, you unhook, move to where
you want to be and grab another air hose."

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ars
Is the assumption that there are no pathogens in the air, so the air hose is
not contaminated?

What if there was a release, would it still be OK to switch air hoses, or
would they only use internal air at that point?

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zbjornson
There's a small HEPA filter on the suit itself, downstream of the air hose
connection, that filters out whatever may be on the hose connection.

You can go without a connection for several minutes easily.

The article also unusually describes "thinking about keeping the suit under
positive pressure." The vents in the suit have one-way valves, so it really
isn't something you need to think about.

(-occasional researcher in a BSL4)

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JoeAltmaier
Sounds unimaginably scary. Yet folks work in foundaries; climb telephone poles
all day; cut down trees; fight forest fires; wash windows on the 100th floor.
Dead is dead I guess, and you can get used to anything.

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IndianAstronaut
I wonder how many pathogens may be climbing the scale of threat level now that
many antibiotics do not work on them.

