by Henrick Karoliszyn, DSW,Childrens Health Defense:

Two NIH researchers are charged with conspiring to smuggle biological materials, including deactivated monkeypox virus samples, into the U.S. from Africa. The researchers work at a Biosafety Level 4 laboratory in Montana. The charges have renewed scrutiny of safety procedures for handling potentially dangerous pathogens.

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TwoNational Institutes of Health(NIH) researchers are charged with conspiring to smuggle biological materials, including deactivated monkeypox virus samples, into the U.S. from Africa. The researchers also allegedly lied to federal authorities about what they were carrying, according to acriminal complaintunsealed Tuesday in federal court in Detroit.

Vincent Munster, Ph.D., a Dutch citizen and chief of the Virus Ecology Section at NIH’sRocky Mountain Laboratoriesin Hamilton, Montana, andClaude Kwe Yinda, Ph.D., a Cameroonian research fellow, are charged with conspiracy to smuggle goods into the U.S. and making false statements to federal investigators.

Both men work at aBiosafety Level 4 laboratory, the highest level of containment used for research involving dangerous pathogens.

According to federal prosecutors, the researchers arrived at Detroit Metropolitan Airport on Jan. 25 after traveling from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where amonkeypox outbreakwas ongoing.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers questioned the pair about a large black case they were carrying. Prosecutors allege the men told officers the case contained diagnostic and testing equipment, but investigators later determined it held 113 vials stored in Styrofoam coolers.

Testing of a portion of the samples found deactivated monkeypox virus in 17 vials, chickenpox virus in one vial and human DNA in two others.

“These NIH experts apparently broke our laws by smuggling viral pathogens on a packed commercial airplane from an outbreak in the Republic of Congo,” U.S. Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. said in announcing the charges. “Let that sink in.”

Source: SGT Report