Re: Biosafety of sorting revisited

Well, here's another question to ponder, if you knew that 
your specimen was in fact positive for	HIV or HCV or even 
MTB would you sort the sample in anything short of a BSL-3 
facility under BSL3 precautions meaning a personal suit 
with respirator, aerosol containment system, negative 
pressure room etc? Probably not, therefore if you are 
going to treat all specimens as if they were positive, 
 you should sort under the same conditions as if they 
were.
Joanne

On 19 Apr 2004 09:41:19 EDT
  Alice.L.Givan@Dartmouth.EDU (Alice L. Givan) wrote:
>Hello,
>I am also just now going through these issues about the 
>biosafety with regard to sorting
>-- in preparation for the purchase and siting of a new 
>sorter in our facility.	When I
>suggested to my users that human samples for sorting 
>should all be tested in advance for
>Hep and HIV, they, essentially,  said that this would not 
>be advisable/possible for the
>following reasons.
>1) Timing would be difficult
>2) It would be expensive
>3) It would bring up ethical issues
>4) Negative tests for a few specific pathogens would not 
>rule out recent exposure of the
>donor to those pathogens and/or positivity to all the 
>other untested pathogens.
>
>I have absolutely no sympathy for the first three 
>excuses.  But,  the fourth excuse does
>have some validity.  If we realize that negative results 
>for a few pathogens does not
>really mean that a sample is safe,  then we must treat 
>all samples with high precaution. 
>And,  if we need to treat all samples with high 
>precaution,  then it can be argued that
>there is no real point in testing (and it could lead to 
>false security).
>
>What are your thoughts?
>
>Alice
>
>Alice L. Givan, Director
>Englert Cell Analysis Laboratory
>of the Norris Cotton Cancer Center
>Dartmouth Medical School
>Lebanon, NH 03756 USA
>tel 603-650-7661
>fax 603-6540-6130
>givan@dartmouth.edu
>www.dartmouth.edu/~celllab
>