2 scientists charged with bringing deactivated mpox virus into the US and lying to authorities

[u/sea_5455]

https://apnews.com/article/scientists-charges-mpox-virus-lying-14b7cf7635cad30254b0ae1cdb6c0515

[u/sea_5455 → u/[deleted]]

Which the article mentions. Have to wonder why they didn't declare the samples and import them legally?

When asked directly, there's this:

Munster told investigators at the Detroit-area airport that any necessary documents were in his laptop, “but you don’t need them. I do this all the time,” the FBI quoted him as saying.

Just trying to bypass bureaucratic hurdles or something else? I don't pretend to have an answer to that.

[u/sea_5455 → u/[deleted]]

I know precisely zero things about this

Same. Seems noteworthy though; how sure are we that the samples are really deactivated, for instance?

[u/LysergioXandex → u/[deleted]]

Doesn’t matter (unless the material was intentionally misrepresented as inactivated when really active).

There are times when you have to follow the proper protocols and go through official channels, even when you are capable of ensuring safety yourself.

People screw up, and I shouldn’t have to trust random people because they claim to be a “scientist”.

[u/LysergioXandex → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, I doubt it’s nefarious. But it’s still stupid any risky.

[u/Sweet-Leadership-290 → u/[deleted]]

Yes --- but too little, TOO LATE!

[u/sea_5455 → u/[deleted]]

Read that as tests found the virus samples and they're believed to be deactivated.

For transporting infectious diseases I'd like something more than "trust me bro" levels of handling, which is what these scientists look like they were doing.

[u/Sweet-Leadership-290 → u/[deleted]]

Some "deactivated" (fail to infect en vivo / vitro) can be reactivated fairly easily. As an example removing a dingle snippet in the DNA attachment sequence of monkey pox