How a ‘lovers' spat’ nearly sparked a second pandemic in Biden-era high-security virus lab

The Department of Health and Human Services has paused work at certain laboratories, most notably at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ (NIAID) Integrated Research Facility, which studies high-risk pathogens.

The pause is in response to repeated safety incidents.

The incident gaining the most attention, however, involves a dispute between researchers that turned physical when one worker intentionally compromised another worker’s personal protective equipment.

To get the scoop, Glenn Beck invited the director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, on “The Glenn Beck Program."

“A contractor actually punched a hole in the other person's biolab suit, I don't know, to get them sick? I mean, is that what happened at that biolab?” asks Glenn in shock.

“That is exactly what happened,” says Dr. Bhattacharya. “A lab worker cut a hole in a biocontainment suit of a fellow worker with the express intention of getting that worker infected.”

The lab where the incident took place, he says, is “a BSL-4 lab, which is the highest biosecurity level lab." According to Dr. Bhattacharya, the lab conducts experiments on highly infectious viruses and pathogens, including Ebola. A security breach could mean deadly consequences, not just for workers but for quite literally the world.

But it wasn’t just a “lovers' spat” that compromised the safety of the lab. The contractor who was overseeing the facility “did a very lax job.”

“I learned that this goes back to the Biden administration — that the safety environment in the lab essentially downplayed these kinds of security problems,” says Dr. Bhattacharya. “Personally, I'm not sold that all of these experiments are worth doing, but in any case, if you're going to run them, you have an absolute responsibility to have zero tolerance for safety problems.”

“Shouldn't that person be punished?” asks Glenn. “I mean, that really is attempted murder and maybe even on a mass scale.”

Because there’s an “ongoing investigation,” Dr. Bhattacharya can’t reveal much, but he does admit that the incident “scared” him deeply.

“I think Americans are actively scared because none of this stuff should be happening. I mean, we are just an accident or a stupid move or an intentional leak away from mass death,” says Glenn, noting that Bill Gates has been warning that “we’re on the verge of another pandemic.”

“Pandemics happen; they've happened all throughout history. The key thing to me though, Glenn, is we don't want to cause one. ... The irony of this past pandemic, the COVID-19 pandemic, is that it was very likely caused by actions aimed at stopping pandemics from happening,” Dr. Bhattacharya explains.

To hear his plan for creating a new framework for scientific research that involves the approval of the American public, watch the clip above.

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