3 ms·

Safety regs aren't written for the expected case, they're written for the worst reasonable case. I can easily see how an experiment that involves bacteria cult

Safety regs aren't written for the expected case, they're written for the worst reasonable case. I can easily see how an experiment that involves bacteria cultures could cause problems. What if his daughter's immune system was fighting off strep throat at the time the samples were taken? How can we be sure that her samples don't present a threat to the judges and other people around her experiment? And that's just an example of a merely annoying infectious agent. She could easily have been carrying small quantities of something much more dangerous - a danger that is clearly amplified by growing them in a culture. There are industry-standard protocols for performing this kind of work, and the school has a clear responsibility to ensure they are followed.

aetherson 11y ago
Oh, for christ's sake. Every day of school at whatever school that kid goes to, I guarantee that at least 2% of the population is sick. We aren't going to keep the world safe from strep throat by applying biohazard paperwork to science fairs.
- brandmeyer 11y ago
  You've missed the point: Growing bacterial colonies in a culture is inherently riskier than day-to-day contact with sick people. I've worked in high-energy or high-risk systems nearly all of my career. There is such a thing as managed risk. The school didn't tell the family that they couldn't do the experiment. Instead, they owned up to the fact that the school didn't know how to manage this particular situation's risks correctly, and instead deferred to someone who did. That's a totally rational and reasonable response.
  - aetherson 11y ago
    Growing bacterial colonies of botulism might be inherently riskier than day-to-day contact with sick people. Growing bacterial colonies of what's on your toothbrush just ain't. Growing bacteria in agar is something that was completely de rigueur in elementary school when I was in elementary school in the 1980s. If this is a high-risk activity, I'm sure you'll have no problem finding some account of it every having done any damage in the conservatively hundreds of thousands of times it was done.
    - Nadya 11y ago
      >Growing bacterial colonies of botulism might be inherently riskier than day-to-day contact with sick people. Growing bacterial colonies of what's on your toothbrush just ain't. The difference between petri dishes with what was often a specified bacteria/mold and the bacteria from a person's mouth should be self-evident. As brandmeyer pointed out, the girl may have had bacteria while showing no sign of having an illness (example given was strep throat). Having a small amount of the bacteria and then raising a colony of it could pose some risk of getting others sick.
  - cmdrfred 11y ago
    What is the real world risk on this as a percentage in your estimation?

aetherson 11y ago

Oh, for christ's sake. Every day of school at whatever school that kid goes to, I guarantee that at least 2% of the population is sick. We aren't going to keep the world safe from strep throat by applying biohazard paperwork to science fairs.

brandmeyer 11y ago
You've missed the point: Growing bacterial colonies in a culture is inherently riskier than day-to-day contact with sick people. I've worked in high-energy or high-risk systems nearly all of my career. There is such a thing as managed risk. The school didn't tell the family that they couldn't do the experiment. Instead, they owned up to the fact that the school didn't know how to manage this particular situation's risks correctly, and instead deferred to someone who did. That's a totally rational and reasonable response.
- aetherson 11y ago
  Growing bacterial colonies of botulism might be inherently riskier than day-to-day contact with sick people. Growing bacterial colonies of what's on your toothbrush just ain't. Growing bacteria in agar is something that was completely de rigueur in elementary school when I was in elementary school in the 1980s. If this is a high-risk activity, I'm sure you'll have no problem finding some account of it every having done any damage in the conservatively hundreds of thousands of times it was done.
  - Nadya 11y ago
    >Growing bacterial colonies of botulism might be inherently riskier than day-to-day contact with sick people. Growing bacterial colonies of what's on your toothbrush just ain't. The difference between petri dishes with what was often a specified bacteria/mold and the bacteria from a person's mouth should be self-evident. As brandmeyer pointed out, the girl may have had bacteria while showing no sign of having an illness (example given was strep throat). Having a small amount of the bacteria and then raising a colony of it could pose some risk of getting others sick.
- cmdrfred 11y ago
  What is the real world risk on this as a percentage in your estimation?