Give me a Break

So, this is a blog. This is not the Frederick News Post, a press release for my company or a philanthropic endeavor. This is a blog about biotech in Frederick, intended to facilitate the growth of biotech in Frederick. Exchange ideas, learn, live, pursue happiness. Let me rant (you are also invited to rant along).

I saw an article about a small number of discontent deviants raging about blocking the expansion at Ft Detrick which will infuse the local economy with about 2.5 BILLION dollars and some 1,500 jobs over the next 5-8 years. They are primarily biotech-based jobs, but also administrative, facilities, regulatory jobs. High paying, desirable jobs. Putting our tax money back into the local economy.

I don’t blame the vocal minority trying to prevent all this “progress” because they’re obviously ignorant of the facts. If they understood what a BL4 facility is, what the organisms in a BL4 facility are, the level of regulatory compliance dictated by “The Man”, the mechanism of infection, pathology, etc., then they’d be better served monitoring snot levels or prevalence of STDs at the whatever private school they send their kids to to be educated.

Give me a break. Let the people who know what they’re doing handle it. I have met a lot of the people involved in managing Ft Detrick. They are people of integrity, honor, skilled in their profession and would never do something to harm another innocent, vunerable person intentionally.

To sum it up, I back this statement from the Axis of Evil Fort 110%:

We have already provided numerous opportunities for the public to comment and provide input during the EIS process, we see no need to participate in another public meeting,” Sarah Maxwell, the post’s spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail. “We openly and fully complied with the National Environmental Policy Act and any other law or regulation that governs the environmental process.”

Having attended previous public forums, I would rather gouge my own eye out, rub infectious Ebola virus into the lesion and wait for the inevitable desanguination than listen to that drivel again.