A Pečauer > Recent Status Updates

Apparently all it takes is one idiot at the CDC to say “I ain’t afraid of no Ebola!” to put the country at risk from a hot patient in a community hospital where he could’ve just as easily gone in a biocontainment treatment center.

“Unlike Dalgard and Volt, he did not seem afraid. He was a devout Christian, comfortable with telling people that he had been saved. If the Lord saw fit to take him home with a monkey disease, he was ready.”

Why I’m afraid of monkeys: “An angry monkey is like a flying pit bull terrier with five prehensile limbs … A monkey directs its attacks toward the face and head. It will grab you by the head, using all four limbs, and then it will wrap its tail around your neck to get a good grip, and it will make slashing attacks all over your face with its teeth, aiming especially for the eyes.”

The fact that the US military handled the Washington monkey outbreak rather than the CDC might be the reason I’m not dead right now.

Here’s hoping that any future outbreaks are handled by the military and not little squishes in suits.

“Surely some smart Army lawyers could figure out why the act of carrying Ebola-ridden dead monkeys across state lines in the trunk of a private automobile was so completely legal that there had never even been any question about it.”

A+ writing.

[Jahrling] offered the flask to Tom. Tom sniffed it. There was no smell. Jahrling took back the flask and whiffed it again. … But the flask was milky, and the cells were blown away.

I keep coming back to this because… ?? Is this a thing microbiologists do? Take whiffs of mystery pathogens? I remember getting yelled at in middle school just for sniffing the test tube of the classic strawberry DNA experiment.

DAE hate when protest chants have irregular syllables and unsuccessful slant rhymes? It’s not hard, people. Shape up!

Chapter 7: "We wants rights for women. We are against drugs and terrorism!"

I'm going to borrow this as my platform when I run for President.

Also, each time the author refers to shalwar kameez as "pantaloons," I die a small death. Why give readers the mental image of mujahideen walking around in Victorian knickers?

Baker's adherence to lawful regulatory requirements affected the sweet bottom line. "Consequently, some in [the FDA] began to target a different problem--Peter Baker himself."

They have hated those who are presenting their cases in court, detesting the one who speaks truthfully. (Amos 5:10) (lol)

Chapter 16: I’m glad that the only pharmaceutical companies in my investment portfolio are Japanese. I feel assured that any possible fraud committed on their part is largely limited to the financial sort, and is bound to be much less sloppy.

"It is not in Indian culture to record our data while we conduct experiments."

A quote from Rambaxy Laboratories' Head of Analytical Research.

One of the funnier quotes I’ve read this year.

Chapter 7: The reluctance of pharmaceutical companies to prematurely yield their legitimate patent licenses "even brought accusations of genocide."

Note that it costs zero dollars to make an a vague accusation of genocide, regardless of its adherence to the definition. That low financial barrier predictably means everything we don't like is genocide.

It's not an especially notable observation.

I’m so thrown off by 17th-century translation and romanization of Chinese names. I’d pay good money for a parallel translation text with Simplified Chinese, pinyin, and practically any European language. I am but a fool…

This isn't my only takeaway from the book, but it would be nice if Jacobson didn't use the phrase "went underground" in interchangeably figurative and literal terms on seemingly every other page. I'm surprised at how often it isn't immediately clear whether something is happening several feet below the Earth's surface, or in a SCIF.

This woman is the most annoying person ever