Created on Saturday, 12 September 2009 08:50

Jane Burgermeister is a young woman living in Vienna who, while working as a medical editor, was horrified to learn in early 2009 of the fiasco in which a Baxter International research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria, sent a quantity of human H3N2 viral material to 18 European laboratories.

Such a supply of experimental material would have been totally normal – except that in this instance the H3N2 had been somehow contaminated with live H5N1… the far more lethal Avian Flu.

As a medical editor, Jane immediately realized the importance of what had happened – and what had nearly happened – and raised the alarm. But no one in the Austrian media was interested. She then took matters into her own hands and filed legal charges against those who she considered to be the perpetrators.