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Nestled near the Hamptons, the fashionable
summer playground of America's rich and famous, and in the
shadow of New York City, lies an unimposing 840-acre island
unidentified on most maps. On the few on which it can be
found, Plum Island is marked red or yellow, and stamped
U.S. GOVERNMENT -- RESTRICTED or DANGEROUS ANIMAL DISEASES.
Though many people live the good life within a scant mile
or two from its shores, few know the name of this pork chop-shaped
island. Even fewer can say whether it is inhabited, or why
it doesn't exist on the map. That's all about to change.
Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the
Government's Secret Plum Island Laboratory blows the
lid off the stunning true nature and checkered history of
Plum Island. It shows that the seemingly bucolic island
on the edge of the largest population center in the United
States is a ticking biological time bomb that none of us
can safely ignore.
Based on innumerable declassified government
documents, scores of in-depth interviews, and access to
Plum Island itself, this is an eye-opening, suspenseful
account of a federal government germ laboratory gone terribly
wrong. For the first time, Lab 257 takes you deep
inside this secret world and presents startling revelations
including virus outbreaks, biological meltdowns, infected
workers who were denied assistance in diagnosis by Plum
Island brass, the periodic flushing of contaminated raw
sewage into area waters, and the insidious connections between
Plum Island, Lyme disease, and the deadly 1999 West Nile
virus outbreak.
An exploration of the complex world of microbiology,
viruses, and bacteria, Lab 257 also shows how the
US Department of Agriculture, which ran Plumb Island for
the last half century, is far more than wholesome grade-A
eggs and the food pyramid. The book probes what's in store
for Plum Island's new owner, the Department of Homeland
Security, in this age of bioterrorism. And for those interested
in questions of national security and safety, it is a call
to action for those concerned with protecting present and
future generations from preventable biological catastrophes.
Lab 257 will change forever our current
understanding of Plum Island -- a place that is, in the
words of one insider, "a biological Three Mile Island."
Michael Christopher Carroll spent seven
years researching and writing Lab 257. A native of
Long Island and an avid outdoorsman, Carroll is now general
counsel of a New York-based finance company. He lives on
Long Island and in New York City.
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