{"id":639,"date":"2008-03-10T20:56:24","date_gmt":"2008-03-10T20:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/2008\/03\/10\/in_which_i_marvel_at_bureaucratic_insanity\/"},"modified":"2008-03-10T20:56:24","modified_gmt":"2008-03-10T20:56:24","slug":"in_which_i_marvel_at_bureaucratic_insanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/2008\/03\/10\/in_which_i_marvel_at_bureaucratic_insanity\/","title":{"rendered":"In which I marvel at bureaucratic insanity"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was only a matter of time before the British government cottoned on to the fact that we cavalier biological researchers were regularly engaged in perilous international ‘veterinary trafficking’ activities. Yes, you. Put down that rabbit antibody and step away from the bench, nice and slow like.<\/em> <\/p>\n

\nI always knew our days were numbered: what a luxury, to send and receive that simple Jiffy-padded envelope full of vials of living fruit flies or nematodes, antibodies or plasmids or cell lines, dispatched from far-flung labs with nothing more complicated than the standard marker-pen scribbled mantra: ‘biological samples, non-hazardous’. Such was the collegial nature of such transactions that it would have been a breach of etiquette for the sender to even hint at the possibility of postal recompense, although I once liberated a vial with a cheerful note twisted around it that said \u201cBuy me a beer the next time you see me at Keystone\u201d. To share materials without complication; to desire and request a strain and to have it show up a few days later, no muss or fuss \u2013 such opulence. I always knew, in short, that we were somehow operating under the wire, and that if the powers-that-be ever suspected, we’d be in big trouble.<\/p>\n

\nWell, our halcyon days are now officially over, at least in Blighty. Importing scientific reagents into the UK just became a lot more complicated. The laws were passed more than a year ago, but it seems they only decided to start enforcing them very recently. Our lab noticed the winds of change last week when a purified antibody, dispatched by Fedex from the States, failed to arrive on schedule. A few days later, we received an ominous missive from DEFRA (The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), an extract of which I reproduce below for your entertainment and edification:<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe import requirements for this type of import are set out in Importer Information Note (IIN) BAL-Live 1…This states that these animals may be imported with a declaration from the exporter stating that at the time of dispatch the animals showed no obvious signs of disease and that the holding of origin was no subject to any restrictions for reasons of Animal Health. If these animals are being imported from a Third (non-EU) Country it is necessary for it to enter the UK through a Border Inspection Post (BIP). For a list of BIPs and their capabilities please follow the link below. You must give 24 hours prior notification by a Common Veterinary Entry Document (CVED) which can be obtained from your local Animal Health Divisional Office (AHDO) or BIP. Part 1 must be completed and returned to the BIP of entry into the EU. To find your local AHDO please follow the link below. Products included in this requirement include blood products, serum and antibodies. … Once received the original copy of the documentation should be attached to the consignment prior to export so that it arrives with the correct documentation at the BIP. Failures to do so may result in delays to the processing of your consignment and to the eventual re-export or destruction of the consignment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n(Anyone out there know how to spot a diseased antibody? Tiny sneezes issuing from inside the Eppendorf tube, perchance?)<\/p>\n

\nIn parallel, emails started to circulate amongst collaborators and colleagues, tales of lost packages, of delayed frozen materials that had arrived several days after the last of the dry ice had evaporated, of crucial manuscript revisions delayed because an irreplaceable reagent had gone astray, of epic telephone arguments with implacable officials at Stansted Airport (our nearest ‘BIP’, since you ask). People justifiably wondered why no one from DEFRA had bothered to alert any of the major universities and research institutions that the laws had been changed. Darker mutterings were heard too, conspiracy theories that had DEFRA infiltrated by Intelligent Designists or Christian Scientists.<\/p>\n

\nAll of this, I must say, was sounding a bit familiar to me after a four-year stint in a lab in the Netherlands. There, I tried three times to order COS1 cells from the American Type Culture Collection. Each time, my consignment was intercepted at Schiphol Airport for seven days as the vials were duly inspected by the official in charge of preventing the illegal trafficking of endangered species. COS1 cells, you see, were originally derived from an African green monkey, which is on the official endangered species list. Never mind that the cells in question were derived many moons ago, and that in importing an immortalized cell line, I was actually helping to perpetuate<\/em>, not imperil, the species’ genomic existence. But to no avail: the checking procedure took exactly seven days, regardless of the logic of my arguments, and no amount of dry ice could withstand that amount of time. <\/p>\n

\nSo heads up, everyone: before you request that crucial perishable reagent from a mate on the other side of the world, gird your loins, obtain and fill our your CVED from your AHDO or BIP, post it to the sender…and ask them to put it in a box the size of a house with enough dry ice to sweat out the inevitable bureaucratic delays. Because, as the DEFRA notice helpfully pointed out, \u201cPlease note that the BIP office is not staffed on a daily basis.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was only a matter of time before the British government cottoned on to the fact that we cavalier biological researchers were regularly engaged in perilous international ‘veterinary trafficking’ activities. Yes, you. Put down that rabbit antibody and step away … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}