NEW & currently in the process of completion, supporting documentation is being added daily •Transcription; with supporting documentation of the interview and video [WATCH INTERVIEW] , "INJURED AGRAQUEST BIOTECH WORKER DAVID BELL TELLS HIS STORY" READ TRANSCRIPTION→ HERE
NEW Becky McClain, injured molecular biologist from Connecticut spoke of the dangers in working in the biotechnology industry during the 2009 Workers Memorial Day event in San Francisco. Mrs. McClain also encountered the same plight as David Bell; NOT KNOWING what she had been exposed to THAT MADE HER SICK ( industry's "TRADE SECRETS"), non-compliance of: the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, agencies within the state of Connecticut, including U.S. Federal Agencies. WATCH VIDEO
INJURED AGRAQUEST BIOTECH WORKER DAVID BELL TELLS HIS STORY video by Labor Video Project WATCH VIDEO
THE CRIMINAL COVER-UP OF PAM MARRONE's AGRAQUEST OPERATION by Sandi Trend, Mother of David Bell - NOTE: The Introduction was not written by Sandi Trend VIEW→ HERE Includes: "FALSE & MISLEADING INFORMATION IN CAL AGGIE ARTICLE CONCERNING DAVID BELL and AGRAQUEST" by Sandi Trend "comments" "LIST OF FUNGUS & BACTERIA RELATING TO DAVID'S EMPLOYEMNT AT AGRAQUEST" "LIST OF HUMAN HEALTH EFFECTS FROM THESE PATHOGENS INCLUDING medical peer reviewed references"
Additional Articles, Video's and Audio's relating to David Bell and Agrauest can be found→ HERE
HOW WORKERS IN A BIO LAB SHOULD BE PROTECTED
This website contains the horrifying experiences of a biotech worker employed at a biotechnology company with unsafe work conditions and which poses public health threats. It is a story of exposure and serious illness…abuse, lack of biotech worker’s rights and abandonment by Federal and state agencies, biotech industry and worker’s compensation. It is about lies and conflicts of interests within the scientific community that pose not only threats to workers, but public health threats.
At 31 years of age David Bell began employment as an "Assistant Researcher" for the research and development company, Agraquest (AQ) of Davis, California, a company that searches for fungus and bacteria in soils that are not entirely endemic to the United States. Since 1999, after 10 long years of suffering, David remains seriously ill because of employment with this company. Read more on this website about his struggles as his battle continues with his health and against public health and safety deceptions within the biotech industry. NEW To Jump to when David Bell first got sick, please begin at, HOW DID THIS START? section on this web page.
PUBLIC HEALTH THREATS
"Our common problems are BIOSAFETY and WORKER RIGHTS and Human rights and public health and safety VIOLATIONS regarding biological inventions".
"Both GMO [genetically modified organism] and natural microorganisms MUST be used in a responsible and safe manner",
"Anthrax is a natural bacteria and not a GMO. But it is one of the major concerns regarding bioterrorism."
"Some microorganisms are dangerous on their own without GE [genetically engineered]."
"The issue is that biotech companies are using their inventions in an unnatural way both in the lab and within the environment without proper safety studies and without proper biocontainment."
"These companies promoting “green” science are not using them in a “green” manner."
"Promoting that their biotech product is “natural” is a way to fool the public into believing that the use of “natural” bacteria applied in an unnatural manner is SAFE."
"David’s exposure proves differently. His story is very important."
Written by a molecular biologist regarding unsafe work conditions and harmful commercial practices within the biotech industry
To better understand what David's ex-employer, Agraquest does (and did when David Bell worked there), the 2001 SF Chronicle article, "Biotechnology Battles Chemical Industry in Pesticide Market, Pam Marrone is out to give germ warfare a good name" read→ HERE is in itself frightening to not only employees being exposed to known and unknown microorganisms, but keep in mind, these living bacteria and fungus are being used on our food crops and used for insect control.
SF Chronicle article:
"Marrone is the chief executive of AgraQuest Inc., a biotechnology firm in Davis (Yolo County) that uses beneficial bacteria to fight crop diseases. The idea is to use microbes to fight microbes, creating biopesticides that would compete with the chemical variety."
"Last summer, AgraQuest won state and federal approval to market an antifungal agent called Serende. That's the brand name for a strain of bacteria that AgraQuest scientists found in a handful of dirt from a Fresno farmyard."
"Lab tests showed that the bacterium had an appetite for the fungus that causes bunch rot and mildew in grapes. At that point, AgraQuest went to work on finding a formula to grow the beneficial bug in industrial quantities."
"Although the exact formula is proprietary and therefore secret, this is how AgraQuest goes about creating it. A flask of bacteria is dumped into a 10,000- gallon tank filled with a special food source. Forty-eight hours later, the gooey slime in the tank is harvested. To create a useable product, the bacterial concentrate is dried so that it becomes something resembling powdered chocolate milk."
"We put that powder into 24-pound bags and ship it to the farmer, who dumps it into a spray tank and applies it just like a chemical fertilizer," Marrone said. The product costs about $25 to $50 an acre, which she said is competitive with chemical fungicides.
David was exposed to this subtilis powder and was unprotected; he was told it was "safe" and "wouldn't hurt a fly". He helped Brian Campbell transfer the subtilis powder from large drums to the 24-pound bags (quoted in the above paragraph).
David found out that the bacteria Bacillus Subtilis wasn't as safe as he had been told when he worked with and around it at Agraquest. After he left Agraquest (and was still sick) he read about the harm subtilis causes to the human body at the Mayo Clinic Medical Library in Scottsdale, Arizona. read→ Flindt article, Papers that have changed the practice of occupational medicine
Additionally, David then found numerous other scientific, peer reviewed articles referencing the same ill effects of exposure to subtilis; as was found in 1969 by Flindt, as well as the EPA's, Bacillus subtilis Final Risk Assessment of exposure to Bacillus subtilis read→ HERE
It is the enzyme, subtilisn which is produced by the bacteria, Bacillus subtilis that causes ill effects to the human body. Agraquest did not test for the subtilisn enzyme in their Serenade product, Bacillus Subtilis QST 713 until 3 years after David had left Agraquest; on 6/19/2002. This was an UNPUBLISHED STUDY done by Denise Manker of Agraquest. [This is documented in the European Commission's, view→HEALTH & CONSUMER PROTECATION DIRECTORATE-GENERAL of 2006
Denise Manker has testified, under oath; during David's workers' compensation trial, that the subtilis that David was exposed to did not contain the enzyme, subtilisn. She did not reveal to the court that testing for the presence of subtilisn was done by her and was UNPUBLISHED, nor that it wasn't done until 2002, after DAvid had left Agraquest. Denise Manker also did not reveal to the court that David had also been exposed to another strain of subtilis, Agraquest's strain; QST 153 and did not reveal to the court whether this strain had ever been tested for the presence of subtilisn.
Further, David had been exposed to Agraquest's Bacillus Subtilis QST 713. In 1999 there were two fermentation submissions of QST 713 to the EPA from Agraquest in which the EPA only granted Agraquest "Condional Time-Limited" Registration instead of a full registration as the EPA themselves found fault with it. PLEASE READ THE SECTION Agraquest's QST 713 section of this website.
David Bell explained his knowledge of Agraquest's process of finding beneficial (living bacteria, including fungi) and what happened when they found it, in his interview, INJURED AGRAQUEST BIOTECH WORKER DAVID BELL TELLS HIS STORY view→ HERE with Steve Zeltzer, Host of The Labor Video Project:
"They [Agraquest] would go and scour the world around and bring back dirt and rotting plants, decaying material, feces... you name it... anything and culture it at random, in petri dishes and then they would take the pure culture and run it through a screen to see if it might kill a plant... a plant pathogen or maybe a pest of plants... and then it if showed promise then it would further be uped into more... more trials until finally they might consider registering it if it was really a promising candidate."
Steve Zeltzer had asked David whether the organisms were alive and said it was exciting what could be discovered. To this David said:
"Oh absolutely viable... yeah [yes]. That’s the whole thing.... is when you put a biological on a product you don’t really just spray the chemical of the biological... you expect the biological to be viable and propagate and actually grow on the plants. That’s how the inhibitory effect works."
"It’s cutting edge, it’s definitely cutting edge. I mean you’re culturing and growing species of bacteria and fungi that maybe nobody’s ever catalogued before."
"The biopesticide industry is very much like the beer industry.... ok. We get the stuff and we have it in a petri dish and it’s in this pure form and then we do what’s a shake flask scale-up to where it moves and it slowly goes up in volume til it gets to big fermentors. Very much like you make beer. It’s fermented product."
ARE THE "ACTIVE INGREDIENT's" IN AGRAQUEST's PRODUCTS CONSIDERED CHEMICALS? ACCORDING TO THE EPA, THEY ARE:
It is rather odd, although Agraquest purports to not be using chemicals in their biological products, that the "active" ingredient/s of their products are in fact listed as chemicals in the above EPA's Pesticide Data Submitters List; BY ACTIVE CHEMICAL CODE. VIEW EPA DOCUMENT→ HERE
SERVERE LACK OF FEDERAL AND STATE OF CALIFORNIA BIO-SAFETY CONCERNS FOR THE AMERICAN WORKER AND/OR THE ENVIRONMENT
HISTOPLASMA (fungus) WAS IDENTIFIED IN DAVID's BLOOD SERUM
Numerous Letters and e-mails were sent to Federal and State Agencies after the fungus Histoplasma was discovered in David Bell's blood serum by the Arizona Mayo Clinic in 2003.
Upon extensive search for the relationship to this fungi being at AQ at the time David was employed there it was discovered that 3 months and 15 days after David began employment at AQ Pam Marrone filed an application (number 09/199,871) for United States patent 6,004,774 view→ HERE which said the invention "may be used to treat human fungal diseases in which the disseminated disease is a condida, for example, Aspergillus sp, Histoplasma sp. and Tinea sp." . Additionally, Pamela Gail Marrone was "first named inventor" on United States patent 6,004,774 view→ HERE .
It was also discovered that on 1/22/1999, four days after David first sought emergency medical care, the four AQ scientists who are listed as inventors on this patent started signing away their interest rights on the patent to the company, Agritope in Beaverton, Oregon. view→ HERE
LACK OF FEDERAL AND STATE OF CALIFORNIA AGENCIES RELATED TO DAVID BELL AND HIS WORKPLACE EXPOSURE AT AQ:
On 4/29/2004 an e-mail was sent to the [view] → United States Department of Human Health Services letter/e-mail informing the agency what had happened to David Bell while working at AQ, help was also requested from the HHS. At this same time, the e-mail was also cc'd to the WHITE HOUSE, CDC, NIOSH, SENATOR BOXER, SENATOR FEINSTEIN, OSHA and CAL/OSHA. (a certified letter was also sent to CDC on 5/1/2004) view HHS email→ HERE The 6/4/2004 reply from HHS was, "unfortunately, we can't [help]" view email→ HERE Additionally, received per the certified letter sent to HHS was a letter from Lauren Burwell, Mycotic Disease Branch of the CDC (8/10/2004). Ms. Burwell stated, "..we do not have authority over the safety of workers in industrial laboratory settings." "I encourage you to contine to work with your local and state health departments. view letter→ HERE A reply was sent to the 8/10/2004 letter received from Ms. Burwell in which again was stated the urgency and concerns regarding the histoplasma found in David's blood serum and the relation to this human pathogen being at the AQ workplace in the first place coupled with the risks to the environment. view letter→ HERE
The 6/30/2004 response from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) concerning the AQ occupationally acquired Histoplasma merely said, "NIOSH can respond only to requests from current employees, their collective bargaining representatives, or the employer". view letter→ HERE
NIOSH did however send a copy of the letter they had received concerning David Bell and AQ to Cal/OSHA and the Yolo County Health Department. Over a month had passed before a response was received from the former Health Officer/Director of the Yolo County Health Department, Bette G. Hinton. Ms. Hinton said in her 8/2/2004 response letter that the 2nd AQ location at 1530 Drew Avenue in Davis, Ca had been inspected by Cal/OSHA and stated, "with findings that do not suggest "ongoing exposure" to Histoplasma organism". view letter→ HERE
Ms. Hinton was immediately notified that where David had gotten sick was at the 1st AQ location at 1105 Kennedy Place in Davis, Ca. and "not" the Drew Avenue location where Cal/OSHA inspected. There was never a reply from Ms. Hinton concerning this fact. It is only known that AQ's Drew Avenue location was inspected by Cal/OSHA one time per the documented citation and fine they received for "several illegal fume-hoods" view documents→ HERE
As of this date, 1/21/2009 there has never been an inspection of the 1105 Kennedy Place building nor the grounds surrounding the building where AQ "dumped" liquid substances down the so-called "drain" that was merely a hollowing out in the concrete that led directly onto the ground per requests from the City of Davis residents. ( See article Agraquest's Research Microbial Lab In The Residential Neighborhood" on this page to view a picture of the "drain" ).
Additionally notified was the U.S. federal regulatory agency, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with several e-mail communications with respect to Histoplasma, AQ and the company's connection to this fungus found in David Bell. view EPA e-mail documentation→ HERE The end result was in essence, nothing.
It should be noted that hazardous waste/toxic substances had been removed from AQ's 1105 Kennedy Place location & 1530 Drew Ave. view California Department of Toxic Substance reports on AQ CAL000170815 → HERE , and California Department of Toxic Substance reports on AQ CAL000104458→ HERE , as well as from the CEO and founder, Pam Marrone's other start-up company, NovoNordisk - ENTOTECH in Davis, Ca. site, which was the exact same type of biotechnology research and development company as AQ. view California Department of Toxic Substance reports on Entotech/Novo Nordisk→ CAL000051388 HERE and California Department of Toxic Substance reports on Entotech/Novo Nordisk→ CAL000060309 HERE Therefore, the same type of "hazardous waste/toxic substances" (biological and chemicals) would have been believed to have been at the same location where David got so sick and It is feared what this residential neighborhood with apartments and senior housing have been exposed to. List of Toxics removed found → HERE
INFECTIONS FROM NATURAL FUNGI CAN BE VERY DANGEROUS
NEW The disease producing bacteria and fungus of plants and insects that were tested in the AQ laboratory (and medical testing showing positive in David) are "known" to also cause diseases and even death in humans. view the linkable chart, click →HERE
NEW 
Written by David Bell, (DATE: 1/20/2009): "This is about 1/2 hour ago, right after a rinse. this occurs at least monthly." "I warn you, this video is not for the weak stomach." view VIDEO→ HERE
"...and then there is this if you want to see the black".
Sincerely, David Bell
Nineteen (19) microorganisms, both bacteria and fungus have tested "positive" in David's blood, nose and/or sputum cultures and/or IgG levels (showing levels of exposure) can be all be traced to David's workplace exposure from working at AQ. Fully linkable chart relating to Agraquest connections and David Bell's health can be viewed → HERE
AQ denies any and all responsibility and as you will read on this website, they have done everything in their power to circumvent the "truth" from being known as to their "sole" responsibility of David's first major emergency sinus surgery after only 5 months and 9 days at the company, but also his continuing infections, illness and diseases that have led to 3 additional major sinus surgeries (numerous in office sinus procedures and the loss of an intact immune system which resulted in 3 years (every 28 days) of IV Immunoglobulin infusions at the hospital. These infusions ranged in costs between $7,0000 to $15,000 for each infusion. As of the end of 2005, David's medical bills were over $333,000.00 and they have continued to climb. View Totals Billed and Payments→ HERE (This is a 25.5 MB pdf file and my be slow to load. Please rotate the viewing window for easy reading)
HOW DID THIS START?
On January 18, 1999 David Bell left work early and went directly to Immediate Care Medical Clinic, where he saw Dr. Dorothy Peterson. He had been sick prior to this; throwing up and had bloody pus draining from his nose. He also had a fever, cough, was congested and had lost his appetite for 3 days. He had a fever of 100.2 when he saw Dr. Peterson.
David was prescribed the broad spectrum antibiotic, Zithromax and was told by Dr. Peterson to see an Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) specialist immediately. VIEW→ Dr. Peterson Chart Note of 1/18/1999
Shortly thereafter, on 1/21/1999 upon Dr. Peterson's advice to see an ENT immediately, David saw Dr. McKennan at Sacramento ENT . VIEW→ Sacramento ENT Medical History Form At this time David was now experiencing numbness on the left side of his face (including his teeth). VIEW→ Dr. McKennan chart notes of 1/21/1999 which reflect:
•"Mr. Bell is an, otherwise, healthy 31-year-old male, who comes in because of symptoms of acute left facial pain and numbness. He had flue-like illness last week. He ran a fever a was placed on Zithromax."
•"First, his left upper teeth became painful and then the left part of his face and teeth became numb."
•"He has chronic allergies."
•"I advised continued use of Vicodin for pain relief, hot and cold compresses. I advised Neo-Synephrine 3 to 4 times a day to promote sinus drainage. Once the Zithromax is finished I will start him on Cefzil."
•"I have ordered a stat CT scan of the sinuses."
•"He may require urgent drainage.
"VIEW→ RADIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF SACRAMENT MEDICAL GROUP, (Dr. David J. Seidenwurm) cat scan results of David Bell
Dr. Nancy Appelblatt of Sacramento ENT then became involved in David's medical care. On 1/25/1999, 7 days after David first sought emergency medical care, Dr. Appelblatt scheduled the first of what would become four (4) major sinus surgery's on David. VIEW→ Sacramento ENT Surgery Scheduling (Dr. Appelblatt also performed David's second sinus surgery in 2002.)
Dr. Nancy Appelblatt’s Operative Report of David Bell’s first sinus surgery on February 3, 1999 can be viewed here→ PAGE 1 , PAGE 2
•Although these subpoenaed pages from Sacramento ENT are extremely hard to read, it is without a doubt that David was in dire need of this surgery. Within the pages you will read that during the surgery “a large cyst was encountered, it immediately ruptured” and concerning the polyp that was found by Dr. Appelblatt, “There was no obvious infection other than the polyp at this time”.
•Cysts as well as polyps can be the byproduct of bacteria and fungal exposure, and it is well known that David was exposed to these microorganisms in his every day work environment at Agraquest. Medical documentation of this can be seen on the linkable chart,
VIEW→ Disease From Bacteria & Fungus In Agraquest Workplace Although this chart only applies to the bacteria and fungus testing positive in David, it is only a fraction of the medical conditions and diseases caused as a result of bacterial and fungal exposure.
Given the fact that David had been put on so many medications in the sixteen (16) days between his first seeking emergency medical care and the 2/3/1999 sinus surgery; it is questioned WHY Dr. Appelblatt, months later told David, “I guess I forgot to culture”. Dr. Appelblatt had in fact told David and his family that she had saved his life.
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