Just sounds like some people operating under the assumption of unknown unknowns. Best to see if anything died from exposure in an enclosed environment before releasing any possible contaminants out into the wild.
So that's where those big bugs came from. I saw a double size wasp some days ago and i was wondering how it got so big. That explains it.
The more I learn of 1950s to 1970s NASA and related, the less over the top Cave Johnson from Portal 2 seems.
And then I read books like Ignition! and realize that, at that time, parts of rocket science literally were, "What are the most energetically explosive sets of things we can mix together and actually live with?" Turns out, not that many, despite an awful lot of efforts.