INC NEWS - FW: biolab

[Pat Carstensen]

FYI




From: marissa78 at earthlink.net
To: pats1717 at hotmail.com
Subject: listserve
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 12:49:31 -0500




Dear Pat,
 
For some reason I've been unable to crack the code on the INC list serve. So I thought I'd send you a brief report of some of the things I learned in my extensive research on bio-labs. I hope you find it interesting.
 
 
Lynn Kohn
 
 
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The current bio-lab controversy in Butner is not taking place in a vacuum. In recent years there has been a major push to increase the number of high-containment germ labs in the United States. This development has met with skepticism, protests, and legal challenges in Boston, Galveston, Davis California, Fort Detrick, Maryland, and Athens, Georgia in addition to Butner. Are so many people in so many places in the throes of mass hysteria? Or have they simply done some research on the safety track record of other labs?                  

 
Recently a report published by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) acknowledged, “Although high-containment labs are designed to promote the safety of researchers and the public, accidents and security breaches have occurred in the past. In addition these labs can be used by terrorists or persons with malicious intent to acquire or develop harmful biological agents, posing a severe national security and public health threat.” 
 
It is by no means certain that all “accidents and security breaches” are even reported. A news article in the science journal, Nature quoted the lead author of a report by the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Biosecurity who concluded, “The problem is that accidents aren’t reported.” She felt the situation was dire enough to advocate the drastic and controversial approach of allowing mishaps and close-calls to be reported anonymously. 
 
To make matters worse, in the years since 9-11, the secrecy surrounding BSL-4 labs has only increased. The CDC is now allowed to classify its reports and planning meetings. DHS has steadfastly refused to supply the minutes of the Institutional Biosafety Committee meeting at Plum Island, in response to a 2006 Freedom of Information Act request from the Sunshine Project (an environmentalist watchdog group).
 
Compounding issues of competence and disclosure are systemic problems of oversight and accountability. According to GAO findings, “No single federal agency has the mission to track and determine the risk associated with the expansion of BSL-3 and -4 labs in the United States, and no single federal agency knows how many such labs there are in the United States. Consequently no one is responsible for determining the aggregate risks associated with the expansion of these high-containment labs.” (Emphasis added.)
 
And the situation will only get worse as the number of labs proliferates and management is increasingly outsourced, with the greatest “safety and security risks at new labs with less experience.”
 
Questions are now being raised in the scientific community. The November, 2006 issue of the science journal Nature included an editorial titled, “Enough biodefence: Who wants a bioweapons lab next door?” After describing the decided lack of enthusiasm at lab sites around the country, the editors concluded, “These objections have concentrated on local questions, but the proliferation of such labs begs the broader question of how much biodefence is too much.”


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