http://energycommerce.house.gov/cmte...-testimony.pdf
Submitted to the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce for the Hearing: Germs, Viruses, and Secrets: The Silent Proliferation of Bio-Laboratories in the United States, 4 October 2007.
PROLIFERATION OF LABORATORIES HANDLING BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS AGENTS
There has been a large and unsafe expansion of US laboratories handling biological weapons agents since 2002. This expansion poses significant risks to the public through accidents and incidents of domestic source criminality (bioterrorism). Inadequate transparency exacerbates risks to the public and threatens international confidence in the objectives and activities of this US research, damaging prospects of improving global biosecurity.
The unprecedented expansion of biological weapons agent research has been conducted without a national laboratory needs assessment and appears to far exceed that which is prudent and necessary for our national needs.
The Sunshine Project has tracked the proliferation of high containment laboratories since 2002.
The media and the public regularly ask me where the federal government publishes this
information. It does not. There is no comprehensive government source of information available on where these labs are and are being built. In fact, the Sunshine Project’s data on lab proliferation has been requested by government agencies for their use and frequently appears in the news media.
The incomplete list of new labs reflected in this data together constitute nearly 4 million gross
square feet of new facilities, about 90 acres of space. In perhaps a more recognizable measure,
this is the equivalent of 36 typical “big box” stores for the study of biological weapons and other
dangerous agents. Placed end to end with no space between, the row of stores would stretch 2 ¼ miles.1 These figures do not include many dozens of new and converted BSL-3 facilities at other public and private research institutions.
In the past 6 years, however, lab expansion under the Bush administration has gone far beyond
what is prudent and necessary, and without an adequate regulatory framework. According to the
most recent statements by the Centers for Disease Control, there are now approximately 400
facilities and 15,000 people in the United States handling biological weapons agents. Many of
these facilities are new and are staffed by scientists and others with little to no prior experience
with biological weapons agents and the safety and security measures they require. In addition
they are frequently on college campuses and other locations where rule-based systems of strict
accountability are absent and, in fact, alien to institutional culture.
Research with biological weapons agents must be transparent and publicly accountable. A
culture of transparency does not presently exist. Laboratories would be more likely to conduct
research in a prudent and safe manner with the public able to look over their shoulder. Access to
records such as research protocols, safety minutes, and accident reports will help ensure that
studies are conducted with public safety and security in mind and, most importantly, reassure
other countries of the peaceful intent and activities of the US biodefense program.
The result is that local IBC oversight could only be verified for all relevant federal grants in 2 out
of 100 cases (2%). This means it was impossible to fully correlate federal grants and IBC
reviews in 98% of the identified BSL-3 labs. In 11 cases (11%), IBCs reviewed most federal
grants requiring BSL-3 containment. The majority of respondents (55) had matches of less than
half their research (28 IBCs) or none at all (27 IBCs).
In this analysis, there were repeated instances of biological weapons agent research found in
minutes that could not be correlated with a federal grant. Such research involved a range of
organisms including anthrax, monkeypox, highly pathogenic avian influenza, plague, brucella,
melioidosis, eastern equine encephalitis, and others. Due to a lack of grant information and/or
inadequate minutes, in some other labs it was impossible to discern what research, if any, is
taking place.
ACCIDENTS AND OTHER INCIDENTS PROMPTED BY EXPANSION OF BIOLOGICAL
WEAPONS AGENT RESEARCH UNDER THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION
Accidents and other safety and security problems have resulted from expansion of research
involving biological weapons agents. These include laboratory-acquired infections with
biological weapons agents, unauthorized persons handling biological weapons agents, failure to
account for stocks of biological weapons agents, and other problems.
It should be initially noted that the public’s right to know about lab accidents is largely ignored,
and information on them is very difficult to acquire. The Centers for Disease Control refuses all
FOIA requests for such information (see “Inadequate Transparency”) and the NIH Office of
Biotechnology Activities has not produced its data (see “Failure of NIH Oversight”), although
there is good reason to question its reliability, if NIH data exists (see “Failure of Institutional
Biosafety Committees”).
- At the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 2005 and 2006, researchers handled genetic
copies of the entire Ebola virus (called “full length cDNAs”) at BSL-3, despite the fact that the
NIH Guidelines require handling at BSL-4 because the genetic constructs had not been rendered
irreversibly incapable of producing live virus. The University of Wisconsin at Madison
Institutional Biosafety Committee reviewed and approved this research despite federal
Guidelines to the contrary. The problem was not detected by NIH. In fact, NIH funded the
research."