“Bioterror” labs too much of a liability

As regular visitors have realized by now, I’m not currently blogging much. Too many things going on and my head’s not into blogging. But I’m still following the issues that interest me, and I might pop up here and there to share a few thoughts about them. For one, there’s this story in the New York Times: U.S. Called Lax at Policing Labs Handling Biohazards.

There’s been lots of coverage of the problems, or potential problems, with so-called bioterror or bioweapons labs since the Texas A&M lab’s operations were halted by the CDC pending investigation of biosecurity lapses. This week, as outlined in the NYT article, speakers at a hearing entitled Germs, Viruses, and Secrets: The Silent Proliferation of Bio-Laboratories in the United States discussed oversight problems with U.S. biosecurity labs, troubling growth in the BSL-3/4 lab “industry,” and associated risks. Of particular note was the testimony by Keith Rhodes of the GAO, published in this GAO report, HIGH-CONTAINMENT BIOSAFETY LABORATORIES: Preliminary Observations on the Oversight of the Proliferation of BSL-3 and BSL-4 Laboratories in the United States.

As Rhodes testified, there are now 15 BSL-4 labs in operation or planning within the U.S., but

No single federal agency, according to 12 agencies’ responses to our survey, has the mission to track the overall number of BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs in the United States. Though several agencies have a need to know, no one agency knows the number and location of these labs in the United States. Consequently, no agency is responsible for determining the risks associated with the proliferation of these labs.

The GAO report features a nice map of BSL-4 and some major BSL-3 labs across the U.S. (page 12).

As someone who works with biosecurity threat-related issues on a daily basis, the proliferation of these labs under the guise and funding of bioterrorism or biosecurity concerns me for a variety of reasons. I am not that concerned that we are training scores of new scientists to be experts in how to make the perfect weapon. I think the likelihood of “rogue” scientists perpetrating terrorist attacks is remote. Accidents are another matter. They do happen, and they will at some point, as we saw recently with the FMDV outbreak in the UK.

But my bottom line is that I don’t think we ever needed to build more of these in the first place, and certainly not in the private sector. We already have excellent biosecurity expertise and labs within the U.S. government’s public health and defense establishments, enough to provide top notch countermeasures research efforts as compared to the probability of a biological attack. The real problem is that since 9/11 and the Amerithrax attacks, we also have a massive influx of money. We direct this money towards our fear of terrorism, and of course this becomes the basis for endless proposals to get the money. It’s not about the need for the labs, it’s about the fact that there’s money, and academic & private institutions know that to get the money they’ve got to play up the fear.

Imagine if all this effort was directed toward curing cancer, HIV, or fifty other far more relevant health needs instead. And if that’s what the money was for, you can bet people would be scrambling to build labs to fill that need. Granted, these labs are fully capable of researching a number of emerging infectious diseases such as SARS and avian influenza. But the appearance is that they’re all hot to trot for juicy bugs like smallpox and anthrax. Because terrorism is king.

With that in mind, from my perspective, there’s another and even more important reason to rein in this proliferation of select agent labs: you may have noticed how the press just loves the sensationalism of calling these labs bioterror and bioweapons labs. Potential adversaries around the world notice it, you can bet on that. Would it be any surprise if the rest of the world actually believed the U.S. was creating biological weapons? This perception does serious and unnecessary damage to our own security, actually increasing the threat that other countries could feel compelled to follow suit. We need to dispel these notions for our own good.

Certainly the oversight concerns the GAO discussed need to be addressed immediately. As the GAO report concludes,

The expansion of BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs taking place in the United States is proceeding in a decentralized fashion, without specific requirements as to the number, location, activity, and ownership of such labs. While some expansion may be justified to address deficiencies in lab capacity for the development of medical countermeasures, unwarranted expansion without adequate oversight is proliferation, not expansion. Since the full extent of the expansion is not known, it is unclear how the federal government can ensure that sufficient but not superfluous capacity—that brings with it additional, unnecessary risk—is being created.

The proliferation of these labs must end. We have enough expertise, enough facilities, and more than enough funding going toward potential bioterror threats. Let’s make it clear to the world that we are going to steer the future efforts of our existing labs toward major public health threats. I am certain that much of the world would breathe a tiny sigh of relief.