Leaking labs trigger microbe scare

When the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention unveiled a report documenting multiple safety breaches at its labs, its director for the first time suggested the country turn back the rapid-fire proliferation of such research units, which have tripled in little more than a decade to at least 1,500.

“One of the things that we want to do is reduce the number of laboratories that work with dangerous agents to the absolute minimum necessary,” said CDC Director Dr Thomas Frieden. “Reduce the number of people who have access to those laboratories to the absolute minimum necessary.”

His remarks may vindicate the views of a small group of biosafety and biosecurity experts who see that as the only way to protect dangerous viruses and bacteria from both lab accidents and thefts. They point to an alarming rise in the number of incidents of lost or escaped microbes from such labs in recent years and see the CDC cases as proof that even the best facilities are vulnerable. Following through on this idea would require a wholesale shift in US biodefence policy, which spans preparedness for disease outbreaks and for the use of biological agents in terror attacks.

While the CDC and US Department of Agriculture are responsible for registering labs that work with “select agents” — microbes that could be used as bioweapons — they cannot rescind that approval unless there has been a clear violation of the rules.

“Just as with domestic spying by the National Security Agency, and drone attacks, the White House seems to feel it must maintain the policies of the last administration or risk being called weak on homeland security,” said molecular biologist Richard Ebright of Rutgers University.

According to a 2013 report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, 415 labs had registered with the CDC or the USDA in 2004 to work with select agents. By 2010, the number had grown to 1,495, the GAO found.

In 2001, anthrax stolen from a federal bioweapons lab killed five people and sickened 17 more. At the time, only two US labs were capable of identifying anthrax in samples of mysterious powders, which “were flowing in by the thousands,” said epidemiologist D A Henderson, a scholar at University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre. Henderson was tapped by the government to increase the number of such labs, both to detect suspected pathogens like anthrax and to conduct biodefense research. As a result, “there was a rush to get more BSL-3 and BSL-4 facilities,” he said. “Universities were anxious to build them,” as the work brought millions of dollars in funding.

A decade later, the country had spent $19 billion on biodefense research. But there has been no national assessment of how many such labs are needed for security, the GAO found. “Increasing the number of laboratories,” it said, “increases the aggregate national risk” because of the chances of intentional or accidental escape.

It also increases the number of individuals with federal approval to work with select agents. With the additional spending, the number of people with access to bioweapons agents “increased by a factor of 20 to 40,” said Ebright.

As per a 2012 report by CDC scientists, there were 16 incidents of lost or escaped microbes from select-agent labs in 2004. This rose to 128 in 2008 and 269 in 2010.

“It is almost exactly two per week and accelerating,” said epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch of Harvard School of Public Health.

The CDC’s anthrax breach, plus its mishandling of a highly pathogenic flu virus also revealed last week, show that even the most respected labs can violate protocols in potentially dangerous ways. It therefore makes no sense for the US to have a dozen BSL-4 labs, which work with pathogens that are easily transmitted by air between people (anthrax is not contagious and so is handled in BSL-3 labs) and cause severe or fatal diseases for which there are no vaccines or treatments, said biologist Lynn Klotz, a member of the Scientists’ Working Group on Chemical and Biological Weapons. “At minimum, these labs should be in a remote, rural area,” said Klotz.

After years of litigation, Boston University received permission from city, state, and federal authorities this year to open a BSL-4 lab in the city’s densely populated South End, but critics consider it a prime example of a facility whose potential contribution to research is swamped by the risks of exposing a large urban area to an escaped pathogen. Other labs targeted by scientists include the National Bio- and Agrodefense Facility in Manhattan, Kansas, partly because it is located in a tornado zone. Some experts argue that having fewer labs is not the solution, and that improving adherence to safety protocols makes more sense. To many, however, it is simple mathematics: the fewer labs working with nature’s most dangerous microbes, the lower the probability of an escape.