A 2010 report by the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, CDC’s parent agency, found the Atlanta labs did not always restrict access properly to pathogens that threaten public health, compromising the “physical security” of the bacteria.
The inspector general also found that CDC did not always obtain “approval to transfer select agents or ensure that only approved individuals accepted delivery of select agents.”
HOW TO FIX
Despite the breach, a dozen experts contacted by Reuters still spoke highly of CDC’s biosafety record. They say the lapse there may be a lesson that other top level labs are even more at risk.
“There are a lot of places where BSL-3 labs are not in very good shape,” said UPMC’s Dr D.A. Henderson, who was acting director of the Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness following the 2001 anthrax attacks.
“Clearly something needs to be altered,” said CDC spokesman Skinner.
One change could be to extend the strictest biosafety measures even to labs working with less-dangerous pathogens. If the labs receiving the anthrax had required researchers to wear more personal protective gear, such as a respirator, exposure would have been diminished.
“When people think they’re working with inactive agents, they still need to act with at least a grain of suspicion that the samples might not be inactivated,” said Morse.
“It’s a lot of hassle working in personal protection equipment,” he said, “but an incident like this tells us that even if you think something is inactivated or safe you should err on the side of caution.”
The two-person rule clearly didn’t work, either, and should be revised, said Lynn Klotz, a biosecurity expert at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington. “It’s very boring to observe what another person is doing and the second person can get sloppy,” he said.
Additional controls that use technology to back up human oversight could reduce the chances of the accidental or intentional release of anthrax or a more contagious microbe that could harm a much wider population if it left the lab. (Reuters)