Critics say security at U.S. biodefense lab is lax
Security measures at U.S. labs are failing to keep pace with the fast-growing number of biodefense research projects, according to Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University microbiologist. Speaking Friday at a biodefense seminar series at Princeton University, Ebright said that expanding research into such deadly pathogens as anthrax, plague, and tularemia is not being regulated as strictly as other industries. “The easiest way for al-Qaeda to obtain bioweapons agents would be to place someone in a U.S. bioweapons institution,” Ebright said. “This is something that needs to be prevented,” he added, saying potential terrorists need only one well-placed doctoral student to advance their efforts.
Ebright, a professor at Rutgers’ Wakeman Institute of Microbiology, has been a critic of government biodefense efforts. He said the number of institutions and people handling bioweapons agents has jumped at least twenty-fold, even as research funding declines for work on safer agents that could help biodefense. Ebright said there have been incidents across the country in which researchers have improperly handled agents and animals used in testing.
Federal safety rules are not designed to prevent accidental releases of bioweapons agents, and security measures are fragmented, gap-ridden, and poorly coordinated among agencies, Ebright said.
Von Roebuck, a spokesman for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), disputed Ebright’s statements, saying that biodefense licensing procedures established in 2002 are working, with about 300 research entities covered. Lynn Enquist, a Princeton molecular biologist who edits the Journal of Virology, however, said that Ebright gave “a fairly accurate assessment” of biodefense research risks. The Princeton seminar coordinator Laura Kahn, a medical doctor who has studied laboratory infections, said the “macho kind of culture” surrounding biodefense research needs to change. “They view accidents with a real laissez-faire attitude,” she said.
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