CDC biolab not ready after 2 1/2 years

labs remained unoccupied, about 500 CDC scientists and staff moved into the rest of the building, which includes other labs that work with less dangerous pathogens. CDC initially said the BSL-4 labs would open in the fall of 2005, then the summer of 2006, then by the end of 2007. “It’s clear that, looking back, we communicated a date that was clearly unrealistic knowing what we know now,” said Monroe, director of the CDC’s Division of Viral and Rickettsial Diseases. CDC officials said the delays are not unusual. Yet, at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, it took less than seven months for its BSL-4 lab to become operational after construction was finished on that building in late 2003, said Michael Holbrook, the lab’s BSL-4 director. Richard Ebright, a biosafety expert at Rutgers University in New Jersey, questioned whether the delay at the CDC’s labs is the result of trying to resolve significant problems. “The extent of this delay suggests there may be fundamental issues regarding infrastructure or safety or security that need to be addressed,” said Ebright.

CDC officials dispute any major problems. Yet, last June, the building housing the CDC’s unopened BSL-4 labs suffered an hour-long power outage when backup power failed after a lightning strike. The BSL-4 suite lost its negative air pressure, one of several safety features that prevent air and germs from flowing out. CDC officials say the backup power problem has been fixed. Nearly a year ago, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution requested the CDC release records about the power outage and the safety of the new BSL-4 labs under the Freedom of Information Act. The agency hasn’t yet released any documents. CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said the BSL-4 delays are not due to any critical safety or construction problems. Changes made since the CDC took possession of the building from contractors involve “enhancements” for additional worker safety and convenience and some additional security measures. “It’s not that the building would not have been operational without them. These were steps we took to make the lab better — more efficient and safer than the original design,” Skinner said. The cost of the changes was not immediately available, Skinner said, but came from the CDC’s maintenance and repair budgets. Skinner and Monroe said the physical changes in the labs are complete, but now additional time is needed to complete inspections and paperwork for certification to work with bioterror agents.

Dingell said he’s concerned that the CDC is the federal agency charged with doing these lab inspections — even when it involves its own labs. He said it “makes for a peculiar arrangement in which the agency is inspecting itself — a built-in conflict of interest.” The CDC officials disagree there’s a conflict, saying inspectors work for a different arm than the one that will operate the labs. Dingell, his committee and the Government Accountability Office have been investigating whether the proliferation of public and private bioterrorism labs poses public safety risks. In recent weeks, he also has been among several members of Congress who have questioned the CDC’s delay in releasing a report on environmental dangers in Great Lakes states. Dingell is a Democrat from Michigan, one of the states in the report.