Kansas State University wants to house high-level biolab

Two weeks ago DHS pulled the biodefense research license of Texas A&M after the university failed to inform the Center for Disease Control and Prevention of instances of researches being infected while work at the high-level biodefense lab on campus. At Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, they do not want to take any chances, especially as KSU is one of five sites in the United States still in the running one day to house the $450 million National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility. The facility would replace an aging laboratory in New York’s lum Island which studies how to combats contagious human and animal diseases and threats to the U.S. food supply. The research laboratory that could one day be built in Kansas will be required to have the highest level of security and the most precautions to avoid contamination as any bioscience lab in the world.

“You can guarantee there will be established strong security measures,” said DHS spokesman Larry Orluskie. Orluskie pointed to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Web site, which details the safeguards in place for the labs that deal with dangerous diseases. According to the Web site, these labs typically have perimeter fencing, security guards, closed-circuit TV surveillance, intrusion alarms, and nighttime security lighting. Joints and seams are sealed so the building is airtight, air is pumped in and out, and windows can’t be opened. To get into the building, guards check IDs and credentials. ID cards are used to provide an electronic record of who enters and exits, and eye and fingerprint scanners are used. Once inside the building, researchers change clothes, even socks and underwear. At the end of the day, they take decontaminating showers, the Web site states.

Manhattan is home to one lab with a security classification that falls just one category below what the National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility will be. It is Kansas State University’s Biosecurity Research Institute. “You do have to take precautions to ensure you are operating safely and securely. But I don’t see this as a huge issue,” said Ron Trewyn, who is vice provost for research and dean of the graduate school.

Lawrence, Kansas Journal-World’s Christine Metzwrites that not everyone agrees that the facility will not pose a security threat. When Ed Minihan got word Wednesday that the proposal from the University of Wisconsin did not make it into the next round, he was relieved. He is the chairman of the town board in Dunn, Wisconsin, a town of 5,300 people and among the sites up for consideration. Minihan and the rest of the town board adopted a resolution in May that opposed the facility coming to Dunn. What convinced Minihan that the facility was not something he wanted in his community was the book Lab 257. The author, Michael Carroll, explores the work and security lapses that have occurred at Plum Island, the research lab that will be replaced by the new facility. “It is a concern and, quite frankly, we are not all that confident that Homeland Security knows what it is doing,” Minihan said. For the communities that support this facility, Minihan said they “haven’t done their homework.”

DHS’s Orluskie said the book was fiction based on a real location. “People get the misconception that it is the reality,” he said.