A new government body should be formed to oversee the increasing number of high-containment laboratories that work with dangerous pathogens, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released yesterday (September 21).

Bacillus anthracis Image:P Paul Keim, CDC EID, via Wikipedia

In the report, the GAO pointed out that such laboratories have proliferated since 2001; in 2008, there were 1,362 Biosafety Level 3 labs registered with the CDC, the report notes. But no single federal organization is in charge of overseeing this expansion and high-risk research.

"While some federal agencies do have a mission to track a subset of BSL-3 and -4 laboratories that work with select agents and know the number of those laboratories, no single regulatory agency has specific responsibility for biosafety in all high-containment laboratories in the United States," the report states. There are also, the report notes, no laws that would help the government track such work, in contrast to the UK, for example, where new high-containment labs must receive approval or licensing from a central body.

Centralizing oversight of high-containment research, the report concludes, would allow the development of a "strategic plan" regarding the number and location of such labs, as well as balance the risks and benefits of such research and determine the oversight needed.

Some scientists, though, worry that more regulation is going to make their research more difficult. Already, said Peter Palese, a virologist at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, responding to the report, restrictions for working with infectious agents are driving good scientists away. Stricter regulation won't prevent accidents, nor will they stand in the way of a "mad scientist" intent on doing evil, he added. "I don't think we need another [level of] oversight," Palese told The Scientist. "We are oversighted enough."

Several highly publicized incidents in recent years have highlighted the risks involved with high containment laboratories. The GAO report discussed four such incidents -- including the saga of Bruce Ivins, who the government claims perpetrated the 2001 anthrax attacks, and a series of safety snafus and failures to report accidents at Texas A&M University, for which the university paid a $1 million fine -- and the implications they might have for centralized oversight.


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[9th July 2009]

Pathogen labs lack security: GAO
[16th October 2008]

Biosafety lapses prompt govt review
[25th September 2007]

The biosafety mess
[31th January 2005]