Luke Skywalker
Super Moderator
{vb:raw ozzmodz_postquote}:
The Critical Reagents Program(Photo: Defense Department)
The discovery of live anthrax outside a containment area at a military lab in Utah <span style="color: Red;">*</span>prompted military officials<span style="color: Red;">*</span>to order an immediate<span style="color: Red;">*</span>freeze on operations at nine biodefense laboratories that work with dangerous viruses, toxins and bacteria, the Pentagon announced Thursday.
The moratorium, first reported by USA TODAY,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>came<span style="color: Red;">*</span>after officials took a detailed look at policies and procedures at the labs and found them wanting, according to Defense officials. Labs at the Army's Dugway Proving Ground facility in Utah have been the focus of international concern since May, when the first clues emerged that<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the facility had been mistakenly shipping live anthrax<span style="color: Red;">*</span>— instead of killed specimens<span style="color: Red;">*</span>—<span style="color: Red;">*</span>to labs in the USA and abroad for years.
An ongoing<span style="color: Red;">*</span>USA TODAY Media Network investigation has<span style="color: Red;">*</span>revealed numerous safety problems at government, university<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and private labs<span style="color: Red;">*</span>that operate in the secretive world of biodefense research. Federal lab regulators are conducting comprehensive reviews of how they oversee lab safety and security.
USA TODAY
Inside America's secretive biolabs
Army Secretary<span style="color: Red;">*</span>John McHugh ordered the moratorium on the laboratories, including facilities run by the Army, Air Force and Navy. The Army is the top agency for the labs.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>McHugh acted out of an abundance of caution, according to the Army.
Activities at the labs will restart when the Army determines they can be conducted safely, said three military officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. <span style="color: Red;">*</span>McHugh will have the authority to approve work if needed for national security.
McHugh issued his order for the sweeping safety review after lab regulators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention <span style="color: Red;">*</span>ordered Dugway Proving Ground’s labs on Aug. 31 to suspend work with<span style="color: Red;">*</span>all types of “select agent” pathogens because of new revelations about sloppy biosafety practices at the Utah facility.
Dugway officials, in testing surfaces in their laboratories, detected anthrax bacteria on the floors of two rooms where staff had worked with the deadly pathogen.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>“If proper biosafety procedures had been followed, these surfaces should have been free of the agent,” the CDC said in a statement in response to questions from USA TODAY.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>“Following the suspension, the Department of Defense has begun an immediate safety review at all DoD labs and facilities involved in production, shipment<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and handling of live and inactivated select agents and toxins.” The CDC said there is “no identifiable risk to the public” from the Dugway incident.
According to a memo issued Wednesday by McHugh, the safety review involves all labs involved in the production, shipment and handling of any live or inactivated pathogens that are designated as “select agents,” because of their potential to be used as bioterror agents and the threat they pose to public health.
The review calls for the military labs to ensure that personnel are properly trained on lab safety procedures and that necessary maintenance is conducted on biosafety level 3 lab facilities that work with some of the most dangerous pathogens. It <span style="color: Red;">*</span>calls for validating record-keeping and inventories of the military’s “Critical Reagents Program” —<span style="color: Red;">*</span>including “ensuring that all materials associated with the CRP are properly accounted for.”
The Critical Reagents Program provides biological specimens used as reference materials<span style="color: Red;">*</span>to other DoD labs and to “interagency partners” for use in research and the evaluation of various biodefense products, according to the program’s website. Pathogens listed in the program's catalog<span style="color: Red;">*</span>of antigens include the bacteria that cause plague and anthrax and Ebola and Dengue viruses. The catalog says the antigens listed are "an inactivated version of an entire organism or a toxin."
Anthrax spores.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: CDC)
The memo calls for several of the labs to cease production and handling of any materials associated with the Critical Reagents Program.
<span style="color: Red;">*</span>
USA TODAY
Biosafety labs under scrutiny
USA TODAY
Pentagon's anthrax scandal spreads to Canada
The latest safety concerns at the<span style="color: Red;">*</span>labs stem<span style="color: Red;">*</span>from an anthrax deactivation scandal that emerged in May when a private biotech company in Maryland discovered that a sample of what was supposed to be dead anthrax sent from a lab at the Army’s Dugway Proving Ground was still capable of growing. The specimen was part of a project to develop a diagnostic test for potential bioterror pathogens.
Investigations by the military and lab regulators at the CDC<span style="color: Red;">*</span>determined that Dugway had been mistakenly shipping hundreds of live anthrax specimens —<span style="color: Red;">*</span>labeled as killed —<span style="color: Red;">*</span>for more than a decade that ended up in194 labs located in every state and nine foreign countries. Anthrax can cause fatal illnesses if inhaled. Though no illnesses were reported stemming from Dugway’s mistakes, several people who worked with the specimens were put on antibiotics as a precaution.
Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook acknowledged that live anthrax had been sent to all 50 states and that a report on the botched handling of the pathogen was due in October.
USA TODAY
Up to 18 labs in U.S. got live anthrax shipments
The problems with the military labs are the latest in a series of serious mistakes made by federal research facilities that do biodefense research on dangerous viruses, bacteria and toxins that have the potential to be used in a bioterrorism attack. Other incidents have involved mishaps last year by labs at the CDC in Atlanta involving anthrax, Ebola and a deadly strain of avian influenza. Last year, forgotten vials of deadly smallpox virus were discovered in a storage room at the National Institutes of Health.
Several congressional committees have been investigating lab safety and regulatory issues as a result. A subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing in July. An ongoing USA TODAY Media Network investigation has revealed that more than 100 public and private labs <span style="color: Red;">*</span>faced sanctions in recent years because of serious violations of safety regulations in their research on potential bioterror pathogens;<span style="color: Red;">*</span>however, the government keeps their names secret.
Powered By WizardRSS.com | Full Text RSS Feed