(Reuters) – Federal health officials yesterday disclosed a new safety breach at a high-security U.S. government laboratory involving dangerous avian flu, a lapse that came to light as they investigated the potential exposure of researchers to live anthrax bacteria.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said an internal probe found multiple failures by individual scientists and a lack of agency-wide safety policies led to the potential exposure of more than 80 lab workers to live anthrax at its Atlanta campus last month. Researchers in a high-security bioterror lab sent samples of what they thought were inactivated bacteria to colleagues in a lower-security lab, with fewer protections.
Investigators also discovered a previously unreported incident: Workers at a separate high-security CDC influenza lab sent samples containing a dangerous strain of bird flu to counterparts at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in March. Mishandling avian flu could have far graver consequences than anthrax does, though no one has been found to have been infected in either case.
The two incidents represent the latest in a series of breaches at the CDC in the last decade that are drawing fresh scrutiny from Congress, including questions about the agency’s ability to oversee potentially dangerous research. The CDC said its findings provide a “wake-up call” to overhaul the standards governing experiments with deadly pathogens nationwide.
Biosecurity has focused on “how to keep bad guys out of the lab,” Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota and a member of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, which advises the federal government, said in a telephone interview. “One of the critical issues we need to focus on is the good guys who just forget to do it safely.”
The CDC’s director, Dr. Thomas Frieden, called the bird flu incident “the most distressing,” in part because it occurred six weeks ago but was not reported to senior agency leadership.
“I learned about it less than 48 hours ago,” he told reporters in a teleconference, adding that the events likely “have people questioning government.”
“We need to look at our culture of safety throughout all of our laboratories,” Frieden said. “I’m upset, I’m angry. I’ve lost sleep over it and I’m doing everything I can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Frieden also pointed to the discovery this month of six vials of smallpox in an unused room at the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Maryland, near Washington. Frieden disclosed on Friday that two of the vials dated from 1954 contained live smallpox virus, a global scourge for centuries.
The CDC’s anthrax report does not name any of the responsible individuals. Frieden said the CDC would discipline any staff who knowingly violated research procedures or failed to report a lab breach.
“These repeated safety failures raise grave concerns about the CDC’s ability to ensure strict procedures, protocols and training are followed,” said Representative Tim Murphy, chairman of a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee that has called Frieden to testify on Wednesday.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is also pressing U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, for answers, according to a letter to HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell.
An HHS spokesman said the CDC has outlined “corrective actions” to prevent future mishaps at its laboratories.
“Dr. Frieden is leading those efforts,” the spokesman said.
The CDC is suspending any transfers inside or outside the agency of biological materials, including infectious agents and even inactivated specimens, from high-biosecurity labs. Both the CDC bioterror lab that handled the anthrax bacteria and the agency’s influenza lab are closed pending further study of what happened.