Vials of smallpox in the back of a fridge; anthrax shipped to a low-security lab. A spate of biosafety breaches by US government labs can be blamed on lack of oversight and scientists failing to follow protocol, according to a report released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, on Monday.
Last week, workers at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, found labelled vials of smallpox virus in an unguarded fridge. All such smallpox should have been destroyed when the disease was declared eradicated in 1980.
This follows an incident last month, when the CDC's Bioterrorism Rapid Response and Advanced Technology (BRRAT) lab found that anthrax samples sent to a low-security lab may not have been completely dead. None of the 84 people potentially exposed seem to have been infected. The particularly dangerous strain of anthrax was not even necessary for the research project being conducted by the team it was sent to, says CDC director Tom Frieden.
In the report, the CDC admits that similarly harmful bacteria were incorrectly shipped in 2006. In March, deadly bird flu virus was found in transported flu samples thought to be harmless.
The CDC has suspended pathogen shipments, closed the BRRAT lab, and will establish an advisory group for lab safety.
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