The Sunshine Project
News Release
15 March 2004
University of Texas Reverses Secrecy Stance; but will its New Biosafety Committee be Accountable?
For more than a year, the Sunshine Project and University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) have been locked in a public dispute over UTMB's secrecy about its biodefense research. In a potentially significant policy reversal, UTMB has recently formed a new Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) to oversee research safety. UTMB says that the new committee will be more transparent than its previous safety committee, whose refusal to release records was criticized by nonprofit watchdogs. As a result of its secrecy, the National Institutes of Health is also examining UTMB's biosafety committee and policies.The Sunshine Project views UTMB's new committee with guarded optimism: "It's a shame that it took a year of pressure and a federal investigation before UTMB stopped blowing smoke and started addressing watchdog concerns" says Edward Hammond, Director of the Sunshine Project US, "By establishing the new committee, UTMB has finally admitted that its biodefense secrecy is unacceptable." Recalling UTMB's track record of resistance to public accountability on biodefense research, however, the Sunshine Project is taking a wait and see approach. Says Hammond "I hope that UTMB has turned over a new leaf; but the Sunshine Project will reserve judgment until the quality and depth of this new committee's public accountability has been thoroughly tested."
The dispute has national relevance because the transparency requirements that are in dispute (those established by the National Institutes of Health Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant DNA Molecules, called the "NIH Guidelines") are applied across the country. The Texas case is the first major biosafety committee records dispute to emerge since the federal biodefense spending boom began in late 2001.
The NIH Guidelines require Institutional Biosafety Committees (IBCs) at federally-funded biotechnology research labs in order to protect human health and the environment. IBCs must have members that represent community interests and must release many of their documents, such as meeting minutes, to the public. The Sunshine Project's dispute with UTMB began in early 2003 when it requested the UTMB IBC minutes. UTMB not only refused to provide them; but its lawyers convinced the Texas Attorney General to support its secrecy by endorsing the University's controversial interpretation of a state law designed to protect unrelated health care records.
In the course its campaign to shut down public access to its IBC records, UTMB did an embarrassingly effective job of painting itself into a corner with respect to federal research rules. UTMB's position was in flagrant violation of the NIH Guidelines. Says Hammond, "UTMB's efforts to obtain legal endoresement of its secrecy turned into a classic case of 'be careful what you wish for, because it might come true.' UTMB got what it wanted from the Texas Attorney General, and very promptly regretted the situation it brought upon itself."
(In late 2003, the Texas Attorney General's Office publicly admitted to having second thoughts about its decisions supporting UTMB's secrecy, publicly stating that it may reconsider its decision. Misleading the public, UTMB portrays itself as a victim of the Attorney General's ruling. In reality, UTMB desired the secrecy ruling and was the author and promoter of the legal arguments that led to the Attorney General's decision.)
In August 2003 the Sunshine Project sent a formal complaint to the NIH Office of Biotechnology Activities, which began an investigation of UTMB's biosafety committee. When NIH asked UTMB to explain itself, the University did not even attempt to argue that it was in compliance with the NIH Guidelines. NIH has yet to report on its investigation; but it is fair to assume that it has played a hand in UTMB's decision to establish a new IBC.
The Sunshine Project will discuss the UTMB case in greater detail in the upcoming report of its national survey of transparency of institutional biosafety committees. In that survey, which began in January, the Sunshine Project has requested IBC minutes from nearly 400 committees across the country. The report will analyze the survey response and make recommendations on how to maintain and expand the public accountability of biodefense and biotechnology research.