Sunshine: Anthrax and Tularemia Bioweapons Bungling in Texas: Time to Lay to Rest the Myth of "No Accidents"

RELATED RESOURCES:

Anthrax Incident: UTHSC Houston - Incident/Accident Report, May 2007
Tularemia Incident: UT San Antonio - Incident Report, April 2007

More accident information:
Texas A&M More the Norm than the Exception (26 Jun 2007)
The Bird Flu Lab Accident that Officially Didn't Happen (26 Jan 2007)
Main Texas A&M Documentation page

Oversight Information:
Institutional Biosafety Committees: Biosafety Bites 2006/2007

Anthrax and Tularemia Bioweapons Bungling in Texas:
Time to Lay to Rest the Myth of "No Accidents"

On April 13th of this year, workers at a Houston, Texas biodefense lab were exposed to aerosolized anthrax. Just down the road in San Antonio and only a day before (April 12th), workers entered a tularemia lab to inspect malfunctioning air filters without wearing gloves or any respiratory protection. The incidents come on the heels of major safety and security violations at Texas A&M University, a US Department of Homeland Security biodefense Center of Excellence.

Are the recent lab accidents in Texas a streak of terribly bad luck, or is something else going on?

The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and University of Texas at San Antonio revealed the anthrax and tularemia incidents last week in response to Texas Public Information Act requests. Documents about the incidents are now online (links below). Both were reported to the Centers for Disease Control. No infections resulted, although some workers received antibiotic treatment.

In addition to the bioweapons agent accidents in Houston and San Antonio, on Friday (14 Sept), the University of Texas at Austin revealed a series of mishaps, including at least four lab-acquired infections, in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005, that were not properly documented, investigated, or reported. The infections involved shigella, an infectious bacteria which may have been genetically engineered.

The Austin infections were first revealed to the Austin American Statesman newspaper just hours before the University was obliged to provide the same information to the Sunshine Project under the Texas Public Information Act. The Austin American Statesman did not ask the University of Texas for information about lab accidents, rather, the University sought out the newspaper, preemptively discussing them with a reporter in an apparent attempt to influence and damper coverage.* The shigella infections follow a serious 2006 accident at UT Austin involving a genetically engineered influenza that crossed Bird Flu (H5N1) with a common flu type (H3N2). The University of Texas at Austin has produced conflicting accounts of that incident (see: The Bird Flu Lab Accident that Officially Didn't Happen [in Austin, Texas]).

Since 2001, across the country, communities have faced debates over the construction of new biodefense labs. Typically, proponents of labs to study bioweapons agents have met safety and security questions with false and exaggerated claims. They have asserted that facilities that experiment with bioweapons agents pose little or no risk and sometimes have discounted even the possibility of accidents. Knowingly advancing a logical fallacy, biodefense labs have deceitfully conflated the lack of public reports of accidents with a lack of problems.

But now, in Texas, accidents are popping up everywhere. "Reality is that lab workers and university professors screw up like the rest of us," says Sunshine Project Director Edward Hammond. "The lack of public accident reports never indicated an absence of accidents, rather, it has reflected a pervasive cover-up culture, a problem that has been dangerously exacerbated by the mushrooming biodefense program." Hammond continues, "What we are witnessing in Texas is not bad luck, it is the crumbling of the biodefense lobby's safety façade."

The Sunshine Project is in the midst of a series of Public Information Act requests to all University of Texas components that conduct biomedical research.** The institutions have been asked for all records on suspected or actual accidents involving significantly pathogenic agents (risk group 2 or higher) since the end of 1999.

Many accidents are recent. "It seems telling that none of the University of Texas institutions responding to our queries have produced a single record of a select agent lab mishap, not even a small one, that occurred before April 2007," says Hammond, "That was the month that Texas A&M's problems began to publicly surface. We surmise that until the Texas A&M scandal, some University of Texas institutions had a de facto policy of not recording accidents with bioweapons agents, probably for fear of the potentially embarrassing and costly consequences."

Other University of Texas institutions that operate BSL-3 labs, including the University of Texas at El Paso and the Health Center in Tyler, claim that they do not have a single record of a single incident - not a minor one, not even a suspected one that turned out to be a false alarm - since at least 1999.

"These institutions," says Hammond, "either have achieved the perfection of deities, or they don't have effective lab safety and security programs." The Sunshine Project concludes that the latter is the case, because effective programs would have generated incident reports and other paperwork. Says Hammond, "Some documented incidents are to be expected. The fact that these institutions have no records of any incidents, even small ones, raises serious questions. Is anyone minding safety and security in El Paso and elsewhere?"

The Sunshine Project has called for stepped up federal oversight of US biodefense labs, including legal reforms, mandatory accident reporting, and increased transparency, for several years.

Anthrax Incident:
University of Texas Health Science Center Houston
Incident/Accident Report, May 2007
Liquid from anthrax vials leaks inside unshielded tabletop centrifuge in BSL-3 lab.

Tularemia Incident:
University of Texas San Antonio
Incident Report, April 2007
Workers sent in to fix malfunctioning air filters enter BSL-3 tularemia lab without wearing gloves or respiratory protection.

* After this news release was sent out, the Austin American Statesman called to clarify its interaction with UT Austin. The Statesman reporter stated that he requested information from UT concerning the influenza incident and that, in addition to that information, UT mentioned additional accidents and correspondence with NIH in relation to them.

** Excluding the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, due to ongoing settlement negotiations in relation to Sunshine Project Public Information Act requests.