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SRI, biosafety, and the Oakland anthrax accident
Joint News Release
22 June 2004
Institute Responsible for Anthrax Accident in California, in
Charge of Safety and Security at Chicago Biodefense Laboratory
Non-Profit Watchdogs Renew Call for a Moratorium on Construction of Biodefense "Hot Zones"22 June - Southern Research Institute, the military biodefense contractor recently in the news for sending live anthrax to the Children's Hospital of Oakland (CA), is also in charge of safety and security for a major new $30 million biodefense facility being built at the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago.
The new Ricketts Regional Biocontainment Laboratory is funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) and is named after Howard T. Ricketts, a celebrated pathologist who acquired typhus in the course of research and died at age 39. It will begin biodefense work with studies of anthrax (Ames strain) and Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague.
Southern Research Institute, with major labs of its own in Frederick, Maryland and Birmingham, Alabama, has a $75 million annual budget including biodefense contracts from an impressive roster of Pentagon agencies. Its Frederick, Maryland facility is located near the Army's biological weapons research headquarters at Fort Detrick, yet despite its biodefense prominence, Southern Research in Frederick does not maintain an institutional biosafety committee that complies with federal research rules. (And Southern Research in Birmingham has not honored requests for records of its institutional biosafety committee.)
"Southern Research's incompetence is plain to see. Its own house is in dangerous disarray and does not comply with federal research rules," said Edward Hammond, Director of the Sunshine Project. "That threat is bad enough; but even after leaking anthrax, the institute is still developing biosafety and operating procedures for new high containment labs."
According to a national coalition of biodefense watchdogs, formed in 2002 to monitor the US biodefense program, the Southern Research situation epitomizes their concern that biodefense laboratories are proliferating unsafely and with unsound planning, and that this could result in health, environment, and international security problems.
The watchdogs also point to Southern Research's links to classified biodefense research. (Southern Research's facilities and personnel have "secret" clearance.) "Public interest groups seeking information about military biodefense programs are being stonewalled by the Army and other agencies." says Steve Erickson of Citizen's Education Project in Salt Lake City, which monitors the Army's Dugway Proving Ground. "That Southern Research and other secretive military contractors are also insinuating themselves into civilian biodefense programs is cause for concern that we are witnessing a steady erosion of openness and accountability, not only at Pentagon labs; but at academic institutions and in work funded by the National Institutes of Health."
Two other Department of Energy (DOE) labs that design and develop the nation's nuclear weapons are also building new biosafety level three biodefense facilities. Both Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos Labs have been sued by local community groups under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Inga Olson, Program Director at Tri-Valley CAREs, one of the groups that sued DOE, warns "Biodefense dollars are flowing like champagne at a wedding - into everywhere from nuclear weapons labs to children's hospitals - everyone wants a piece of the action. But a far more sober look is needed at whether the rapid spread of labs, pathogens, and bioweapons knowledge poses a greater threat than the problem we are trying to solve."
"After all," says Mary Wulff of Citizens for a Safe Lab in Hamilton, Montana (where NIH is building a new biosafety level four facility), "the Bush administration continues to rely on fear generated by the anthrax attacks and shaky allegations against other countries, like Iraq, to push billions and billions through Congress. Instead of an informed national discussion, the government's actions are based on fear and unsound information. The importance of reigning in knee-jerk reactions is underscored by the nearly tragic exposure of workers at Children's Hospital in Oakland, California."
The national coalition of nonprofit groups is calling for a moratorium on new biodefense labs until comprehensive national assessment is conducted, and transparency guarantees in place, and a binding and open federal system exists to review dual-use research with biological weapons agents.
Contacts:
Edward Hammond, The Sunshine Project, Austin TX
(512) 494-0545, http://www.sunshine-project.orgInga Olson, Tri-Valley CAREs, Livermore CA
(925) 443-714, http://www.trivalleycares.orgSteve Erickson, Citizen's Education Project, Salt Lake City UT
(801) 554-9029, http://www.citizensedproject.orgRobert M. Gould, MD, Physicians for Social Responsibility, SF-Bay Area Chapter
(408) 972 7299, http://www.psr.orgSujatha Byravan, Council for Responsible Genetics, Cambridge MA
(617) 868-0870, http://www.gene-watch.org