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
The Sunshine Project
News Release
18 September 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.
-----
* Excluding the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, due to
ongoing settlement negotiations in relation to Sunshine Project Public
Information Act requests.
---------------------------------
Check out the hottest 2008 models today at Yahoo! Autos.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
