CDC Suspends Some Texas A&M Research

Texas A&M University could be barred permanently from handling major disease agents if it fails to obey federal guidelines for such research, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Saturday (see GSN, June 29).

The federal health agency in a letter ordered the university to halt federally funded research on certain infectious diseases, the Associated Press reported.  The memo followed reports that the university had twice failed to promptly notify federal authorities of 2006 incidents in which researchers had been infected with potential biological weapons agents.

Federal law demands rapid reporting of any such incident.  The university waited a year to report that a researcher had been infected with brucella bacteria; it has yet to officially report the exposure of three workers to Q fever.

The letter expressed questions on the state of safety standards at Texas A&M and whether it has developed a sufficient security program.

University officials pledged to comply with a joint CDC and Department of Health and Human Services Department investigation, AP reported.  Federal investigators are scheduled to conduct interviews and check records at the school later this month.

“We plan to cooperate fully with the CDC and look forward to resolving this matter in an appropriate manner as quickly as possible, so that we can move forward in our work supporting the nation’s homeland defense initiatives,” A&M interim President Eddie Davis said in a statement.

The school has suspended one brucella laboratory researcher, AP reported.

The university has received $18 million from the federal government to host the National Center for Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Defense.  It is also competing to become the home for the new National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (see GSN, May 24).

That quest might now be over, said the head of a Texas watchdog group.

“How could any government in good conscience put an institution in A&M’s situation in charge of what’s going to be one of the largest biodefense labs in the world?” asked Edward Hammond of the Sunshine Project (Associated Press/Houston Chronicle, July 2).

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