|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
U.K. Examines Security at Disease Research Labs
British authorities are conducting security reviews of roughly 800 disease research laboratories, including checks on the backgrounds of the thousands of scientists who work at the facilities, the The domestic intelligence agency MI5 and antiterrorist police are gathering information on scientists’ families, acquaintances and political stances. The wider review involves extended examinations and drop-in inspections of sites that contain biological agents that could be used in acts of terrorism. “They are looking at very different things at the moment in terms of vetting the staff, looking at physical security and how easy it is to break into premises and the wider security issues,” Paul Logan, a biological agents official at the British Health and Safety Executive, told lawmakers last week. The agency has provided licenses to eight organizations that research deadly, highly contagious diseases for which there are no cures. Another 340 groups have received licenses to work with dangerous but curable diseases. In total there are between 750 and 800 laboratories at hospitals, universities and other locations that handle deadly disease agents. Concern about security at British biological laboratories has increased in the wake of the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States and a plot to spread ricin in London, the Daily Mail reported (see GSN, today and April 14, 2005; Jason Lewis, London Daily Mail, March 29).
| ||||||||||
Back to top
