Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON -- There is no "silver bullet" ensuring that no would-be bioterrorist finds a job at a U.S. disease research laboratory, however measures can be taken to prevent dangerous materials from being diverted for harmful purposes, a panel of experts said today (see GSN, Sept. 25).

Worries about security at laboratories that work with select agents -- pathogens or biological toxins declared to pose a severe threat to human or animal health -- have grown as the amount of research has increased in recent years, according to a report from the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences.

While there are legitimate concerns about an individual gaining "inappropriate" access to biological agents, those instance are "very, very rare," infectious disease expert Rita Colwell, who led the group of 14 experts who contributed to the report, said today during a press conference.

As of February, roughly 400 research entities were registered and roughly 15,300 individuals were cleared to have access to select agents, which include anthrax, smallpox and the Ebola virus, the NRC report states.

In January, then-President George W. Bush issued an executive order calling for an interagency review of biosecurity at government laboratories. That group conducted its assessment, which has yet to be publicly released, and requested additional input from the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity and the National Research Council.

The NRC report addresses existing regulations and oversight to safeguard against the "deliberate use" of select agents and examines both physical security and personnel reliability at laboratories. The committee was also asked to consider the potentially restrictive impact biosecurity regulations have on scientific research.

The study offers nine recommendations, including having each facility registered to work with select agents develop and implement a security plan, which would be reviewed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Agriculture Department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

While each site is unique and therefore requires different security methods, the Centers for Disease Control and Agriculture Department should "define minimum ... physical security requirements" to assist laboratories in safeguarding their materials, according to the 161-page report.

The panel that prepared the report also called for maintaining the existing Security Risk Assessment screening process -- which relies on databases of criminals, immigrations and terrorists maintained by the FBI and the Homeland Security Department -- to determine if an individual should be given clearance to work in a biological facility.

Any individual who works with select agents at a registered laboratory must undergo the Security Risk Assessment process.

Personnel reliability programs are used to evaluate whether an individual is trustworthy enough to work with sensitive material or technology. The programs -- employed by Defense and Energy departments, among others -- can include psychological screening, polygraph testing and credit checks.

There is value in the program, but "there is no 'silver bullet' ... than can offer the prospect of effectively screening out every potential terrorist," the report says.

That system's appeals process also only permits correction of factual errors and should be expanded to include "extenuating circumstances" such as how long ago an offense occurred and recent behavior, according to the report.

"The clearance for working with agents is more restrictive than to get a top-secret clearance," Colwell said yesterday in a telephone interview. "Someone who did something illegal at 15 and now is a world-renowned scientist at 45 would be rejected."

The program should operate similarly to the review process for obtaining clearance to top-secret material, which only examines a person's life over the past seven to 10 years, said Colwell, a professor at the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University.

The 14-member panel also urged that pathogens be "stratified" into "risk groups" based on the potential threat posed by an agent, with increased security measures for laboratories that work with materials identified as the most deadly.

"The select agent list is really a public health list," Colwell said yesterday.

She said the first group would be composed of six or seven agents most likely to be used in a biological weapon, such as anthrax and smallpox. The second tier would be composed of other highly infectious pathogens and the remaining diseases would move into a third tier.

Earlier this month, Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) introduced legislation that would divide the select agent and toxin list into a tiered system (see GSN, Sept. 9).

That approach was also endorsed by the congressionally created Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism.

The NRC committee recommended that facilities take a full inventory of their select agents but warned against relying on such methods to ensure security.

"Requirements for counting the number of vials or other such measures of the quantity of biological select agents" unless they are transported to another site "should not be employed because they are both unreliable and counterproductive, yielding a false sense of security," the study says.

Since biological agents have the ability to replicate, "accountability is best achieved by controlling access to archived stocks and working materials," it adds.

Yesterday Colwell said members of the NRC panel have already met with representatives from the White House and Technology Policy Office and several congressional offices about their report.