BU outlines biolab safety steps
By Stephen Smith (From The Boston Globe), October 14, 2008
Before they can handle the world’s deadliest germs, scientists at a controversial laboratory being built by Boston University in the South End will undergo psychological testing and will have their financial records scoured, measures that administrators said are designed to prevent lethal organisms from getting into the wrong hands.
The sleuthing aims to spot researchers who might be unstable or whose financial plight could leave them susceptible to stress-fueled mistakes – or even extortion.
“We consider someone who is under financial duress to be a risk,” said Gary W. Nicksa, BU’s vice president for operations. “Do you want someone who could . . . have access to sensitive information or sensitive materials in a position that they could be approached by someone who says, ‘Would you be willing to do something for me?’
BU administrators, reticent in the past about disclosing security strategy at the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, outlined safety steps during a 70-minute interview, which also included a description of how cameras will track researchers required to work in pairs.
“The worst fears about lax security at the nation’s research labs crystallized in August when federal authorities said the 2001 anthrax attacks were an inside job, perpetrated by an Army microbiologist named Bruce Ivins, who cut a familiar figure at government labs in Maryland.
Although some lawmakers and researchers challenge the merits of the FBI case, reports of roguish and erratic behavior by Ivins – working furtively at night, for example – stoked concerns about security in labs where scientists have access to deadly germs and toxins such as Ebola and ricin. Ivins committed suicide, apparently fearful that he was about to be indicted in the mailing of the anthrax-laden letters, which killed five and sickened 17 more.
“Ivins was on the honor system for 20 years,” said US Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan. “No one ever looked over his shoulder and asked whether he was a security risk.”
The administrators responsible for safety at the university’s $192 million lab project acknowledged they might alter screening measures depending on findings from the Ivins investigation. When that case emerged, “we really started testing it against some of our procedures,” said Ara Tahmassian, an associate vice president at BU.
The BU facility’s opening had been scheduled for this fall but was delayed until at least next year because of an environmental review triggered by lawsuits residents filed to scuttle the lab. (A scientific panel advising the federal government on the review will hold a public hearing at 6:30 tonight at the Roxbury Center for Arts at Hibernian Hall, 182-186 Dudley St.)
Nationally, nearly 15,000 researchers are approved to work with the deadliest germs in about 400 labs run by the federal government, universities, and private companies, said Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University chemistry professor.
“The number of people with the means to mount a bioterror attack exactly analogous to the 2001 anthrax attack has increased tremendously,” Ebright said.
Researchers who want to work with deadly germs at BU or other high-security labs must first be cleared by the FBI, which repeats the screening every five years. Scientists may be barred, for instance, if they have spent more than a year in prison or if they have been committed to a mental institution.
Since the screenings began five years ago, about 28,500 checks have been conducted, and 170 applicants have been rejected, according to the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services.
Caree Vander Linden, a spokeswoman at the Army infectious disease institute where Ivins worked, said the microbiologist underwent security review but that privacy concerns prevented her from disclosing the findings.
Nicksa said BU intends to go beyond the FBI screening, delving into researchers’ medical, psychological, and financial histories. For example, if a scientist’s house faces foreclosure or there is evidence of crushing debt, a red flag will be raised. Those reviews will be repeated episodically, BU administrators said, to detect any problems arising after the initial screening.
Still, Gigi Kwik Gronvall, a specialist in the safe handling of dangerous organisms, cautioned that no screening system is foolproof.
“It’s very hard to protect against an insider who’s one of the experts,” said Gronvall, of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
The BU measures appear to mirror screening performed at other high-security labs. But Jean Patterson, a former Harvard scientist who runs a lab in Texas, said it is just as important to monitor researchers’ temperament long after the original screening.
At the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research in San Antonio, Patterson presides over a meeting every morning for the dozen scientists who work in the Biosafety Level-4 lab, the most secure of research facilities. They discuss that day’s scientific endeavors – and make sure researchers are comfortable climbing into one of the moon suits they must don to work with dangerous germs.
If a scientist is distracted by personal troubles, the cost can be devastating.
“People feel comfortable coming to me or my lieutenants and saying, ‘My mom’s sick, I don’t feel like going in today,’ ” Patterson said.
At BU, the scientists’ irises, which are distinct like a fingerprint, will be scanned to confirm their identity before they enter the Level 4 lab or a lower-security Level 3 lab that is part of the project. And researchers will never be allowed to work alone.
In the Level 4 lab, if a scientist slips out of camera range for too long, the university’s security force would be automatically dispatched. At lower-security labs, cameras will watch from corridors as well as from the entrance of the lab and the perimeter.
Ebright, an opponent of the Bush administration’s expansion of high-security labs, said only one step would truly assure safety. “The most effective way to reduce risk at the Boston facility,” he said, “would be never to open it.”
Stephen Smith can be reached at stsmith@globe.com.