BioterrorReport: Updated DHS risk assessment of Kansas lab still “technically inadequate”
Congress was unsatisfied with a 2010 DHS risk-assessment study of the proposed National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in Manhattan, Kansas, and asked for a new study of the risks, and an evaluation of the new study by the National Research Council; the evaluation says that some of the risk reduction noted in the new DHS risk assessment may be explained by improvements to the latest design plans for the facility, but that despite these improvements, the updated DHS assessment underestimates the risk of an accidental pathogen release and inadequately characterizes the uncertainties in those risks
A new National Research Council report requested by Congress finds the DHS’s updated site-specific risk assessment for the proposed National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in Manhattan, Kansas, a “substantial improvement” over the original 2010 version, but it has a number of deficiencies and inadequately characterizes the risks associated with operating the facility.
The NBAF would be the world’s fourth Biosafety Level 4 laboratory capable of large animal research, replacing the aging Plum Island Animal Disease Center located off Long Island. It would study dangerous foreign animal diseases — including highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), which affects cattle, pigs, deer, and other cloven-hoofed animals — as well as emerging and new infectious diseases that can be transmitted between animals and people.
A National Research Council release reports that in 2010 the Research Council reviewed the original site-specific risk assessment by DHS and found that risk assessment to be inadequate due to flawed methods and assumptions. In response, Congress mandated that DHS revise its assessment to address shortcomings and directed the Research Council to evaluate the updated assessment, which is the focus of this report.
Another Research Council committee, whose work is separate from this report, is examining the needs and possible scientific alternatives for a foreign animal and zoonotic disease research laboratory in the United States.
The committee that reviewed the updated risk assessment found that many of the shortcomings identified in the 2010 report have been addressed and that the new version uses more conventional risk assessment methods and conceptual models, presents clearer descriptions of the approaches, and complies better with standard practices than the previous version. Some of the risk analysis methods, however, were misinterpreted and misapplied when executed. The assessment also contains questionable and inappropriate assumptions that led to artificially lower estimates of the probability of an accidental pathogen release from the facility, the committee said.
Information from the 2010 risk assessment implies that for the two greatest release scenarios there is nearly a 70 percent chance that a release of FMD could result in an infection outside the laboratory over the 50-year lifetime of the facility. In contrast, the updated assessment concludes that for 142 possible release events, the cumulative probability of a release leading to an infection is 0.11 percent, or a 1 in 46,000 chance per year.
The committee noted that some of the risk reduction may be explained by improvements to the latest design plans for the facility,
