BiothreatsCDC resumes pathogen shipments

Last Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced it would reopen its clinical tuberculosis lab to resume transfer of inactivated tuberculosis bacteria to lower-level CDC labs for genetic analysis. CDC head Tom Frieden imposed a ban on transfers involving high-level pathogens following a series of incidents and mishandling of such pathogens at CDC labs. “We need to greatly improve the culture of safety and I’m overseeing sweeping measures to improve that culture of safety,” Frieden said last week.

In June, a scientist in the bioterrorism lab failed to properly inactivate anthrax samples being sent to other CDC labs. The mishap potentially exposed roughly eighty employees to live anthrax bacteria. The head of that bioterrorism lab resigned last week.

The Washington Post reports that the ban on the tuberculosis lab was lifted after an internal working group reviewed and approved the lab’s detailed safety procedures for inactivating tuberculosis bacteria. The ban remains in place for several other CDC labs until they pass a safety review.

The CDC has also named an eleven-member external laboratory safety group to advise Frieden and the CDC’s new director of lab safety, Mike Bell. Its members are: chair Joseph Kanabrocki, assistant dean for biosafety and associate professor of microbiology at the University of Chicago; co-chair Kenneth Berns, a physician and professor emeritus specializing in molecular genetics at the University of Florida; Debra Hunt, director of biological safety at Duke University; Thomas Inglesby, head of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for Health Security; Patricia Olinger, director of Emory University’s environmental health and safety office; Michael Pentella, director of the laboratory sciences bureau at Hinton State Laboratory Institute; David Relman, chief of infectious diseases at the VA Palo Alto; Heather Sheeley, who heads corporate biosafety for Public Health England; Fred Sparling, director of the Southeast Regional Center for Excellence for Emerging Infections and Biodefense, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Jill Taylor, director of the Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health; and Domenica Zimmerman, biosafety officer at the University of Texas Medical Branch.

The group is set to meet for the first time in early August and will meet as frequently as needed, the CDC notes.