Biosecurity

Biological research: Rethink biosafety

Two months ago, the US Department of Defense froze operations at nine biodefence laboratories where work is done on dangerous pathogens. Inspectors had discovered live anthrax outside a containment area at the US Army's Dugway Proving Ground — a facility in Utah that tests defence systems against biological and chemical weapons.

The discovery at Dugway is the latest of several concerning finds. In June 2014, workers at a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) biosafety-level-3 laboratory in Atlanta, Georgia, sent anthrax samples to three other laboratories on the same campus. The samples were meant to have been sterilized but several factors meant that 41 people were potentially exposed to live bacteria¹. Then in May this year, an investigation revealed that for several years, staff at Dugway had been improperly sterilizing anthrax samples, and that live spores may have been sent to 52 laboratories in the United States, Canada, Australia and South Korea.