Pandemic Concerns Mount As CDC Labs Deemed ‘Not Credible’ After Safety Review
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is once again under fire amid decreased public confidence about the keeping of deadly and pandemic capable substances held in the agency’s labs.
Biohazard safety experts recently conducted a review of the CDC labs and found them to be “not credible” under existing safety and security protocols. Good news for potential terrorists, but bad news for Americans.
The CDC investigating team found that their is “inadequate” leadership and safety training at the government labs which are tasked with handling and storing some of the deadliest substances on the planet.
CDC lab “mishaps” have reportedly left staffers potentially exposed to viruses such as Anthrax, the bird flu, and Ebola. Last July, Smallpox vials which were found at a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention facility in Maryland were tested and deemed still active, or “alive,” The six vials were left in an unsecured storage area since the 1950s. It will took two weeks of testing by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta before the exact nature of the smallpox virus was realized. Additional testing revealed “evidence of growth” in at least two of the Smallpox vials. Once the Smallpox testing completed, the CDC reportedly destroyed all six of the Smallpox vials under the supervision of the World Health Organization.
Photo of young child afflicted with Smallpox.
Government employees cleaning out the old research center storage room were quite shocked when they stumbled across several old vials of Smallpox inside a cardboard box. Smallpox was declared eradicated during the 1980s. Government officials claim that the vials discovered at the National Institute of Health campus is the first time an unaccounted for sample of Smallpox has ever been discovered. In spite of initial room temperature claims by the CDC, officials at the FDA said that the smallpox was in cold storage for decades, according to the Mohave Daily News.
The deadly virus is also identified by its scientific name,
variola. Smallpox can remain deadly even after being placed in the freeze-dried state. But, the deadly virus must be kept cold in order to remain both active and dangerous. Smallpox was among the most deadly viruses in history, and killed approximately one-third of the people infected. Those who did survive the disease were left with “pus-filled lesions” and deep scarring.
FDA’s Center for Biologics Research and Evaluation Deputy Director Peter Marks said that while the discovery of the
Smallpox vials was “unexpected” the revelation did not come as a “total shock.” “No one’s denying we should have done a better job cleaning out what was there,” Marks said.
The Bethesda, Maryland campus has been used by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) since 1972. Government officials reportedly believe that the Smallpox vials might have been stored at the site since the 1950s, but no records have been located to indicate the placement history of the vials.
Prior to the discovery by custodial workers, government officials and world health authorities had believed the only samples of Smallpox were stored in “super secure” labs in Atlanta and Russia.
In June 2014, an incident described as a “safety lapse” at the CDC in Atlanta left dozens of staffers potentially exposed to anthrax. The extremely dangerous germ was reportedly mishandled in the Georgia Centers for Disease Control lab, leading to the health scare. A review of the anthrax mishandling incident by the USDA revealed even more startling “safety lapses” at the CDC in Atlanta.
A report on the anthrax “mishap” by a House committee revealed that additional vials of anthrax were found stored in unrestricted hallways in unlocked refrigerators at the CDC facility in Atlanta.
The report findings, by a special unit of Agriculture Department investigators have raised enhanced concern about the overall scope of the
Anthrax exposure incident at the government lab in Georgia.
The House committee report also cited worries about the “culture of laboratory safety” at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (
CDC) lab in Atlanta.
Approximately 85 CDC workers were exposed to live Anthrax after staffers unknowingly transported samples from one lab to other facilities. CDC head, Thomas Frieden, was forced to address the “numerous other incidents” over the past 10 years involving the mishandling of deadly microbes when called before the House Committee.
Also in 2014, CDC researchers reportedly sent a virulent strain of the bird flu to a USDA lab in Georgia by mistake. “Each layer we peel back in this investigation seems to reveal a new instance of carelessness in the CDC’s management of dangerous pathogens,” Representative Tim Murphy said. Murphy is a Republican Representative from Pennsylvania who also heads the House Energy and Commerce oversight subcommittee.
After the June Anthrax incident, which caused concern both inside the beltway and around America, the CDC initiated an internal investigation into the matter. The disease control agency asked the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to embark upon a “parallel probe.” The findings of the USDA investigation revealed long list of “mishaps.” Such mishaps could cause deadly consequences for CDC staff, and even spark a pandemic of massive proportion throughout the country.
The team of biohazard and biosafety experts, (which were appointed by the CDC) tasked with investigating the serious and possibly pandemic inducing safety concerns, found that the CDC is losing credibility as they seem to view themselves as “special” and exempt from proper safety protocol.
Excerpt from the CDC labs safety report:
“We are very concerned that the CDC is on the way to losing credibility. The CDC must not see itself as ‘special’. The internal controls and rules that the rest of the world works under also apply to CDC. A significant percentage of CDC staff have concerns about experiencing negative repercussions, either personally or more generally to the Agency, as a result of reporting incidents involving exposures to pathogenic organisms or other hazardous materials. Some staff members working in Select Agent laboratories fear regulatory or other negative repercussions as a result of incident reporting.”
The CDC labs biohazard report also stated that the federal agency should be focused upon creating a “culture of responsible science and accountability” noting that at present, it appeared to the reviewers that CDC lab workers are more concerned with violating “Select Agent” rules, that involve violations of transporting a pathogen, than the actual biohazard risk the mishaps posed.
Do you think the CDC is being careful enough with the deadly pathogens it handles and stores, it is the agency merely becoming an easy target for bioterrorists? How are you preparing to survive a pandemic?
