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For
many years, the US Army’s Fort Detrick in
Frederick, Maryland, and the Centers for Disease
Control in Atlanta were the principal places
where highly infectious dangerous disease
agents were researched or samples might be
sent for identification. But not all select
agents have been considered so dangerous,
either to health or to national security,
that they could not be researched in small
quantities for peaceful purposes. This limited
kind of research is allowed by the 1972 Biological
Weapons Convention. For example, for centuries
anthrax has afflicted livestock around the
world, before it was developed as a biological
weapons agent. In the United States, it was
often studied in laboratories in veterinary
schools in states like Iowa, Texas, and Louisiana
where herds of cattle or horses might be afflicted.
During the 1990s, due to concerns about bioterrorism,
the federal government imposed more strict
regulations on research on select agents.
Following the 2001 anthrax postal attacks,
government regulations concerning research
and access to select agents became even stricter.
At the same time, with funding for more research on defenses against select agents, the decision was made to increase the numbers of high containment laboratories. Today, according to the Sunshine Project office in Austin, Texas, as many as 15 BSL4 laboratories exist in the United States or are planned. The two newest ones are in San Antonio and Galveston, Texas. In addition, there are approximately 21 Level 3 high containment laboratories in the United States. Some of these may not be in use. The Sunshine Project estimates these numbers from documents in the open literature and has asked that visitors to its web site submit corrections.
From the Sunshine Project:
"Map of the US Biodefense Program: High Containment Labs and Other Facilities" is now available under the biodefense tab of the Sunshine Project website. It and an accompanying key may be downloaded in PDF format or viewed as (large) images. This map is a revised and updated version of the US biodefense program map first published in October 2003.
Two dozen facilities across the country have been added. New types of facilities tracked include open air testing sites. Also added are sites conducting secretive research and/or which appear to be conducting classified studies.
The US biodefense program continues to change and to expand rapidly, including classified research. Thus, it is difficult to comprehensively track. This map is based on open sources and open records requests and is periodically updated. The Sunshine Project believes that it is the best compilation of US biodefense sites that is publicly available. Reader comments and submissions are welcomed and will be incorporated, as appropriate, into future versions.
The direct URL to view the map is: http://www.sunshine-project.org/biodefense/
There
are four levels defined for safe laboratory research. An outline of the
first three can be found in the reference book Biosafety in Microbiological
and Biomedical Laboratories published by the National Institutes
of Health and the Centers for Disease Control (J.Y. Richmond and R.W.
McKinney, Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1993).
Available on the CDC web site (http://www.cdc.gov/od/ohs/symp5/jyrtext.htm) is a portion of this book “The 1, 2, 3’s of Biosafety Levels”) that describes the standard practices, special practices, equipment (primary barriers against infection), and buildings (secondary barriers) as they apply to these levels. It also includes 55 slides. The beginning of this text describes the problem of laboratory accidents in the 1940s that led to regulations concerning laboratory safety.
The CDC web site also describes all three levels plus biosafety level 4 (BSL4) (http://www.cdc.gov/od/ohs/biosfty/bmbl/section3.htm). Note that the standard and specific practices (what scientists and technicians should do), equipment in the lab (primary barriers), and building features (secondary barriers) are more elaborate for the BSL4 facility than for the Level 3 laboratory.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) provide information on the standards for BSL4, BSL3 and other laboratories at http://bmbl.od.nih.gov/contents.htm. This information includes standards for related activities, such as animal research, the transport of disease agents, and studies of past laboratory accidents.
The Centers for Disease Control has a web site that presents the Department of Health and Human Resources regulations on a range of safety issues. The following is the index page for this site (http://www.cdc.gov/od/ohs/biosfty/biosfty.htm), which includes links to literature on biosafety surveillance.
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