Additional training will be useful, but, by itself, will be insufficient to
mitigate the risk that future bioterror attacks, like the last, will be
launched from US bioweapons labs by US bioweapons workers.
What is needed are: (1) a drastic curtailment in numbers of US bioweapons
labs (preferably reducing numbers from more than 400 to fewer than 4) (2)
video surveillance, with full coverage and permanent archiving, of
bioweapons work areas, (3) a requiremnent for at least two persons to be
present for access to bioweapons work areas, (4) unnanounced inspections of
bioweapons work areas, (5) security clearances for bioweapons workers, (6)
mental-health screening and monitoring of bioweapons workers, and (7)
accountability for USAMRIID staff for management and operational practices
that enabled the 2001 anthrax mailings.
Anything short of this essentially guarantees that future attacks, like the
last, will be funded by USA taxpayers.
RHE
Army labs get security training after anthrax case
By DAVID DISHNEAU
The Associated Press
Tuesday, December 2, 2008; 4:22 PM
HAGERSTOWN, Md. -- The Army announced additional security training Tuesday
for workers handling some of the world's deadliest germs and toxins, part of
its response to an FBI finding that an Army scientist was responsible for
deadly 2001 anthrax attacks.
The Army also said Tuesday that a lab closed for security shortcomings in
April won't reopen.
The new training to reinforce existing policies was recommended as a first
step by a task force reviewing lab security practices after the FBI
concluded that Army scientist Bruce Ivins was behind the attacks, said
Michael Brady, special assistant to Army Secretary Pete Geren.
The first weeklong refresher course began Monday at the Army's flagship
biodefense lab at Fort Detrick in Frederick, where Ivins allegedly obtained
and refined the anthrax used in the deadly mailings that killed five people
and sickened 17 others.
Lab spokeswoman Caree Vander Linden said the training in security,
accounting and accident-reporting rules will be rolled out to four other
Army labs over the next few months. She said Army leaders aren't calling for
changes in pathogen handling but are reiterating procedures for inventory
accounting and documentation.
The program also includes a review of Fort Detrick's automated pathogen
inventory management system, which Vander Linden said may serve as a model
for other labs that use different systems.
"They're trying to see which would be a good standard to follow," she said.
Tracking inventories of biological agents is trickier than tracking chemical
inventories because biological materials can be grown, resulting in a larger
supply, or reduced by distillation, Vander Linden said.
She said Fort Detrick's lab, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of
Infectious Diseases, has strengthened its security procedures since the
anthrax attacks.
The Army also said Tuesday it won't reopen the Armed Forces Institute of
Infectious Diseases, a laboratory at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in
Washington. Operations there were suspended in April due to concerns about
"security, surety management and emergency response," Army spokesman Paul
Boyce said.
The lab's activities will be transferred to other locations, Boyce said. He
said the lab had 30 to 40 workers, some of whom are authorized to transfer
to other labs.
Ivins committed suicide in July as prosecutors prepared to charge him in the
anthrax mailings.
Stunned by the FBI's conclusion that Ivins was solely responsible for the
attacks, all military service branches launched reviews at their biological
labs. Secretaries of the services were to receive reports on the reviews
this week.
Workers at 12 military labs _ five Army, five Navy and two Air Force _
conduct biomedical research to support counterterrorism efforts, research
protection for the armed forces and keep track of infectious diseases across
the globe. Employees work with a range of dangerous materials such as
anthrax and germs that cause Avian flu and encephalitis.
The other Army labs in line for security training are the U.S. Army Medical
Research Institute for Chemical Defense at Aberdeen Proving Ground near
Aberdeen, Md.; the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Forest Glen,
Md.; the Edgewood Chemical and Biological Center in Edgewood, Md.; and the
U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah,
Vander Linden said.
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I have a hard time believing that Ivins acted alone or if he even had anything at all to do with the attacks, but thereis to many sites and too many people involved in this type of research, and spread to many places. These sites have a rough history of involvement of abuses of the past, cold war experiments, mistakes etc.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Army labs get security training after anthrax case
