Safety of proposed US disease lab not adequately assessed
An expert panel has concluded that risks associated with the NBAF lab were not adequately assessed
An expert panel has concluded that the US Homeland Security Department has not adequately gauged the potential risks associated with a multimillion-dollar infectious-disease research laboratory to be built in Kansas.
Congress requested that the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) produce a site-specific biosafety and biosecurity risk assessment (SSRA) of the proposed National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in Manhattan, Kansas.
The NBAF will be a biocontainment facility for the study of foreign animal, emerging and zoonotic (transmitted from animals to humans) diseases that threaten US animal agriculture and public health, such as Foot and Mouth. It will contain 500,000 ft2 of facility space that includes Biosafety Level - 2, 3, and 4 shared research space for the development of vaccines and other countermeasures.
The NBAF will be built on a site on Kansas State University adjacent to the existing Biosecurity Research Institute. However Federal auditors have queried the safety of locating such a facility in the heart of "tornado alley," a region of the country prone to tornadoes.
Based on those concerns, Congress instructed the department to complete a site-specific "biosafety and biosecurity risk assessment" of the proposed laboratory before construction funds would be obligated. Lawmakers also directed the National Research Council to conduct an independent evaluation of that study to determine its adequacy and validity.
Upon review of the DHS assessment, the National Research Council found "several major shortcomings." Based on the DHS risk assessment, there is nearly a 70% chance over the 50-year lifetime of the facility that a release of FMD could result in an infection outside the laboratory, impacting the economy by estimates of $9 bn to $50 bn.
The committee found that the SSRA has many legitimate conclusions, but it was concerned that the assessment does not fully account for how a Biosafety-Level 3 Agriculture and Biosafety-Level 4 Pathogen facility would operate or how pathogens might be accidently released.
The NBAF is being designed by the NBAF Design Partnership (Perkins & Will, FLAD & Associates, Merrick & Co., AEI Engineering Inc., CCRD Partners, and Affiliated Engineers, Inc.).
The estimated five-year project is scheduled to begin construction in 2010, become operational by 2015, and employ up to 300 people.
In a joint statement Ron Trewyn, Kansas State University’s vice president for research, and Tom Thornton, president and ceo of the Kansas Bioscience Authority, said the project was still in its early design stages and while they welcomed the input said it was moving forward with the project.
The statement added: “There is wide agreement that the NBAF mission is too critical to delay. It also should go without saying that redundant, iterative mitigation will be at the core of every aspect of the NBAF, from the physical structure to all operating policies and procedures. This will help ensure safe, modern, and effective disease research at the NBAF in Kansas — just like research taking place every day in places such as Atlanta, Georgia; Ames, Iowa; and Galveston, Texas. The danger is not in modern research but, rather, in the lack of accelerated research to protect the food supply.”