Failing lab safety

Recently, employees in university research facilities across the country have been exposed to bubonic plague, monkeypox and anthrax. In another case, Texas A&M has been scrutinized for the security (or lack thereof) of its biological agents in biodefense labs. \nOverall, these events are just a few of the more than 50 incidents involving agents that are federally regulated microbes and toxins. According to the Government Accountability Office, in 2007 alone, there have been 37 incidents through August. All of these events call into question the safety of our nation’s biodenfense labs and cause us to ask: should the government step in more to regulate?\nObviously, supporting more government intervention, especially interference that stymies the progress of the research, isn’t something that we would typically support. However, all of the incidents have created a lot of evidence that says the respective universities cannot control the laboratories.\nThe governmental agencies that regulate what the schools do, including the National Institute of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, set minimum safety standards and conduct routine inspections a few times a year. But it seems like the universities still cannot follow the rules, and instead would rather have a monkey with the “28 Days Later” virus jumping around freely or full syringes of anthrax just hanging around. \nIf the universities are lackadaisical in their precautions towards biodefense agents – the most dangerous of all situations – who knows what they’re doing in the less stressful laboratories. Screwing around with dangerous pathogens could create national security threats greater than those the program supposedly prevents, so asking the labs to follow minimum regulations is not unreasonable. Minimum regulations are set in other situations and people make sure to surpass them by far. Most people don’t drop out of school at 16 just because they went the minimum years. \nAdditionally, some of the regulatory agencies say that most of the university labs fail to ever report any of their accidents. The Agriculture Department, one of the main agencies dealing with biodenfense, has not received any accident reports in three years. And even if they do report their screw-ups – which are almost always due to human carelessness or error – the universities only do so after some time has passed. Texas A&M waited an entire year to report an incident in which three lab workers were exposed to Q fever. The schools have seemingly forgotten that they’re allowing people to roam around with highly contagious, deadly diseases that could wipe us out, and it’s unforgivable.\nIn this situation, suppressing the creativity of our brightest minds is definitely a better option than the threat of massive calamity. If the schools aren’t taking care of this, the government must step in on more occasions to make certain that the trust in universities has not been misplaced. At this point, the research being done at these labs is important to national security, so we cannot scale back the efforts by shutting the rule-breaking labs down. Government intervention is the only choice.