House Oversight Subcommittee holds hearing on inactivation of dangerous pathogens

The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing on Tuesday regarding the inactivation of dangerous pathogens and the bioresearch labs that study them.

According to a recent report by the U.S Government Accountability Office (GAO), changes must be made to government-owned, high-containment labs that handle extremely dangerous pathogens. The GAO report said that the Select Agent Program does not have consistent criteria in handling incidents.

“Failed inactivation has been long overlooked by regulators and the research community,” U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA), chairman of the subcommittee, said. “GAO brings us several important findings. First, the GAO found that the Federal Select Agent Program, operated by both the Departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture, does not require laboratories to identify incidents involving failed inactivation in its reporting resulting in inconsistent and incomplete reports. From 2003 until 2015, the Select Agent Program reported 10 incidents, but GAO documented an additional 11 situations in which select agents were not effectively inactivated. Without major overhaul of how deadly agents, like anthrax, are handled and how research is conducted, the risk of repeating this mistake remains viable.”

Dr. Timothy Persons, chief scientist for the GAO, said that such challenges may affect laboratories’ ability to mitigate the risk of incomplete inactivation.