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" New proposals put forward by Congress and supported by a recently released federal study are roiling researchers at labs that work with biological agents. The effort to better secure infectious agents\u2014and more closely screen those working with them\u2014was ordered by the Bush administration after the FBI traced anthrax that was mailed to a Senate office building to a lab worker at Fort Detrick, Md., where the U.S. government works on countermeasures for biological weapons and natural disease outbreaks. The suspect, Bruce Ivins, committed suicide in 2008, just before he was to be charged with the postal bio-attacks. The White House released the study this week, and its recommendations are not being applauded by the research community. &amp;quot;The American Biological Safety Association, the closest thing that scientific research has to a representative agency, has been trying to get its opinion to Congress that these rules are far too restrictive and unnecessary,&amp;quot; says a staffer who works in a biological defense research lab at Fort Detrick. &amp;quot;It is far more effective to have the various labs police themselves; but that opinion has been overwhelmed by all of the publicity about Bruce Ivins, swine flu, bird flu and grandstanding about terrorism.&amp;quot; The study, conducted by the Working Group on Strengthening the Biosecurity of the United States, recommends that every biological agent be evaluated for risk. More dangerous pathogens would be treated with more strict guidelines, while less risky ones would be subject to more lax regulation. Government oversight of this would come in the form of inspections and mandated record keeping. The study&amp;#039;s recommendations could bolster support in Congress for a bill calling for such a system that was introduced in the U.S. Senate last year and will likely be voted on this session. The other aspect of the report focuses on the scientists themselves. The risk of an employee stealing pathogens led the advisory board to recommend stronger screening and oversight of anyone in the lab with access to agents. It recommends &amp;quot;continuous monitoring measures (supervisor accountability, self- and peer-reporting)&amp;quot; and calls for an evaluation of how to ease the ways in which workers can call attention to their peers by &amp;quot;reporting of derogatory information.&amp;quot;  The current vetting at many labs, called the &amp;quot;personnel reliability program,&amp;quot; can include medical examinations, credit checks, psychological screening, drug tests, polygraph exams and an FBI security clearance check. The Patriot Act restricts individuals who have been &amp;quot;adjudicated as a mental defective or have been committed to a mental institution&amp;quot; from access to the federal list of Biological Select Agents and Toxins, or BSAT. (The term &amp;quot;mental defective&amp;quot; is not an accepted term among health professionals, but there you go.)  But some mental health determinations are not available to screeners because they cannot use information in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (called the NICS) to vet biohazard workers. &amp;quot;The disqualifiers for persons seeking to purchase handguns under the Brady Act are very similar to the &amp;#039;restricted person&amp;#039; disqualifiers for those seeking to work with BSAT. In support of NICS, many states provide information to the FBI regarding individuals who have been adjudicated as a mental defective or who have been involuntarily committed to a mental institution.&amp;quot; (By the way, the background check system is far from complete on this subject. The study reports that only 38 states &amp;quot;voluntarily contributed information to the FBI regarding individuals disqualified from purchasing a handgun for mental health reasons.&amp;quot;) The study also suggests tightening scrutiny on foreign lab workers. This will affect universities more than federal labs. Current screening methods do not consider the type of visa that a foreign applicant presents. &amp;quot;Some visa types are not appropriate for BSAT work, such as religious visas,&amp;quot; the report says. Biological lab workers watched in dismay as these ideas were broached at a series of town hall meetings at labs and seminars in Washington, D.C. Insiders say the reception to these changes is frosty. &amp;quot;The bottom line is that almost all scientists here feel that having yet another government bureaucratic entity looking over their shoulder will be extremely counterproductive to science and will gain virtually no results,&amp;quot; says the Fort Detrick employee. The American Biological Safety Association fears unintended consequences when labs must pay for these security changes. &amp;quot;The concern is that, larger, better funded universities (for example) will be able to comply with additional regulations, while smaller research entities and public health laboratories will be severely impacted due to budgetary constraints,&amp;quot; says a letter from the group&amp;#039;s legislative watchdog committee. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a6371/4342549/>