WASHINGTON, DC - Bipartisan leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee today requested briefings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Defense regarding the recent reports of live anthrax being shipped to nine states and South Korea.
The leaders write, “The Department’s inadvertent transfer of live anthrax samples, just like similar incidents at the CDC last year, raise serious safety concerns about the sufficiency of inactivation protocols and procedures for studying dangerous pathogens."
The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations last year launched an investigation in the wake of a number of safety lapses involving dangerous biomedical materials known as select agents, including anthrax, smallpox, and avian influenza. At a subcommittee hearing in this investigation, CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden acknowledged “an insufficient culture of safety."
The request comes on the heels of a separate letter sent recently to the Government Accountability Office requesting a review of the different types and methods of biosafety inactivation and attenuation protocols.
The letters were signed by full committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), full committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr., (D-NJ), Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Tim Murphy (R-PA), and subcommittee Ranking Member Diana DeGette (D-CO).
The letters were sent to CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden and Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter.
