DeGette Calls for Action to Ensure Labs Handle Anthrax Safely

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (CO-01) joined Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee Chairman Tim Murphy (PA-18) to continue the panel’s multi-year investigation into the continued pattern of safety violations at federal laboratories working biochemical pathogens.

“The work being done by researchers to protect us from bio-terrorism is vital to our nation’s public health,” said Rep. DeGette. “It is troubling, however, that after years of safety violations we continue to conduct research on this dangerous pathogen without thoroughly knowing how to inactivate it. This permissive and frankly unacceptable culture of taking risks with dangerous substances is a threat to public safety and must be changed immediately.”

Today’s Oversight and Investigation hearing on the “Continuing Concerns with the Federal Select Agent Program: Department of Defense Shipments of Live Anthrax,” was convened  after live anthrax spores were inadvertently shipped from the Army’s Dugway Proving Ground to a lab conducting research on bioterror pathogens. Since this incident, the Department of Defense has issued a moratorium on shipping inactivated anthrax from its labs.

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