CDC plans to reopen labs shut over safety lapses

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plans to reopen labs that were directly involved in fighting epidemics according to CDC spokesman Thomas Skinner.

It was announced yesterday that an Atlanta government-run tuberculosis laboratory would resume operations. A moratorium had been imposed by the agency on the lab handling dangerous microbes after two accidents that exposed workers to anthrax and the lethal flu virus (H5N1) came to light (See: CDC lab head resigns after anthrax incident).

According to CDC director Thomas R Frieden, the labs would resume shipment of different biological samples and isolate, track and prevent bacteria that were resistant to antibiotics in hospitals.

Antimicrobials or antibiotics had been used to treat infections but some bacteria might have become mutated and therefore resistant to drugs.

According to Frieden, antimicrobial resistance had the potential to harm or cause harm to anyone in the country, undermine modern medicine, devastate the economy and make the health care system less stable.

In fact antibiotic resistance cost $20 billion in health care spending a year, he said.

Frieden further said that the agency would continue to work on improving lab safety. He said what had to be ensured was that though human error might be inevitable, everything  that needed to be done was done to make sure that there would be no human harm.

Meanwhile, according to Skinner, top priority for reopening would go to labs directly involved in patient care and fighting epidemics, The New York Times reported.

For instance, he said, labs handling the Ebola and chikungunya viruses might reopen soon as the worst Ebola epidemic in history was underway in West Africa, and cases of chikungunya disease were being diagnosed all over the US.

The health agency also named 11 outside safety experts who would advise its director, Frieden, on tightening shoddy procedures at government laboratories.

While there had been calls for a panel with broad investigative powers, like the National Transportation Safety Board, Skinner said in an email that the panel's purpose was to advise rather than investigate.

However, he added that any group member wanting to visit a lab (even unannounced) and speak to any staff member speaking in the lab would be permitted to do so.