Yahoo – AFP,
Kerry Sheridan, 16 Juky 2014
 |
Center for
Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden testifies before
the House
Energy and Commerce Committee - Oversight and Investigations
Subcommittee on
July 16, 2014 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC (AFP Photo/
Mandel Ngan)
|
Center for
Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden testifies before the House
Energy and Commerce Committee - Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee on
July 16, 2014 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC
Washington
(AFP) - The chief of the US government's top public health agency on Wednesday
admitted to a pattern of safety errors after dangerous mixups in the handling
of influenza and anthrax.
"I
think we missed a critical pattern," said Tom Frieden, who leads the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during two hours of questioning
from the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations.
"The
pattern is an insufficient culture of safety."
 |
Chairman of
the House Energy and
Commerce Committee Congressman
Tim Murphy listens to
during a hearing on
Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, April 1,
2014 (AFP Photo/Jim
Watson)
|
No one was
believed to have been hurt by the mishaps, but they exposed a major lapse of
protocol within the CDC, which is viewed globally as a leading scientific and
health agency.
The
discoveries included the mistaken contamination of a mild flu strain with a
dangerous H5N1 bird flu that was shipped to a US Department of Agriculture
poultry lab. The incident happened six weeks before it was made known to CDC
leadership.
Other
problems included the potential exposure of dozens of workers at the CDC's
Atlanta headquarters to anthrax in early June, when samples were not properly
handled and deactivated before shipment.
The CDC
issued a report Friday that detailed three other lab mistakes -- two in 2006
involving live anthrax and botulism, and one in 2009 involving brucella, a
strain of bacteria that can cause the infectious disease Brucellosis.
The
discovery earlier this month of six forgotten vials of smallpox at a separate
US government lab at the National Institutes of Health also raised alarm over
the potential for the release of dangerous biological agents that could be used
as weapons of terror.
Anthrax
in food storage bags
Since then,
a separate investigation by the USDA has revealed more problems at the CDC,
according to a memo about the report released by lawmakers earlier this week.
The probe
found there were missing containers of anthrax that had to be tracked down by
inspectors, that some materials were transported using only food storage bags,
and that anthrax was stored in unlocked refrigerators in a hallway where
workers passed through freely.
"What
in heaven's name would go through the minds of some scientists, thinking a
'Ziploc' bag is enough to protect someone from anthrax?" asked Tim Murphy,
a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania and the chair of the House
subcommittee that hosted the hearing.
Frieden
said anyone who handled anthrax that way would have done so because he or she
believed it had been inactivated, and he promised to be directly involved in
the investigation and the implementation of safety changes.
"While
we have scientists who are the best in the world at what they do, they have not
always applied that same rigor that they do to their scientific experiments, to
improving safety," said Frieden.
The CDC has
shut down two labs and issued a moratorium on the shipment of dangerous agents
from its facilities until a thorough review can be completed.
Frieden
said he has appointed a single point person to oversee safety and was working
to convene an internal review board as well as an external advisory group to
offer ways to prevent such dangerous incidents in the future.
Congresswoman
Kathy Castor, a Democrat from Florida, said there have been at least 14
separate reports, letters and lab investigations from various US government
branches documenting safety lapses and lack of oversight at CDC high
containment labs over the last decade.
"It
appears that CDC has not heeded those reports," Castor said.
"It's
troubling. I mean, this has gone on for years now."
Related Article:
No comments:
Post a Comment