What's New in Life Science Research is managed and written entirely by Seed editors and expert guest bloggers. Read more about them I'm glad Pam Ronald brought up the idiocy of the regulations surrounding biological agents. With any kind of security paranoia, people start behaving more cautiously than is needed. After Sept. 2001, shipping bacterial strains to collaborators involved far more paperwork (paperwork which certainly won't stop a bioterror attack).
When my colleagues and I wanted to ship human E. coli isolates (not lab strains), we had to start getting material transfer agreements because university legal departments were going nuts, even though it wasn't necessary. This is, of course, insane.
My colleagues and I (as well as you dear reader) have been wiping our asses for years without material transfer agreements or worries about bioterrorism. I've also encountered similar issues shipping Streptococcus pneumoniae and Staphylococcus aureus, both of which are common nasal commensals. Granted, picking your nose is gross, but it doesn't make you a terrorist.
While various institutions are calming down about this, hysteria combined with a dose of biological ignorance doesn't help.
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Unfortunately, as soon as a politician starts talking about restoring common sense to "homeland security" (I've read enough about Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia to be very uncomfortable with that phrase), others will start wailing about the thousand of jobs that would be lost. That's why I fear that stupidity and paranoia are now permanent features of our daily lives.
Posted by: Constance Reader | December 21, 2008 2:33 PM
I hope Constance Reader is wrong, but most politicians don't have any experience/knowledge of the life sciences, and they are afraid of the media reaction. Of course, by making it so onerous to ship or transfer anything, it just magnifies the perceived danger...which will certainly get media attention.
We posted a response to the WMD report on pathogen security at the Center for Biosecurity website (http://www.upmc-biosecurity.org/website/resources/commentary/2008-12-19-preventdeterbioweapons.html). I'd be happy with any feedback. I'm working on a paper on the select agent rule and where it should be changed, so any shared experiences or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Posted by: Gigi Gronvall | December 22, 2008 8:50 AM
Working in a virus lab at The Scripps Research Institute, I sent viruses around the world, but we called them protein coated DNA to avoid custom problems. One collaborator in London thanked us and said the package arrived in tacked. He then spent two paragraphs of an email to explain to the NSA how the package was really medical samples and not something sinister. It is a well known fact the by throwing more paper work at problems will make them go away...
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