From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Safety of High Containment Laboratories Description: Audio interview by GAO staff with John Neumann, Director, Natural Resources and Environment Related GAO Work: GAO-16-305: High-Containment Laboratories: Comprehensive and Up-to-Date Policies and Stronger Oversight Mechanisms Needed to Improve Safety Released: April 2016 [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's April 2016. To protect the public's health, scientists working on things like anthrax and bird flu keep those diseases in so-called high containment labs. Yet government agencies have mistakenly shipped live samples of anthrax from such labs, raising some serious management questions. A team led by John Neumann and Marcia Crosse, directors in GAO's Natural Resources and Environment and Heath Care teams, recently looked into what the government is doing to prevent similar lapses in the future. GAO's Jacques Arsenault sat down with John to talk about what they found. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] For starters, can you describe what high containment labs are like. When I hear about it, I think about the movies like E.T. or Contagion, and these, you know, big scientists in white suits and tunnels and things like that, but what are these labs really like? [ John Neumann: ] Well, we visited several labs including the CDC down in Atlanta and Fort Detrick, Maryland, as well, and these are highly controlled environments. They're working on very serious pathogens here. Things like smallpox, anthrax, and so they really need to have high levels of security. People are wearing protective suits. There are procedures going in and out of the facilities to ensure that the biological agent is not being transmitted outside the lab. So they are very secure facilities. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] Now thinking about some recent issues like the shipment of live anthrax from a DOD lab. You know, it seems like the facilities themselves may be secure, but there could be some questions with the procedures or how things are getting transferred in and out. Can you talk a little bit about the kinds of policies that staff in these labs are supposed to follow? [ John Neumann: ] Sure, well we looked at 8 departments and their 15 agencies that have these high containment labs where they're working on these pathogens and we found that while they had policies and procedures in place in many cases, a lot of times these were either not comprehensive or not up-to-date, and by comprehensive we mean that they didn't meet certain safety elements including incident reporting, inventory control, training and other aspects of safety, and some of the agencies had not updated their policies in several years, so we took a look at how often they were doing that. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] Now you also looked at lab inspections, and what did you find there? [ John Neumann: ] Yeah, we found that agencies did use inspections as a means to oversee their labs. But one problem we did find was that they weren't reporting the results of these inspections to higher levels of management and this is important, because without doing so, you can't assess if there are systemic problems with multiple labs or if this is just specific to one lab. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] So in both cases, it seems like they have some processes in place or some things that they usually do, but you mentioned in both kind of not having the policies or not reporting up. Can you talk about why it's important to have policies like that? [ John Neumann: ] Sure, and take incident reporting, for example. If officials at the higher level don't know what is going wrong in the labs, they can't fix of the problem. So it's important that they get those incidents and the reports so they can determine what trends there are and if there are measures that they need to take across the labs. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] Now this is not the first GAO report that looks at high containment labs, and I know we've made numerous recommendations such as how to better secure diseases like avian flu. Are the CDC and these other agencies, are they doing a better job or are we seeing improvement? [ John Neumann: ] Well, we certainly have looked at this issue in the past and made multiple recommendations in the past, and others have looked at this issue, as well, and have also made recommendations to these agencies, and we did find that CDC and DOD in particular are taking steps to address some of these past recommendations. However, we would like to see them establish targets for when they will implement some of the recommendations, because without targets, there's no certainty that these things will be fully implemented. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] It sounds like you see some progress. You know, we're working toward this, but we can't tell you when it'll be done. [ John Neumann: ] Yeah, there's definitely some progress there, and I think the continued oversight by Congress and by GAO will ensure that they take the necessary steps. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] Now did you take a look at some of the lapses that have occurred with some of these labs? [ John Neumann: ] Yeah, we highlighted a few of the security incidents in our report, including one where there were smallpox vials that were left in unmarked cardboard boxes for years in an FDA lab, and they were finally discovered after decades of sitting there, and that, of course, is a serious safety lapse. And then also the shipment of life anthrax by DOD to over 100 different entities around the world, and so we're also doing some companion work looking at inactivation procedures that DOD and other agencies use to ensure that these specimens are not live when they ship them, and that work will be coming out later this year. [ Jacques Arsenault: ] And finally, what would you say is the bottom line of this report? [ John Neumann: ] Given the multiple safety lapses and potential harm to human and animal health, as well as, you know, economic harm to the country if some of these pathogens get out, agencies need to take this seriously and implement policies across their labs and make sure they're comprehensive and up-to-date, and I think we made 33 recommendations, and if agencies implement that, they'll be, at least, taking the first step towards improving some of these safety concerns. [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] To learn more, visit gao.gov and be sure to tune into the next episode of GAO's Watchdog Report for more from the congressional watchdog, the US Government Accountability Office.