Changes needed before bioterrorism lab opens

Dan Kulin

Friday, Nov. 7, 2003 | 11:26 a.m.

Two months after a bioterrorism lab was supposed to open in Las Vegas, officials are still waiting for building renovations to wrap up so the analyzing equipment can be moved in and tested.

Patricia Armour, laboratory manager for the Southern Nevada Public Health Laboratory, said the lab, which she will run, won't open for at least another month. Armour said she didn't know exactly when and wouldn't even estimate a possible opening date.

Jerry Bussell, special adviser to the governor on Homeland Security and chairman of the state Homeland Security Commission, said the lab is needed sooner not later. He said if the lab isn't open by January, he will ask his commission to investigate the delay.

"I need it working and I need it working today," Bussell said. "But I want it working right."

Armour said the lab is on its way toward completion.

"We know what's wrong and we're going to fix it," she said.

Armour said the final construction work is needed to ensure the building is in full compliance with federal guidelines changed in January. Concerns for security prevented her from saying exactly what the problems are, she said.

Once the construction issues are fixed, the rest of the pieces of lab are ready to move in. The equipment, which includes four analyzing machines, is in storage, and the staff is being hired, she said.

"There's frustration that it's taking longer than expected because we're all excited and really want to get started," Armour said. "But we want to make sure it's done right."

The lab, which is being paid for with a $2 million federal grant, will be able to test for a variety of biological weapons such as anthrax, the plague and botulism, Armour said.

Now the closest public lab capable of testing for biological threats is in Reno.

With the area's dependence on the Reno lab, preliminary tests of suspicious substances found in Las Vegas take a day or longer if transportation problems arise, Armour and Bussell said.

Having a lab in Las Vegas would cut that time in half.

"That's a big difference if you're deciding whether to shut down a building or open it up again," Armour said.

Bussell said when dealing with a suspicious substance "fairly quickly is not quick enough."

"We're talking lives, expansion and contamination," he said. "We need minutes and hours not hours and days," Bussell said about the need to quickly identify substances.

In addition to giving Southern Nevada a closer lab, the new lab will also help the state in case of an attack against one of the state's labs, Randall Todd, state epidemiologist, said.

"From a terrorist standpoint. another lab gives us redundancy and makes us more hardened against the bad guys," Todd said.