Risking an outbreak

Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2008 | 2:05 a.m.

Here are two scenarios fiction writers could work with:

• A burglar enters a university building through an unguarded loading dock. He is not being monitored because there are no security cameras. He breaks into a laboratory and hastily starts looking for anything of value, throwing aside everything else. University officials, upon discovering the ransacked lab, react with horror, knowing that the surrounding population might now be exposed to deadly viruses.

• Scoping out a private lab where he knows research is under way on killer viruses imported from South America and Africa, a terrorist first notes that there are no armed guards, no security cameras to worry about and no alarm system. He is surprised but happy to see that access to a room where the viruses are studied can be gained through a window. Lab officials one morning discover a break-in and realize that what’s missing are vials containing the ebola, marburg, junin, lassa and hanta viruses — all of which could cause mass casualties.

These scenarios might someday have been nonfiction, were it not for the Government Accountability Office. Investigators with this office, which acts as the investigative and auditing arm of Congress, discovered these and other security nightmares at two labs doing cure-oriented research that had been approved by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Associated Press reporters, in consultation with experts, used details in the GAO report released last week to disclose which labs were being referenced.

The lab with the exposed window and other security violations was identified as the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research in San Antonio. The lab whose security violations included the unguarded loading dock was identified as being operated by Georgia State University in Atlanta.

Hundreds of private and university labs across the country are being used to research deadly organisms, from anthrax and monkey pox to the bird flu virus. Given the GAO report, they all should be subjected to a security analysis without delay.