Congress Investigating CDC Security Lapses

News outlets discuss security lapses recently uncovered at CDC facilities.

CNN: CDC’s lab problems have ripple effect on other outbreaks
“The lab mishaps at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are having ‘broad impacts,’ compromising care for patients with diseases like tuberculosis and chikungunya and potentially slowing work overseas on Ebola and MERS, according to a CDC official…” (Cohen/Bonifield, 7/17).

Reuters: Before anthrax mishap, CDC made similar lab safety pledges: lawmaker
“U.S. lawmakers investigating repeated safety lapses at government laboratories questioned Thursday whether the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was up to the task of fixing the problem, given similar promises to remedy such breaches in 2012…” (Morgan/Steenhuysen, 7/17).

USA TODAY: CDC chief: Anthrax gaffe ‘should never have happened’
“The director of one of the world’s most prestigious public health agencies went before Congress on Wednesday to try to explain laboratory blunders that included his scientists mishandling live anthrax and unknowingly contaminating other specimens with a dangerous strain of bird flu…” (Young, 7/16).

Washington Post: FDA found more than smallpox vials in storage room
“Federal officials found more than just long-forgotten smallpox samples recently in a storage room on the National Institutes for Health campus in Bethesda, Md. The discovery included 12 boxes and 327 vials holding an array of pathogens, including the virus behind the tropical disease dengue and the bacteria that can cause spotted fever, according to the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees the lab in question…” (Dennis/Sun, 7/16).

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