[CPEO-MEF] BIOWEAPONS: GAO critiques proposed Kansas lab

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Infectious Diseases Study Site Questioned
Tornado Alley May Not Be Safe, GAO Says

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post
July 27, 2009

The Department of Homeland Security relied on a rushed, flawed study to 
justify its decision to locate a $700 million research facility for 
highly infectious pathogens in a tornado-prone section of Kansas, 
according to a government report.

The department's analysis was not "scientifically defensible" in 
concluding that it could safely handle dangerous animal diseases in 
Kansas -- or any other location on the U.S. mainland, according to a 
Government Accountability Office draft report obtained by The Washington 
Post. The GAO said DHS greatly underestimated the chance of accidental 
release and major contamination from such research, which has been 
conducted only on a remote island off the United States.

DHS staff members tried quietly last week to fend off a public airing of 
the facility's risks, agency correspondence shows. Department officials 
met privately with staff members of a congressional oversight 
subcommittee to try to convince them that the GAO report was unfair, and 
to urge them to forgo or postpone a hearing. But the House Energy and 
Commerce Committee's oversight and investigations subcommittee, chaired 
by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), decided otherwise. It plans to hold a 
hearing Thursday on the risk analysis, according to two sources briefed 
on the plans.



...

For the entire article, see
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/26/AR2009072602857.html

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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