[CPEO-MEF] BIODEFENSE: Maryland "panel suggests licensing of biolabs"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Md. panel suggests licensing of biolabs

by Associated Press
Maryland Daily Record
November 1, 2013


HAGERSTOWN - Maryland should consider registering and licensing  
certain biological laboratories that handle deadly pathogens not  
lethal enough to be considered potential biological weapons, a state  
workgroup suggested Friday.

Such pathogens include the organisms that cause Legionnaire’s  
disease, tuberculosis and rabies. Although less dangerous than the  
microbes that cause plague and Ebola, these pathogens are sometimes  
handled under similarly strict laboratory conditions, known as  
biocontainment, to prevent their release.

The Maryland Biocontainment Laboratories Oversight Workgroup said it  
was unable to determine how many private biocontainment labs aren’t  
covered by government safety regulations, but that it’s possible some  
exist. They would be labs that don’t receive federal funding, and  
which work with pathogens or toxins not regulated by the federal  
government as “select agents.”





...

For the entire article, see
http://thedailyrecord.com/2013/11/01/md-panel-suggests-licensing-of- 
biolabs/

--

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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