CDC seals bioterror bugs â€“ with duct tape

CDC's Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory in Atlanta

Only one week following the annual duct tape festival where enthusiasts fashion sculptures and share wacky applications for the adhesive, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has revealed a unique, high-tech use of its own – sealing off potentially fatal bioterror bacteria.

At its $214 million Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory in Atlanta, Ga., CDC scientists have been duct taping a lab door in an attempt to contain the airborne Q fever, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

"It's an enhancement," said Patrick Stockton, CDC safety and occupational health manager. "We could take it off."

The silver adhesive was taped around a lab containment door one year ago following a ventilation malfunction in which potentially contaminated air streamed backward through a duct and into a "clean" hallway. Nine workers were blood tested in May 2007 for exposure to Q fever bacteria following the leak. However, CDC spokesman Tom Skinner told the AJC the blood tests were performed out of an "abundance of caution," and none of the workers contracted the illness.

Q fever, a potential bioterror agent, is known to cause fevers and fatal heart conditions. The bacteria is usually contracted after humans inhale dust loaded with bacteria from animal excrement, though transmission from one person to another is relatively rare.

CDC officials told reporters that the lab's ventilation system is now in working order, and they insist the environment does not put workers at risk.

However, the duct tape remains around the containment door.

The CDC lab procedures were criticized last summer by Congress and the Government Accountability Office after the newspaper investigated a power outage lasting a full hour in which generators failed to activate. The CDC inspects its own labs, though the U.S. Department of Agriculture has secondary authority since Q fever bacteria can spread to animals as well.

"I do not believe the CDC would approve this arrangement in a laboratory other than their own," said Richard Ebright, a microbiologist and biosafety expert.

Ebright told the AJC that the CDC's use of duct tape to contain bioterror bacteria "raises very serious concerns about management. And those concerns are particularly important when one bears in mind this facility will ultimately be handling a full range of lethal pathogens – up to and including smallpox."

He said the tape is inadequate and does not meet guidelines in the CDC biosafety standards manual requiring that "Seams, if present, must be sealed."

Though CDC offcials claim a new self-sealing door is expected to replace the old duct-taped one, installation is not scheduled to begin until sometime between November and April 2009.

Meanwhile, four maximum containment biosafety labs in the building remain closed because they do not meet safety certification standards – nearly three years after they were scheduled to open. According to CDC plans, the labs will be testing locations for potentially lethal contaminants such as smallpox and Ebola.

According to the report, the building was evacuated Dec. 18 after a medical waste incinerator began smoking, shaking itself free from anchor bolts and fire caulking. The CDC claims it has been certified by state regulators and is in full operating condition.

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce told the newspaper the duct tape and ventilation issues are of great concern to Congress.

"This is yet another incident that calls into question the CDC's self-inspection policy," he said. "I highly doubt that the CDC would accept duct-taped doors on the privately owned bio labs it inspects."

Dingell said with the large amount of money spent to construct the facility, it should have been better equipped to handle airborne bacteria.

"If the going rate for a leaky door and roll of duct tape is $200 million, then I think I'm in the wrong line of business," he said.

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