Dem Lawmaker Presses Experts On US' Readiness To Prevent Biological Attacks By 'Malicious Insiders'

last year

During a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing last week, Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) spoke about the United States' ability to prevent bio-attacks.

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00:00Recognize for your questions. Well, thanks chair peters and ranking member paul for holding this hearing. Thank you to all of our witnesses for

00:06being here today

00:07um

00:09Dr. Copeland's one of the areas of inquiry in this hearing is obviously whether research funded by the united states government has appropriate

00:17oversight

00:18However, private companies universities and independent research institutions are also engaging in cutting-edge research

00:26While their research has the potential to cure diseases and boost our economy unless they accept federal funding

00:32There is very little federal oversight to ensure that private labs are engaged in safe and ethical research

00:39What safety procedures are in place for research facilities that don't receive government funding?

00:45And are there oversight measures that either government or independent authorities should put in place to monitor work at these labs?

00:52including labs working on gene synthesis

00:55Thank you

00:57Thank you, senator

00:59The the oversight of privately funded research is much less than that of federally funded research in terms of both biosafety biosecurity

01:07and dual use research oversight

01:10what we've seen in

01:12The area of dual use research oversight, for example in the most recent policy that the biden administration released

01:18Only applies to federally funded research

01:20However, there is the ability for federal agencies to require their

01:25their grant recipients to apply

01:28This new policy to all research including that's privately funded

01:31But that requires special authority that some agencies may have but others would need

01:37Legislation to give them that that ability that wouldn't cover research

01:40That's only conducted by privately funded entities

01:42But it would expand the scope of of research that that is

01:46In order to expand the scope of oversight to all privately funded research would require

01:52legislative action

01:54and along the lines of the proposals I included in my written statement for

01:58the establishment of a national biorisk management agency that would have authority over

02:03Biosafety biosecurity and dual use research oversight regardless of source of funding because at the end of the day

02:08It shouldn't matter where the funding comes from in terms of making sure this research is being done safely securely and responsibly

02:14Thank you for that

02:16Another question to you, Dr

02:17Koblins, we've heard a great deal about the risks of certain types of research involving dangerous pathogens and the need for robust oversight

02:25On the type of experiments that are performed. We've heard less about the potential risks for from researchers

02:31Performing off the books or unsupervised experiments that may be risky or unethical

02:37How serious are the risks posed by malicious or unethical insiders?

02:41And are the United States and international authorities equipped to sufficiently mitigate these risks?

02:49So

02:50Following the revelations that Bruce Ivins was responsible for the anthrax letter tax which happened in 2009

02:58the United States took a much

02:59Stronger stance on trying to prevent insider threats at facilities. And so the federal select agent program which focused on biosecurity

03:08Included a number of measures to try and better monitor scientific access to to pathogens in terms of ensuring that they remain

03:16They do not become security risks that kind of

03:22Efforts to mitigate insider threats does not exist in the side of the dual use research oversight. There is a lot of

03:29emphasis on self-governance by research institutions

03:32And by PIs to basically govern their own labs and make sure that work is not being done

03:37That is as you said off the books or is anyway unethical

03:41But so it is really at this point on the onus is on research institutions

03:44To make sure that the work activity being done on their facilities is in compliance with all relevant

03:50laws and regulations, so that is an area that

03:53Is currently a gap in our oversight of this kind of research. Okay. Thank you

03:57One more question for you when it comes to biosecurity

04:01The u.s. Domestic security is obviously tied to international efforts

04:05What happens halfway across the globe can clearly impact us in the united states

04:11Doctor you're involved in the global bio labs initiative

04:14Which is an organization that tracks all the highest biosecurity level labs in the world

04:19Are there labs that are of particular concern and if so

04:23What action should congress and the executive branch take to improve their safety and thus our national security?

04:29As we documented in our report last year on global bio labs, there's been a building boom in bsl4

04:37Labs since the start of the pandemic and so the number of countries that are now building their first bsl4 labs

04:43That don't actually have their national

04:46biosafety biosecurity legislation regulations in place and so countries like the philippines

04:52Kazakhstan

04:54saudi arabia

04:55Are trying to construct facilities, but they don't yet have the regulatory infrastructure that they need to make sure those labs can be operated

05:01Safely securely and responsibly

05:04In addition countries like china and india who already operate bsl4 labs are planning on building additional labs

05:10as well

05:11and so in all of these cases, there's a need for

05:15Making sure that these you know at the national level that the right

05:18Virus management policies are in place and then at the laboratory level that these

05:23policies are being followed properly and there are a number of measures that

05:27both the u.s and internationally through who and other entities could take to try and ensure that these

05:33Regulations are in place and are being followed properly. And and can you elaborate on what those steps would be?

05:39Sure. So, um, there is a

05:42a international standard for bio risk management, um that

05:48Creates a framework for how do you ensure that safety and security is prioritized across your laboratory and your research enterprise?

05:55It's called iso 35001

05:57It was negotiated end of 2019, but has not been widely adopted yet

06:02By labs around the world having that kind of international standard is very useful because it provides the best practices for biosafety and biosecurity

06:09and it includes a

06:11Um a process by which you need to document how you're complying with that standard that documentation then becomes available for audit

06:19In the event that you need you need to have any kind of investigation

06:22By local national national authorities to ensure that the facility is operating properly and is operating safely and securely

06:29So that kind of standard provides an international

06:33Metric for measuring whether or not a lab is operating to the international standards that we we would hope they would be

06:39Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Chair

06:43Thank you

Dem Lawmaker Presses Experts On US' Readiness To Prevent Biological Attacks By 'Malicious Insiders'

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