March 1, 2002

University Lab Security Checked

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 5:31 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal investigators are examining university labs across the country to see if they are vulnerable to thieves or hackers looking for potential bioterrorist weapons.

The inspections were prompted by concern over lab security in the wake of the still-unsolved anthrax attacks. Officials still don't know where the culprit got the anthrax to send through the mail, but they suspect it originated at one of the nation's biological laboratories, where security has long been uneven.

Labs at about 10 universities are now undergoing monthlong inspections by auditors from the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a federal official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official and authorities at three of the universities said the inspections focus on physical security, such as the potential for unauthorized people to obtain hazardous material, and information technology, including what information is stored on computers and whether it's accessible from the university's main systems.

In a highly unusual move, government officials do not plan to publish the results for fear of giving would-be terrorists a how-to guide.

``Because the lab reviews have national security implications, the Office of Inspector General's decision was to restrict information being released to the public,'' said HHS spokeswoman Judy Holtz.

She said the only times her office may have declined to publish information in the past would have involved proprietary information from private companies. This level of secrecy is unprecedented, she said, explaining, ``We're in a new era.''

Researchers at the universities involved said they appreciated that the government will not be publishing a guidebook to their vulnerabilities.

But HHS would be missing an opportunity to improve lab security across the country if it doesn't publish information about what problems were most common, said Scott Becker, executive director of the Association of Public Health Laboratories.

``We don't need to know the details -- that X lab didn't have a lock on this door,'' he said. ``But generalizable information will be helpful, especially as we're all now much more aware of how seemingly easy it is for these bugs to get out.''

``I would certainly like to see a written report,'' said James Jaeger, director of environmental health and safety at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. ``I think they would probably have some recommendations that would improve things.''

The reviews began in December at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, where scientists sometimes use dangerous biological agents in their groundbreaking work to develop cures for encephalitis, yellow fever, leprosy and the plague.

``It was a very educational experience,'' said Lee Thompson, safety officer for biocontainment facilities at Galveston. ``We went through the buildings and looked for potential weak spots.''

As a result of the review, the university tightened security in lab buildings. For instance, he said, inspectors found a way that a culprit could bypass security by entering unauthorized areas through certain stairwells, so the university increased the number of doors that required an electronic card for entry. It added security to the freezers where microbes are stored, and it closed certain buildings to the public altogether.

The inspectors also examined who had access to hazardous materials and whether they needed it, and suggested better ways to keep track of materials, Thompson said.

Still, he said, it will always be difficult to track diseases like anthrax or smallpox, which reproduce readily in the laboratory.

``It's a difficult process because a living system is hard to track on a numbers basis,'' he said. ``You can take very small volumes that are unnoticeable and be able to grow them.''

At Louisiana State University, anthrax researcher Martin Hugh-Jones isn't yet convinced that the audit will be useful.

``We're only too glad to have shortcomings pointed out to us as long as they're real,'' he said. ``I'm sure they think they're being helpful.

``We're content with the security we have in my lab,'' he added. ``I'm sure there are places where the security elsewhere has been less than minimal.''