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Biosafety is the prevention of large-scale loss of biological integrity, focusing both on ecology and human health. These prevention mechanisms include the conduction of regular reviews of biosafety in laboratory settings, as well as strict guidelines to follow. Biosafety is used to protect from harmful incidents. Many laboratories handling biohazards employ an ongoing risk management assessment and enforcement process for biosafety. Failures to follow such protocols can lead to increased risk of exposure to biohazards or pathogens. Human error and poor technique contribute to unnecessary exposure and compromise the best safeguards set into place for protection.
A biosafety level (BSL), or pathogen/protection level, is a set of biocontainment precautions required to isolate dangerous biological agents in an enclosed laboratory facility. The levels of containment range from the lowest biosafety level 1 (BSL-1) to the highest at level 4 (BSL-4). In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have specified these levels in a publication referred to as BMBL. In the European Union, the same biosafety levels are defined in a directive. In Canada the four levels are known as Containment Levels. Facilities with these designations are also sometimes given as P1 through P4, as in the term P3 laboratory.
A biological hazard, or biohazard, is a biological substance that poses a threat to the health of living organisms, primarily humans. This could include a sample of a microorganism, virus or toxin that can adversely affect human health. A biohazard could also be a substance harmful to other living beings.
Fort Detrick is a United States Army Futures Command installation located in Frederick, Maryland. Fort Detrick was the center of the U.S. biological weapons program from 1943 to 1969. Since the discontinuation of that program, it has hosted most elements of the United States biological defense program.
The United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases is the U.S Army's main institution and facility for defensive research into countermeasures against biological warfare. It is located on Fort Detrick, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., and is a subordinate lab of the United States Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC), headquartered on the same installation.
William C. Patrick III was an influential microbiologist and bioweaponeer for the U.S. Army during the Cold War.
A laminar flow cabinet or tissue culture hood is a partially enclosed bench work surface designed to prevent contamination of biological samples, semiconductor wafers, or any particle sensitive materials. Air is drawn through a HEPA filter and blown in a very smooth laminar flow in a narrow vertical curtain, separating the interior of the cabinet from the environment around it. The cabinet is usually made of stainless steel with no gaps or joints where spores might collect.
One use of the concept of biocontainment is related to laboratory biosafety and pertains to microbiology laboratories in which the physical containment of pathogenic organisms or agents is required, usually by isolation in environmentally and biologically secure cabinets or rooms, to prevent accidental infection of workers or release into the surrounding community during scientific research.
The One-Million-Liter Test Sphere—also known as the Test Sphere, the Horton Test Sphere, the Cloud Study Chamber, Building 527, and the "Eight Ball" —is a decommissioned biological warfare (BW) chamber and testing facility located on Fort Detrick, Maryland, US. It was constructed and utilized by the U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories as part of its BW research program from 1951 to 1969. It is the largest aerobiology chamber ever constructed and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.
The United States biological weapons program officially began in spring 1943 on orders from U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Research continued following World War II as the U.S. built up a large stockpile of biological agents and weapons. Over the course of its 27-year history, the program weaponized and stockpiled seven bio-agents — Bacillus anthracis (anthrax), Francisella tularensis (tularemia), Brucella spp (brucellosis), Coxiella burnetii (Q-fever), Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, Botulinum toxin (botulism), and Staphylococcal enterotoxin B. The US also pursued basic research on many more bio-agents. Throughout its history, the U.S. bioweapons program was secret. It was later revealed that laboratory and field testing had been common. The official policy of the United States was first to deter the use of bio-weapons against U.S. forces and secondarily to retaliate if deterrence failed.
Ira Lawrence Baldwin was the founder and director emeritus of the Wisconsin Academy Foundation. He began teaching bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin in 1927 and a few years later moved into what became a career in administration. He held positions as chair of the Department of Bacteriology, dean of the Graduate School, dean and director of the College of Agriculture, university vice president for academic affairs, and special assistant to the president. He was also involved in programs for agricultural development both in the United States and abroad. Ira Baldwin wrote a hostile review of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, titled "Chemicals and Pests," in the journal Science.
The U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories (USBWL) was a suite of research laboratories and pilot plant centers operating at Camp Detrick, Maryland, United States, beginning in 1943 under the control of the U.S. Army Chemical Corps Research and Development Command. The USBWL undertook research and development into biocontainment, decontamination, gaseous sterilization, and agent production and purification for the U.S. offensive biological warfare program. The laboratories and their projects were discontinued in 1969.
The Granite Peak Installation (GPI) — also known as Granite Peak Range — was a U.S. biological weapons testing facility located on 250 square miles (650 km2) of Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. The GPI was a sub-installation of Dugway but had its own facilities, including utilities. Established in 1943, GPI was deactivated with the end of World War II.
A biosafety cabinet (BSC)—also called a biological safety cabinet or microbiological safety cabinet—is an enclosed, ventilated laboratory workspace for safely working with materials contaminated with pathogens requiring a defined biosafety level. Several different types of BSC exist, differentiated by the degree of biocontainment they provide. BSCs first became commercially available in 1950.
The United States Army Medical Unit (1956–1969) – a now defunct medical research unit for biodefense – was at Fort Detrick, Maryland, US. In contrast to the U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories (1943–1969), also at Fort Detrick, the USAMU's mission was purely to develop defensive measures against bio-agents, as opposed to weapons development. The USAMU was the predecessor to today's USAMRIID.
The Aeromedical Isolation Team of the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Maryland was a military rapid response team with worldwide airlift capability designed to safely evacuate and manage contagious patients under high-level (BSL-4) bio-containment conditions. Created in 1978, during its final years the AIT was one of MEDCOM’s Special Medical Augmentation Response Teams comprising a portable containment laboratory along with its transit isolators for patient transport. Contingency missions included bioterrorism scenarios as well as the extraction of scientists with exotic infections from remote sites in foreign countries. The AIT trained continuously and was often put on alert status, but only deployed for “real world” missions four times. The AIT was decommissioned in 2010 and its mission was assumed by one of the US Air Force’s Critical Care Air Transport Teams (CCATTs).
The United States Biological Defense Program—in recent years also called the National Biodefense Strategy—refers to the collective effort by all levels of government, along with private enterprise and other stakeholders, in the United States to carry out biodefense activities.
Theodor Rosebury was a British-born American bacteriologist and author. He has been called the “pre-eminent oral microbiologist of his era” and the “Grandfather of Modern Oral Microbiology”.
The curation of extraterrestrial samples (astromaterials) obtained by sample-return missions takes place at facilities specially designed to preserve both the sample integrity and protect the Earth. Astromaterials are classified as either non-restricted or restricted, depending on the nature of the Solar System body. Non-restricted samples include the Moon, asteroids, comets, solar particles and space dust. Restricted bodies include planets or moons suspected to have either past or present habitable environments to microscopic life, and therefore must be treated as extremely biohazardous.
Riley D. Housewright was an American microbiologist who conducted research on germ warfare. Having been assigned to the Fort Detrick laboratory in the mid-1940s and appointed scientific director in 1956, Housewright played a major role in the development of bioweapons for a proposed attack on Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1966, he was appointed president of the American Society for Microbiology. He left Fort Detrick in 1970 following President Nixon's moratorium on US bioweapons research, and later published several books on water safety for the National Academy of Sciences. In the 1980s, Housewright became executive director of the American Society for Microbiology. He died in Frederick, Maryland, in 2003.
References
Notes
- ↑ "American Biological Safety Association Collection". USDA . Archived from the original on 2012-05-11.
Sources
- A History of ABSA Part I: The First Ten Biological Safety Conferences 1955 - 1965—Manuel S. Barbeito, Richard H. Kruse, 1997, JABSA, 2(3): 7–19.
- A History of ABSA Part II: Safety Conferences 1966 - 1977—Richard H. Kruse, Manuel S. Barbeito, 1997, JABSA 2(4): 10–25.
- A History of ABSA Part III: Safety Conferences 1978 - 1987—Richard H. Kruse, Manuel S. Barbeito, 1997, JABSA 3(1): 11–25.