This summer saw an outbreak of the economically devastating foot-and-mouth disease among livestock in the United Kingdom. Thanks in large part to a rapid and concerted response by the government, it was of relatively limited scope -- two farms, $100 million in economic harm.
(Let that sink in for a moment, that a well-handled FMD outbreak hit the UK for $100 million.)
Now, the infection has been traced not to a natural origin but to accidental release of FMD virus from a vaccine facility run by the Merial corporation and housed in a building managed by the UK government's Institute for Animal Health. Here's how it happened:
A two-step chemical strategy is used at Pirbright [the IAH facility] to prevent FMD from escaping in liquid waste. Both Merial and IAH first treat wastewater at their own buildings with a disinfectant such as citric acid. Then, a complex system of pipes takes the water to a shared effluent treatment plant, managed by IAH, where caustic soda is used to raise the pH to 12 and kill off any remaining virus during a 12-hour holding period. Finally, the liquid is released into the sewer.
Although the first treatment step probably killed off almost any leftover virus at IAH, it likely didn't inactivate the larger amounts in Merial's wastewater. The second treatment step would normally take care of that, but the network of pipes, pumps, and manholes leading to it suffered from leaks due to cracks, tree roots, and other problems. The reports hypothesize that live virus seeped into the soil as a result, especially because July's excessive rainfall may have caused the drains to overflow.
As it happened, construction crews were digging holes around the leaks at the time, and heavy trucks--without proper IAH oversight--drove through the presumably virus-laden mud. Some of these vehicles later took a road that went very close to the first infected farm. From there, the farmer may have carried the virus to his herd.
Quoted from this article in Science magazine.
It's just these kinds of problems that are the big fear about facilities that work with pathogens. As the Science article discusses, a number of well-known pathogen research centers are also on the older side, and there are concerns that their infrastructure may also lend itself to these kinds of accidental releases. Add to this the possibility for procedural errors -- whether it's letting trucks drive through areas they shouldn't or forgetting to put in a new air filter in your anthrax research lab's exhaust system, and the worry is that an incorrectly managed research center may accidentally spawn the next pandemic.
It is not particularly comforting then, that Texas A&M has recently been gigged in a big way for substantial failings in their own biosafety procedures, including losing several vials of Brucella, the causative agent of the hard-to-treat Malta fever, and accidentally exposing a number of workers to Q fever. Texas A&M interim president Eddie Davis lamely defended TAMU's record by saying that "institutions under that same level of review would probably have findings that would be reportable to the CDC." He then praised the now-former biosafety compliance director for being "very loyal and competent." Competent would be good, but I don't see how loyalty to TAMU helps the rest of Texas if they're not maintaining proper safety.
It's common for people to shrug and move on in the face of regulation, doing just enough to comply. We have to remember, however, that screwing up the safety compliance in a pathogen lab is not the same as failing to maintain a piece of heavy machinery. The latter may result in a massive work accident, but the former might wipe out a city or all agriculture in the midwest.