The state’s Public Health Laboratory’s (PHL) overall mission has not changed to be the state’s leading bioterrorism response laboratory, a stakeholder group involved in the lab’s Risk and Safety Assessment learned on July 11 in Shoreline.
“Our mission is the same as every single public health lab across the country,” said Romesh Gautom, director of the PHL. “Our mission has not changed. Public Health Labs whether at local, state or federal levels have restrictions … the Lab Response Network provides standardized procedures for each health lab.”
The group’s facilitator, Margaret Norton-Arnold, said several people within the group of first responders, citizens and city and school officials asked questions about a planned, approximately 10,000 square-foot expansion at the laboratory and she felt it was a good topic for the group to discuss at their second meeting.
Representative-at-large Jan Stewart contacted Norton-Arnold concerning a recent newsletter from Rep. Maralyn Chase, D-Shoreline, that said the PHL “has expanded its mission to become the state’s leading bioterrorism response laboratory” and Stewart wondered if it was true.
Plans to expand the lab do not include everything previous plans outlined, according to Department of Health Assistant Secretary, Jude Van Buren. The plan, to be submitted to the state’s Capital Budget Committee in early September, asks for an expansion to include extra storage and lab space to receive samples from the state’s growing population.
Van Buren said that while she thought bioterrorism was good topic to discuss, she does not believe the state’s PHL is a place someone would want to terrorize.
“This is a diagnostic lab — all we want to do is find out what (agent) it is,” she said. “We’re not going to allow anything but a small amount (of sample) to come here, exposure is absolutely limited.”
Certain biological agents, called select agents, she explained to the group, usually come from animals, but can be made by people in large quantities to scare, threaten or terrorize people.
“You can take salmonella, e coli, anthrax and you can terrorize people,” Gautom agreed. “If we cannot handle things here we send it to the Center for Disease Control. Everything we receive is properly packaged, it is properly contained and driven to a BLS-3 where we have all the bells and whistles to open it so there is no way there could be any aerosolization.”
It’s a common misnomer, he said, that anyone at the PHL respond and receive samples themselves.
“It’s not our role to respond. We aren’t first responders,” he said. “There is a whole cascade of agencies involved before it even gets to us.”
While plans for an expansion are still being finalized, group members are helping the PHL undergo a first-of-its-kind Risk and Safety Assessment to evaluate the laboratory and identify and resolve any risks related to the daily operations of the PHL. A subcommittee of group members will participate in interviews with consulting firms today, July 18. At the group’s next meeting on Aug. 8 from 1 to 4 p.m., the consulting team that is chosen to perform the Safety and Risk Assessment will describe how they plan to conduct the assessment.
The stakeholder meetings are held at the Public Health Laboratory, 1610 NE 150th St. in Shoreline, and are open to the public.
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