NIH Halts Work at High-Level Infectious Disease Laboratory
Health officials halted work at the Integrated Research Facility at Fort Detrick, also known as IRF-Frederick, after multiple safety violations, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) official told The Epoch Times in an email on May 5.
The official confirmed that one of the incidents was one researcher poking a hole in another researcher's personal protective equipment.
The other safety violations are not clear.
An email sent to the National Interagency Confederation for Biomedical Research, a consortium of eight agencies that oversees the IRF and other research facilities at Fort Detrick, was not returned. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a division of the NIH that manages the work at the IRF, did not respond to a request for comment.
Researchers at the IRF handle high-risk pathogens, including avian influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome, and Ebola. The facility 'has the capability' to perform research at biosafety level four, which indicates the highest risk, the IRF's website
Related Stories
4/16/2025
5/4/2025
Work at the IRF will resume 'as soon as the safety of our team is assured,' the Department of Health and Human Services, the parent agency of the NIH,
Officials who work for Frederick, a city and county in which Fort Detrick is located, said they were concerned about the work stoppage.
'This facility has been at the forefront of studying deadly infectious diseases, including Ebola, and its work is crucial for public health and safety,' Frederick County Executive Jessica Fitzwater and four members of the Frederick County Council, including its president, Brad Young, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.
'The indefinite pause in its operations not only jeopardizes ongoing research but also undermines our preparedness for future outbreaks.
'Frederick County has long been a hub for scientific innovation and research. The IRF's contributions have not only advanced our understanding of infectious diseases but have also brought significant economic benefits to our community. The closure of this lab threatens to disrupt our local economy, potentially leading to job losses and a decline in scientific collaboration. We urge the federal government to reconsider this decision and recognize the vital role that the IRF plays in safeguarding public health and supporting our local economy. The work conducted at this facility is too important to be halted indefinitely.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Politico
a day ago
- Politico
Mistrust in CDC shooting's wake
AROUND THE AGENCIES More than 750 Health and Human Services staffers signed a letter sent to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and members of Congress this morning, warning that he's 'endangering the nation's health by repeatedly spreading inaccurate health information.' A shooting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Atlanta headquarters on Aug. 8 was not random, the letter says. The suspected shooter, who law enforcement said was motivated by his distrust of the Covid-19 vaccine, fired multiple rounds into four buildings on the CDC's Atlanta campus. No CDC employees were injured. The shooter died at the scene after shooting and killing a DeKalb County police officer. 'The attack came amid growing mistrust in public institutions, driven by politicized rhetoric that has turned public health professionals from trusted experts into targets of villainization — and now, violence,' the letter warns. Kennedy's actions endanger public health, they argue, pointing to Kennedy referring to the CDC as a 'cesspool of corruption,' saying mRNA vaccines failed to effectively protect against Covid-19 and the flu and then canceling $500 million in mRNA vaccine development projects, and disbanding the CDC's panel of vaccine experts and appointing replacements, some of whom have expressed skepticism about vaccines. 'These dangerous and deceitful statements and actions have contributed to the harassment and violence experienced by CDC staff,' the letter says. In addition to HHS staffers who signed anonymously or with their full names, former CDC officials joined the letter, including Dr. Anne Schuchat, a former top official' James Mercy, who directed the CDC's violence prevention division; Tom Simon, who led scientific programs for the violence prevention division; Jay Butler, former deputy director for infectious diseases; and Dr. Barbara Marston, who helped lead the agency's Ebola response. HHS did not respond to POLITICO's request for comment on the letter. Key context: The letter comes after hundreds of NIH staffers sent Director Jay Bhattacharya a letter in June, laying out their concerns about the delay and termination of grants, staff firings and a spending slowdown since President Donald Trump's inauguration. Nobel laureates, former NIH Institute and program directors and other leaders in the scientific community also signed the missive. Bhattacharya, who has said that free speech is among his policy priorities, met with a small group of staffers in July to hear their concerns. At the meeting, he pledged not to retaliate against those who signed the letter, which was modeled after the Great Barrington Declaration that Bhattacharya co-authored in 2020 to protest pandemic lockdowns. What's next: Staffers' request to Kennedy: Stop spreading misleading information about vaccines and affirm the CDC's scientific integrity. They also want Kennedy to guarantee the safety of the HHS workforce by ensuring HHS has fully functional emergency procedures and alerts. Kennedy should also take 'vigorous action to remove high-profile online material targeting the federal workforce, such as the widely seen 'DEI watchlists,'' they added, referring to a website run by the conservative nonprofit American Accountability Foundation, which posts names and photos of federal employees online. The foundation says the watchlist highlights the prevalence of diversity, equity and inclusion roles in government. Critics say it invites online harassment of private citizens. The HHS staffers asked their boss to take action by Sept. 2. WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. AI scribe companies promise to help doctors bill more. The result will likely be higher health care costs that trickle down to patients, Stat News reports. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback Ruth Reader at rreader@ or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@ Want to share a tip securely? Message us on Signal: RuthReader.02 or ErinSchumaker.01. FUTURE THREATS The artificial intelligence boom is ushering in chatbots that act — more and more — like people, our POLITICO colleague Aaron Mak reports. OpenAI's GPT-4.5 can ace the Turing Test, which evaluates whether a machine can fool a user into thinking it's human. The bots also serve as therapists, and, at least in one case, a bot got engaged to a human. Increasingly lifelike large language models are both a technological marvel and a conundrum for laws designed to regulate flesh-and-blood people. With growing worries about AI's harms, from emotional manipulation to addictiveness, how do you assign liability to something that seems to have so much autonomy? The anxieties were brought to a head last week when Reuters reported that Meta's internal policies permitted its AI to 'engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual.' Where Congress stands: The revelation triggered a bipartisan furor in Congress, POLITICO's Morning Tech reported this week. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said Meta 'has failed miserably' to protect children, and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) accused the company of being 'morally and ethically off the rails.' Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) also launched an investigation into Meta on Friday. The company did not respond to POLITICO's request for comment. But all these calls for regulation raise the question: Who or what, exactly, do you regulate? It might not seem obvious that a company should be liable for its chatbots — each AI 'personality' adapts its responses based on interactions with a user, so they can act in unpredictable ways. But if you view chatbots as products instead of synthetic people, the regulatory problem becomes a bit more familiar. Even if a company doesn't have an explicit policy allowing chatbots to engage in unhealthy conversations with children, for example, you can still require safety features to proactively mitigate such behaviors. Ava Smithing, advocacy director at the Young People's Alliance, a youth advocacy group, told POLITICO, 'It's not about regulating a fake person, it's about regulating the real people who are deciding what that fake person can or cannot say.' Congress hasn't proposed any laws to regulate AI companions. In the meantime, advocates are trying to apply existing product liability laws to restrain these anthropomorphic chatbots. In the courts: In a landmark case that will set a major precedent in AI law, a Florida family is suing over a chatbot that allegedly formed a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old boy, leading to his suicide. Matthew Bergman, the family's attorney, is tackling AI by adapting product liability strategies he picked up representing asbestos victims. Bergman makes a novel argument in the suit that intentionally designed its chatbots to be so lifelike that they could emotionally exploit users to get hooked on its service. He's also contending that it was foreseeable that the bots would threaten young users' mental health. A federal judge in Florida rejected bid to dismiss the suit in May. The company declined to comment on the litigation but told POLITICO that it's implemented new safety measures for young users. The court held a discovery hearing in the case last week. In the states: Without a serious effort from Congress, states have been taking the lead on chatbot regulations. New York enacted a law in May requiring an AI companion to send regular reminders that it's not human and refer users to crisis centers if they're at risk of hurting themselves. California is considering a bill to prohibit companion chatbots from rewarding young users at unpredictable intervals, a trick that slot machines use to keep gamblers addicted. Lawmakers in Hawaii are also looking at legislation to restrict chatbots that mimic humans for advertising.
Bloomberg
a day ago
- Bloomberg
Politicizing Scientific Research Comes With a Hefty Price
The Trump administration, seemingly determined to dismantle the National Institutes of Health, continues to devise new and insidious ways to politicize what has long been considered the crown jewel of US research. The latest move? An effort to codify political oversight of the agency's operations and impose abrupt and far-reaching changes to how research funding is allocated. That's left academic researchers — already at the mercy of a mercurial administration — in a constant state of uncertainty, wondering when their work might be targeted next. It's also shrinking the scope of science the NIH is willing to support and making the US a far less attractive place for pursuing biomedical innovation. The long-term consequence? A slowdown in discoveries that could meaningfully improve patients' lives.
Time Magazine
a day ago
- Time Magazine
How Peace in the DRC Can Prevent the Next Global Epidemic
Peace is more than the end of conflict. Peace is the foundation for health security. Since January, thousands were killed and hundreds of thousands were displaced in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in the fighting between M23 rebels and the Congolese army. Crucially, the war in eastern DRC also crippled the efforts to stem the spread of lethal diseases in a region already suffering from outbreaks of mpox, Ebola, cholera, malaria, and measles. In 2023, as the world was recovering from COVID-19 pandemic, more than 12,000 suspected cases of mpox, a viral disease closely related to smallpox, were reported in the DRC. The outbreak of war in January exacerbated the epidemics in eastern DRC as fighting wrecked the healthcare infrastructure and severely limited access to health services, especially the vaccinations. Most of the mpox cases in the DRC emerged in regions affected by armed conflict and turned these communities into epicenters of unchecked disease transmission. I lead the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, a public health agency of the African Union. Along with the World Health Organization and our other partners, we mobilized response teams and intervened with disease surveillance, vaccination, case management, and risk communication to stem the spread of mpox. The armed conflict in eastern DRC severely hampered our efforts to contain the outbreak. Disease surveillance teams had to grounded after travel became too dangerous. Clinics were looted. Health workers were attacked. Cold-chain vaccines never reached their destinations. For the communities living in regions affected by the conflict, the promise of vaccination remained a mirage. Read More: It Has Never Been Harder to Be a Humanitarian The mpox outbreak spread beyond the DRC's borders by July and affected lives and livelihoods in more than 25 African countries. In 2024, 72,506 cases of mpox and 1,288 deaths were reported by 20 African Union countries. By late July, 89,566 mpox cases were reported by 25 African Union countries, and 720 deaths were reported by eight member states. On July 19, the DRC government and M23 rebels signed a Declaration of Principles in Qatar, committing to a peace agreement, which offers the opportunity to rebuild health systems, restore early warning mechanisms, and reach vulnerable communities with lifesaving care. Without peace, diseases spread unchecked. With peace, outbreaks can be contained at their source. What happens in eastern DRC could determine whether the next pandemic is prevented or allowed to spread globally. Waging peace, preventing epidemics Health security cannot be achieved without peace. We welcome the DRC peace agreement signatories have committed to increasing cross-border public health cooperation, including joint disease prevention in border areas, coordinating epidemic outbreak control, and sharing information to advance scientific research and health-related commercial opportunities. Peace enables the vaccination of vulnerable children, testing and treatment of diseases like malaria and mpox, and restoration of early warning systems that have long been underperforming. Peace helps rebuild trust, which helps people decide whether to seek care, accept vaccines, or report symptoms. Without it, even the best interventions fail. And peace means mobile clinics can finally reach forgotten communities. Peace creates the conditions to rebuild and transform the DRC's health system into a resilient, inclusive, and community-centered system that can withstand future shocks and serve generations to come. To achieve all this, we need urgent investments in peace, health infrastructure, and equitable access to care. We at the Africa CDC proposed a regional health investment plan to the United States positioning health as a core driver of economic growth, peacebuilding, and regional integration, a plan that would bring together the DRC, Rwanda, Angola, and Zambia. Our proposal, aligned with the U.S.–Africa health security partnerships, seeks $645 million to finance health systems in and around mining corridors—disease surveillance labs, emergency responses, worker and community health services—to reduce risks of future epidemics shutting down mines and critical mineral supply chains. The funding for this health finance initiative would serve as a springboard to raise $3 billion in co-financing from development banks, private sectors and philanthropic organizations for health-related mining infrastructure. Our proposal presents a model for connecting biosecurity with economic resilience by integrating health infrastructure into vital mineral corridors, deploying advanced bio-surveillance technologies, and creating up to 100,000 jobs through local manufacturing. It would ensure that mineral security is supported by strong health systems across Central and Southern Africa. Rebuilding Africa's health systems The government of the DRC must place health at the center of its recovery agenda. Along with rebuilding healthcare facilities, it requires investing in a skilled health workforce, strengthening disease surveillance systems, and ensuring communities have access to timely care. Outbreaks must be detected and contained early, before they spiral into crises. Cross-border coordination and disease surveillance are essential as viruses do not respect borders. An outbreak in a remote village can become a global emergency, as the mpox epidemic has shown. International donors and global health agencies must shift their approach from emergency aid to helping rebuild health systems. That means funding malaria prevention, mpox response, and resilient, community-based surveillance networks. Read More: Cutting mRNA Research Could Be Our Deadliest Mistake Yet And finally, the negotiating parties—the DRC, Rwanda and M23 rebels—must uphold humanitarian access and protect the right to health as a cornerstone of peace. A permanent ceasefire must be implemented and respected. When diseases are allowed to spread in silence and mistrust and misinformation fester, we risk the next global pandemic. When communities are empowered, when health systems are strong, when peace is more than a promise, it becomes a platform for health security and progress. The peace agreement in the DRC has the potential to shape the future for generations. The next outbreak can be stopped before it starts. A child with malaria can survive. And epidemics like mpox can be controlled at their origin. Peace is the beginning of healing, rebuilding, resilience. The United States and the world must not look away.
