Top secret US research lab studying SARS-CoV-2 shut amid safety concerns
A top-secret US research facility that studies Sars-CoV-2, Ebola and other deadly pathogens has been shut down by the Trump administration amid safety concerns.
The Integrated Research Facility (IRL) – which is located at a US Army base in Fort Detrick, Maryland – was told by email to stop all experimental work by 5pm on April 29 and its director was placed on administrative leave.
The high security facility, which was once the centre of the US biological weapons program, is believed by many in China to have sparked the Covid-19 pandemic.
Until Tuesday, when its doors were locked, the lab conducted research for the prevention and treatment of 'high consequence' diseases including Ebola, Sars-Cov-2 Lassa fever, Marburg and Eastern equine encephalitis.
Bradley Moss, the communications director for the US National institutes for Health (NIH), told WIRED magazine that the lab had been closed amid safety concerns.
'NIH has implemented a research pause – referred to as a safety stand-down – at the Integrated Research Facility at Fort Detrick. This decision follows identification and documentation of personnel issues involving contract staff that compromised the facility's safety culture, prompting this research pause,' he said.
'During the stand-down, no research will be conducted, and access will be limited to essential personnel only, to safeguard the facility and its resources.'
An email seen by WIRED, further revealed that the facility's director had been placed on administrative leave, while the freezers in the facility's biosafety-level-4 (BSL4) labs padlocked shut.
There are only around a dozen BSL4 labs in North America studying the world's most dangerous diseases, but the IRF facility is also one of just a handful globally that is able to perform medical imaging on animals infected with high consequence diseases.
It has 168 employees and is part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases – which Dr Anthony Fauci led for 38 years.
In August 2019, its germ research operations were temporarily shut down following serious safety violations – an unfortunate fact that has enabled the Chinese authorities to magnify un-evidenced conspiracy theories about the lab's role in the Covid-19 pandemic.
While the consensus among scientists globally is that Covid-19 most probably had natural origins, a leak from a high security lab remains a possibility.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and its labs have been under scrutiny since Robert F Kennedy, President Donald Trump's controversial pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, assumed office.
The department has since announced that 10,000 people would lose their jobs – including those at the NIH, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention – as Mr Trump and Elon Musk's attempt to reduce government spending.
But there are concerns that overnight funding cuts could be a major setback for research.
'The sustained attacks on collaborative US biomedical science and public health are already destroying disease surveillance systems and game-changing clinical trials that will result in avoidable deaths and morbidities for years to come in some of the poorest countries,' said Prof Stuart Neil, head of the department of infectious diseases at King's College London.
'These aren't on-off switches that you restore with a flick of a finger if someone on high changes their minds. This is wilful vandalism of research and treatment programmes that have taken years to establish – things that you could legitimately say made America great,' he told the Telegraph.
This week, Nature also reported that an upcoming NIH policy will at least temporarily stop funding to laboratories and hospitals outside the US. While the final text has not yet been agreed, it could have major ramifications on international partnerships.
In 2023, about 15 per cent of NIH grants had at least one 'foreign component' – mostly in the UK, Canada, Germany and Australia – on projects ranging from cancer to Aids, Ebola to child health.
'These decisions will have tragic consequences,' Prof Francis Collins, who led the NIH for 12 years, told Nature.
He added that when combined with the dismantling of USAID – which also funded research into diseases including malaria and tuberculosis – it means 'more children and adults in low-income countries will now lose their lives because of research that didn't get done'.
The Telegraph has contacted Mr Holbrook and the NIH press office.
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