Sensitive business

By Edie Lau -- Bee Science Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Sunday, Sept. 8, 2002

For scientists, the new national priority on defending against biological weapons such as anthrax is bittersweet. Big pots of money are becoming available for biodefense research. But the financial windfall exacts a price: lost freedom.

	Security-related changes that could be coming to science and other research sites are already in place at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore. Officers Siqui Mora, left, and Bryan T. McNamara of the UC Special Response Team search every truck and car entering the lab site. Sacramento Bee/Manny Crisostomo

Lynne Chronister seems a bit embarrassed by the stacks of folders and lineup of yellow sticky notes in her tidy office, but the papers are not proof of poor organization.

They're a harbinger of anti-terrorist security requirements coming to the University of California, Davis, and to research institutions everywhere in the country.

There's the USA Patriot Act. The Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Protection Act. The Agricultural Bioterrorism Protection Act. The Border Security and Visa Reform Act. There are changes to old laws and new homeland security directives.

"There are volumes of information, and it's still hitting us. It's still coming," said Chronister, the associate vice chancellor for research administration, who is charged with sorting through the welter of rules and making sure they're followed.

For scientists, the new national priority on defending against biological weapons such as anthrax is bittersweet. chief of the UC Davis campus police, said background checks of prospective employees historically have involved looking into criminal past, credit history and general references. Under the new regime, that's not enough.

"Under the Patriot Act … we'll look at whether a person has a history of drug violations or whether a potential employee has a history of mental illness," Handy said. "Another new one is looking at the whole issue of the country of origin."

Background checks will be required for anyone working with "select agents" - any of more than 60 pathogens or toxins that could be used to make people or livestock sick or to contaminate crops, from hantavirus to sheep pox virus to aflatoxin, which makes peanuts poisonous.

Now banned from handling those agents are people from Libya, Cuba, Syria, North Korea, Iraq, Iran or Sudan, and anyone convicted of certain crimes or dishonorably discharged from the U.S. military.

After hours of combing through the rules, Chronister worries that they may conflict with laws that protect privacy and guard against unreasonable search and seizure.

"It's a scary prospect, especially for a university," she said. "We're an open institution. That's what we're founded on. … Nobody could object to being safer, but how do you do it and still be an open educational institution?"

At the extreme, academics point to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the East Bay, where armed guards patrol the perimeter. Traffic has been rerouted away from sensitive facilities, such as the building where plutonium is kept. Bomb-sniffing dogs check entering trucks.

	Amy, a bomb-sniffing dog working for Detection Support Systems, does her part in the Livermore search with her handler, Justin. Sacramento Bee/Manny Crisostomo

By contrast, security-related changes at UC Davis have been minimal to date:

* Last month, inspectors from the U.S. Department of Agriculture visited campus to inventory USDA-funded programs.

* Fred Jacobsen, the campus health and safety officer, has occasionally had to help researchers obtain organisms, cell lines and even innocuous materials.

Researchers used to order the materials through the mail. But recently, some have been asked to provide a document signed by a university representative - the lab equivalent of a doctor's note.

Even as the need for security grows, more researchers are being lured by bioterrorism work. And that increased interest begets increased worry.

"There's a certain amount of legitimate concern about the competence of all the people who are attracted to working with highly dangerous materials," said Mark Wheelis, a UC Davis bioweapons expert.

Anthony Fauci dismisses such concerns as overblown. Fauci is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which oversees bioterror research grants. "You just increase your security," he said. "It's not a paradox at all."

Moreover, Fauci said, the majority of bioterrorism researchers will not work directly with germs and toxins. They can use benign surrogates, he said, or work with parts of an organism rather than entire live microbes.

The rush of money into biodefense has opened jobs, leading researchers to ponder their careers.

Susanne Lindgren, for example, thought hard before declining an invitation to apply for a management job in bioterrorism at NIH. A microbiology professor at California State University, Sacramento, Lindgren said that although the job would be exciting, she prefers teaching.

A former student of Lindgren's did grab a position made possible by biodefense money - in the midst of a county hiring freeze. Because of the new emphasis on shoring up public health agencies and the promise of more federal dollars, the Sacramento County Public Health Laboratory was able to hire Marta Woroniecka as a microbiologist trainee.

"I think I got in at the best time possible," Woroniecka said.

Institutions see opportunity, too. UC Davis plans to vie for money available for new laboratories that work with the most dangerous pathogens known, so-called biosafety level 4 facilities.

Long before last year's terrorist attacks, campus representatives had begun talking with the state and Lawrence Livermore Lab about the need for such a lab to study emerging infectious diseases. Now, they say, the justification is even greater, and their plans are even grander.

Their proposal involves a 120,000-square-foot building housing 20 scientists and 180 support staff, costing between $150 million and $190 million.

Such a place would demand the strictest security, perhaps realizing the worst fears of those who imagine barbed wire and guards with guns.

"Our challenge is to find a way to secure our people and our constituents without building fortresses, without unreasonable invasions," said Handy, the UCD police chief. "It's going to be a challenge to do that."