*But they found no records of a 2004 accident in which a worker was stuck with a needle contaminated with Brucella, a bacteria that can cause an infectious disease, an incident the university did not report.
The researchers also did not determine that unauthorized experiments with that agent were being carried out in university laboratories…
A year after the CDC inspection in 2006, A&M lost track of a mouse infected with Q fever, which humans can contract from animals.
Two outside healthcare officials crossed paths with a Brucella researcher before the researcher was decontaminated after an experiment. And another lab worker reported high levels of Q fever antibodies.
The first time the CDC addressed any of these safety violations was in a non-routine inspection in April of this year, conducted in response to Texas.
A&M reported the Brucella incident more than a year late.
But what the three inspectors sent to the university found in April paled in comparison to what a team of 18 federal agents discovered in an emergency inspection in July: several missing vials of
Brucella, and at least seven cases in which Texas A&M allowed unauthorized access to select agents.
As a result, the university’s select agent program remains on hold and two A&M investigative officials have resigned. The inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which imposes financial penalties of up to $500,000 for biodefense safety violations, has not yet ruled on the A&M case.
