The Need for Professional Society Advocacy for a Laboratory-acquired Illness/Incident Reporting and Analysis System

Abstract

Biosafety professionals have long recognized the value of information derived from the reporting and analysis of laboratory-acquired illnesses (LAIs). Analysis of events surrounding an exposure event which resulted in an LAI has been used to identify equipment and facility design issues and flaws in operational procedures, as well as the hazardous characteristics of biological agents that are being studied or manipulated. Information obtained from the investigation and analysis of LAIs is a valuable resource for assessing risks posed by proposed work with pathogens, designing and selecting protective equipment and facilities, and developing agent-specific occupational health and surveillance programs. Lessons learned from analyzing LAIs also can provide a basis for developing educational tools in the form of case studies and utilized for training laboratory workers, principal investigators, and biosafety professionals. Some institutions such as the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) have a good track record of reporting and publishing exposure events that have resulted in LAIs and continue to look for new ways to present this information to the life-sciences community and their stakeholders (CDC, 2000; Mabeus, 2012; Rusnak, 2004). Unfortunately, institutions that routinely report and share lessons learned from LAIs remain the exception rather than the rule. All institutions that have experienced LAIs should be encouraged to share with the larger life-science community, via publication in scientific journals or reporting in another accessible resource LAIrelated information and analysis of the event. Sharing the nature of the incident, the probable cause, and lessons learned with relevant stakeholders would allow many individuals and facilities to benefit from an unfortunate event (Kozlovac, 2011). One hallmark of an organization that incorporates safety as an institutional value within its organizational culture is encouraging employee participation in reporting accidents, near misses, and unsafe conditions. Another hallmark is that the organization’s leadership has established a mechanism to investigate reported issues and ensure corrective actions are identified, documented, and communicated to relevant staff in a timely manner. Although most organizations have developed internal reporting mechanisms, perhaps one of the disincentives for an organization to report and share information on LAIs and incidents with the broader community is the absence of an easy, voluntary mechanism for sharing LAI information. Indeed, a central theme common to published LAI research within the scientific literature—beginning with the first surveys conducted by Kisskalt (1915), continuing with the collective work of Sulkin and Pike (1951, 1979), and the more recent reviews by Sewell (1995), Harding and Byers (2000), and Weinstein and Singh (2009)—is that LAI risk determination is hampered by the lack of a systematic reporting mechanism at the regional, national, or international level. Indeed, biosafety professionals have intermittently discussed the need and recommended the establishment of such a system for many years. Unfortunately, establishing such a system has been beset with many challenges and obstacles, including a lack of sustained advocacy from professional biosafety organizations.