But no mention of a Q Fever accident appears in Texas A&M's biosafety committee meeting minutes.In fact, Texas A&M has produced zero documentation, such as accident reports, lab paperwork, lessons learned, modified operating procedures, or anything else except a few sparse e-mails for either the Q Fever or the Brucella accident. This is despite open records requests for such paperwork.
"If Texas A&M's replies under the Texas Public Information Act are to be believed," says Hammond, "then four people at the University have been infected with bioweapons agents without responsible A&M professors and other officials even bothering to file a simple incident report, much less alert the community or report to public health officials."
According to federal law, A&M was required to report the infections immediately upon their discovery and to file a federal report, called APHIS/CDC Form 3, within 7 days. It did not do so. Under the Texas Public Information Act, which includes civil and criminal penalties for false responses, Texas A&M has denied filing any report of the Q Fever infections. By not reporting the infections to the government, Texas A&M thus violated (again) the Select Agent Rule, the main federal law intended to protect Americans from biodefense research gone awry.
Samuel is a professor of Medical Microbiology and Immunology and teaches courses at Texas A&M's Center for Homeland Security, which is funded by the US Department of Homeland Security. Samuel also receives biodefense funding from the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) and the NIH-funded Southwest Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research, managed by the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
The records released to the Sunshine Project do not contain information concerning the treatment of the infected individuals.Several freedom of information requests to Texas A&M remain unanswered. The Sunshine Project will continue to pursue these and other requests with Texas A&M until a satisfactory resolution, including federal and state government action, is achieved. #
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