Subcommittee Investigates Destruction of Irreplaceable Biomedical Infection Collection
(Washington, DC) – Today, the House Science and Technology Committee’s Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee held a hearing on the destruction of one of the world's leading collections of legionella disease at the Veterans Administration (VA) Pittsburgh Health Service in December 2006. The collection represented the life's work of two top experts on legionella and hospital infections, Dr. Victor Yu and Dr. Janet Stout. Its destruction brought condemnation of the Veterans Administration from biomedical researchers, and it raises important policy questions regarding the protection of biomedical sample collections built with Federal support.
“All of us may pay a price for the destruction of this collection, veterans most of all, because the nation lost one of its leading research labs on hospital infectious diseases,” said Chairman Brad Miller (D-NC). “While the researchers can relocate and restart their work, the research samples can never be wholly reconstituted. Those who are in hospitals, the elderly, severely sick children, or anyone else with compromised immune systems, are those most at risk.”
On December 4, 2006, a set of biological materials that was a primary support for work on legionella, the bacterium causing Legionnaire's Disease, was destroyed at the Veterans Administration (VA) Medical Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This occurred even as the process to transfer the collection to a University of Pittsburgh laboratory for further use in research was underway. It was also the last act of an acrimonious process that had seen the closure of its host, the Special Pathogens Laboratory (SPL), some four months earlier.
“I cannot imagine the circumstances under which a federal health agency official would unilaterally order the destruction of a human tissue collection without receiving the approval of the agency’s research office and the Research Compliance Committee. I cannot imagine why that official would, apparently, make false statements during the destruction to keep the associate director for research at the Center in the dark until the destruction was complete,” said Miller. "I am stunned that neither Pittsburgh nor national VA officials took formal action to discipline the managers involved in this case or established clear policy on the disposition of biomedical collections to make sure that this could never occur again."
The Subcommittee's findings highlight the need for improved policies on biospecimen management.
Although other federal scientists assured Subcommittee staff that such an action would never be taken at their laboratories, however, there are not clear policies across federal agencies for the control and disposition of biomedical collections. Some agencies have policies in place, but they lack coherence.
“The work of Dr. Yu and Dr. Stout cannot be recovered. However, we can protect the work of thousands of other professionals at the VA and other federal agencies or institutions that result in the collection of biological collections funded by taxpayer money. These collections should not be subject to similar mishandling simply at the caprice of a powerful administrator. It is time for the Office of Science and Technology Policy to start an inter-agency effort to create a core set of policies for the handling, maintenance and disposition of such specimens,” said Miller.
Chairman Miller is planning to introduce legislation to create a uniform national policy on biospecimen management.
Legionnaires’ Disease was named after an outbreak of pneumonia at a 1976 American Legion convention in Philadelphia, PA, in which roughly 200 veterans were hospitalized and over 30 died. The illness was identified to be spread by naturally-occurring bacteria that live in water.
Between 8,000 and 18,000 people are hospitalized with Legionnaires' disease in the U.S. every year, however, many infections are not diagnosed or reported, so the number of actual infections may be higher.
A legionella infection may cause a range of signs and symptoms, from mild flu-like symptoms to death. Because of the similarities in symptoms with other, more common infections, diagnosing legionella infections is difficult. The only way to make a conclusive diagnosis legionella infection is to compare cultures in a specific laboratory test.
For more information, including a staff report that details the actions leading to the destruction of the samples, please visit the Committee’s website.
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