Toledoans not told of pathogen exposures

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Article published Monday, July 9, 2007

INFECTIOUS DISEASE

Toledoans not told of pathogen exposures

Local laboratory worker sickened

BLADE SCIENCE - Toledo,OH*

By JENNI LAIDMAN

BLADE SCIENCE WRITER

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?

AID=/20070709/NEWS32/707090328

In 2004, a laboratory worker at what was then the Medical College of

Ohio contracted Valley Fever, a respiratory infection that probably

resulted from his work with a dangerous pathogen.

A year later, a test-tube break in the same laboratory, which was

looking for a vaccine against Valley Fever, again prompted MCO

officials to notify the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention. No one was sickened by that accident.

This week, a Texas watchdog group, The Sunshine Project, included

the incidents in a list of biological accidents of which the public

was never notified.

The list was prompted by revelations that Texas A & M University

failed to notify the CDC about three research-related Brucella cases

and waited a year to report a case of Q fever.

A CDC investigation of Texas A & M could cost the university its right

to work with such pathogens.

But a CDC spokesman said both incidents at the present University of

Toledo Medical School were promptly reported and properly addressed.

Sunshine Project representative Hammond said in an e-

mail, " They [MCO/UT] did hand over a lot more information, were more

open than most institutions. "

Dr. Wilkerson, UT vice president for research

administration, said the medical school never went beyond CDC

notification because the public was not at risk.

" I don't think we saw any need to inform or alarm people that

weren't directly involved in the incident,'' Dr. Wilkerson said. " We

don't want to create a panic if there's no danger. "

The incidents involved a fungus called Coccidioides immitis, which

sickens some 150,000 people in the southwestern United States every

year, said Galgiani, director of the Valley Fever Center for

Excellence at the University of Arizona.

In the 2004 case, it was never determined whether the infected lab

worker contracted Valley Fever in the Toledo lab, or in a lab he had

worked in earlier.

Coccidioides does not spread from person to person, so his infection

presented no further risk.

People who work with Coccidioides must comply with strict safety

protocols in what's known as a Biosafety Level 3 laboratory. BSL 3

labs have special air-handling systems that prevent laboratory air

from circulating in the rest of the building. Workers in these

laboratories must wear protective suits, gloves, and masks.

In the second incident at UT, a student who worked with Valley Fever

fungus opened a centrifuge and discovered one of the test tubes

inside had cracked.

Both incidents occurred in the laboratory of Cole, who worked

at MCO from 1995 to 2005, when he moved to the University of Texas

at San .

Mr. Cole is looking for a vaccine against Valley Fever and is

testing candidate vaccines in mice.

Dr. Galgiani, who is also testing one of Mr. Cole's vaccines in his

laboratory, said it only takes a single spore of the Valley Fever

fungus to cause the disease.

" It's endemic to our part of the country,'' the Tucson researcher

said. Two-thirds of the cases nationwide occur in Arizona. The other

third come from California, largely in the San Joaquin Valley that

gives the virus its name.

About a third of the people infected with the fungus have symptoms

to prompt medical treatment.

For a small number, about 25 to 30 a year in Arizona, Valley Fever

is lethal.

The fungus was part of a biowarfare agent in the 1950s in Russia, he

said.

" Since then there's been a lack of interest in it as a bioweapon

because it requires wind and things you can't control very well to

spread, " he said.

Still, Coccidioides immitis would bear little threat to people in

Toledo if it escaped from a laboratory, Mr Galgiani said.

" There's lots of evidence to suggest the organism doesn't like

Toledo, " he said.

" There are great examples of it being blown by the wind to northern

California, where it was quenched after initial exposures. It

doesn't take up residence in the soils, " he said.

" It's never established itself outside of this area. For the

population of Toledo, I would say there's very little risk. "

Contact Jenni Laidman at:

jenni@...