GALVESTON — University of Texas Medical Branch officials vowed Friday to again revise a controversial bill critics say goes too far in blocking the public’s right to information about deadly germs at the Galveston National Laboratory.
But at least some opponents were not satisfied with the proposed change.
“We want more specificity,” said John Carstarphen, a member of a community board, after top medical branch officials at a public meeting Friday presented language they hoped would allay fears.
While acknowledging the original bill was too broad and would have prohibited the medical branch from releasing any information about so-called select agents, officials defended their intent, which they said was to protect agreements with other laboratories and the names of low-level employees who might be targeted by people opposed to research conducted at such facilities.
The bill’s opponents argue Texas laws already protect security-sensitive information and the medical branch can’t show how state codes have failed the Galveston National Laboratory, which opened in November.
When asked by Daily News Editor Heber Taylor whether security had been breached under state laws, medical branch President Dr. David Callender said: “No.”
“It’s astonishing they’re still seeking a wholesale change in the law when they can’t cite a single case where the existing laws failed,” Taylor said.
The meeting came amid growing opposition to SB 2556 among open government advocates and residents, and a day after Galveston’s city council overwhelmingly approved a formal resolution against the bill’s current form and urging amendment.
Medical branch officials have since changed the bill.
Newest Version
The newest version of the bill replaces the word “including” with the words “is limited to information pertaining to” and specifies five categories of information that would be excepted from disclosure:
• the location of a select agent;
• security and safeguard protections;
• site-specific or transfer-specific documentation; or
• the identity of an individual authorized to possess, use or access a select agent;
• the security and safety of premises, employees and authorized personnel.
Critics argue the categories themselves are so broad as to exempt all sorts of information to which the public should have access, and the security-related categories address information already exempted under the law.
Small Crowd
The sparsely attended meeting at William C. Levin Hall on the medical branch campus also included a surprise visit from Edward Hammond, a Texan living in Bogota, Colombia, whose open records requests cost the national laboratory an important collaboration and were impetus for the bill, officials have said.
“I’m not evil,” said Hammond, who worked for a now defunct biodefense watchdog group called the Sunshine Project.
Hammond said he never requested door access codes to the national laboratory, an argument medical branch officials have used to justify the proposed legislation.
Instead, Hammond requested access logs and would not have objected to door codes being redacted, he said.
Tense Encounter
Hammond asserts the medical branch is trying to avoid divulging such information as agreements with private partners to share select agents and research data.
In 2007, Hammond uncovered lab-related infections and illness at Texas A&M University. In a somewhat heated exchange, Callender took issue with Hammond’s assertion that the institution was trying to pass a law that would allow officials to conceal information about laboratory accidents.
“From my perspective, that’s absurd,” Callender said.
Last year, Texas A&M agreed to pay the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services a $1 million civil penalty for violations involving research with biodefense materials, including failure to report exposures of researchers to toxic microbes. None of the researchers had lasting ill effects, according to reports.
Only a few of the 50-member Community Advisory Board attended Friday’s meeting. The medical branch formed the advisory board in 2002 as it sought public approval for the construction of the $176 million laboratory where researchers develop drugs and vaccines to battle infectious disease caused by such things as Anthrax, avian flu, bubonic plague and Ebola.
Vows Of Transparency
When seeking community support, the medical branch vowed transparency.
The board is supposed to keep the medical branch accountable to the public. But some members of the board on Friday asked medical branch officials why they weren’t informed about the bill.
“We were all caught flat-footed,” advisory board member Jackie Cole said.
Up until now, the medical branch, which owns and operates the national laboratory, has been transparent and open with island residents about the facility and the work there, Cole said. But by not forewarning the advisory board of the proposed legislation, the medical branch didn’t keep its word, Cole said.
“A trust has been broken,” Cole said.
But what began as conversations in Austin quickly morphed into a bill, Callender said.
Could Have Done Better
“We could have gone about it a lot better, but we’re here now,” Callender said.
Medical branch officials vowed Friday to follow suggestions from the community to shape a bill that would allow it to remain transparent and also give it protection.
Texas open records laws have a chilling effect on collaborations with other research institutions, which could harm funding for the national laboratory, Callender said.
Sen. Joan Huffman, a first-term Houston Republican representing part of Galveston County, introduced the bill in late April. It passed the Senate in early May and is awaiting action in the House Committee on Defense and Veterans’ Affairs.
The 186,267-square-foot Galveston National Laboratory is one of two approved in 2003 by the National Institutes of Health after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
