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JOBNAME: ASM News #7864 PAGE: 1 SESS: 4 OUTPUT: Tue Nov 1 10:24:24 1988 
CLS: team4 GRP: asmnews JOB: 7864 DIV: 002a7864 
Safe Transport of Etiologic Agents 
Pierre-Marc Daggett 
On 5 October, the House Sub- 
committee on Postal Personnel 
and Modernization of the House 
Committee on Post Office and 
Civil Service, chaired by Rep- 
resentative Frank McCloakey (D- 
Ind.), held a hearing on the trans- 
portation of biological toxins and 
etiologic agents through the mail. 
At this hearing, Pierre- Marc Dag- 
gett, chair of the Committee on 
Culture Collections of ASM’S Pub- 
lic and Scientific Affairs Board, 
presented a statement opposing a 
proposal by the U.S. Postal Service 
which would ban the shipment of 
etiologic agents through the U.S. 
mail The following is an edited 
version of Dr. Daggett's testimony. 
ASM shares the viewpoint that 
etiologic agents must be properly 
and safely shipped. As recently as 
the May 1988 issue of ASM News 
(p. 244), safe and proper proce- 
dures for the shipment of biologi- 
cal materials were reviewed. Pre- 
viously, at the 1986 ASM Annual 
Meeting, which was attended by 
over 15,000 scientists, the pro- 
gram included a roundtable on 
shipping and packaging of biologic 
materials. There have been other 
efforts to educate and encourage 
the ASM membership to employ 
proper and safe parkaging prac- 
tices. These efforts, which pre- 
ceded Federal Register notice of 24 
June 1988 by the U.S. Postal Ser- 
vice of its intent to ban shipment 
of etiologic agents through the 
U.S. mails, were intended to main- 
tain an awareness among the 
ASM membership and to support a 
Pierre-Marc Daggett, as well as be- 
ing chair of the ASM Committee on 
Culture Collections, is head of the 
protistology department of the 
American Type Culture Collection, 
Rockville, McL 
system of distribution of cultures, 
including etiologic agents, which 
has been both effective and, more 
importantly, safe. 
It should be noted that etiologic 
agents encompass a broad cate- 
gory of organisms, cells, and vi- 
ruses which pose differing levels of 
risk. All etiologic agents by defini- 
tion are potentially infectious to 
humans; however, not all cause 
communicable disease and the 
risk for others is extremely small 
outside of special conditions. Spe- 
cial conditions required for infec- 
tion, not usually encountered dur- 
ing transport of cultures, include 
such factors as dosage, aerosoliza- 
tion, stage of development, and in 
some cases transmission by a vec- 
tor, e.g., mosquito or other biting 
insect. It must be emphasized that 
among the organisms considered 
to be etiologic agents are species 
which are part of the normal hu- 
man flora or environment. 
The biology of organisms 
which are etiologic agents and vi- 
ruses was considered by the Cen- 
ters for Disease Control (CDO of 
the Public Health Service (PHS) in 
developing the classification sys- 
tem currently used, which in- 
cludes appropriate packaging re- 
quirements to eliminate or 
minimise risk in the transport of 
these agents. The U.S. Postal 
Service’s proposed rule ignores the 
value of carefully considered dis- 
tinctions recognized as reliable by 
experts wi thin the field. The pro- 
posed regulation by the U.S. 
Postal Service may have been an 
overreaction to an undocumented, 
yet apparently perceived, problem 
with current regulations and prac- 
tices. 
Any change in, or additional 
laws or regulations on, the ship- 
ment of biological cultures and 
materials will have an impact of 
importance upon thousands of ac- 
ademic, medical, governmental, 
corporate, and scientific organiza- 
tions. The changes could result in 
major costs and thus have a signif- 
icant economic impact. 
To restrict the transport of cul- 
tures and biological material to 
VOL 54. NO. 12. 1988 
Recombinant DNA Research, Volume 13 
[405] 
