Blanket Waiver

A new Defense Science Board report released this week makes mention of three relatively little-known Defense Department biodefense labs operated in conjunction with foreign governments. They are the US Army Medical Component of the Armed Forces Research Institute of the Medical Sciences (AFRIMS) in Bangkok, Thailand; the Naval Medical Research Center Detachment (NMRCD) in Lima, Peru; and the Naval Medical Research Unit Three (NAMRU-3) in Cairo, Egypt.

"These laboratories outside the continental United States (OCONUS) play an important strategic role by developing effective medical countermeasures for protection against naturally occurring infectious diseases in their endemic regions and for surveillance of naturally occurring pathogens such as the avian influenza," the report states.

Problem is, according to the report, that clearing foreign scientists to work in these labs is difficult because the traditional U.S. background screening procedures cannot be applied so far away from Washington.

Panelists believe a "blanket waiver" allowing the use of State Department background investigations, conducted by the requisite U.S. embassies, would satisfy security requirements and improve collaboration.

Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, dropped by the Cairo lab recently during a Middle East trip. According to an April 21 DOD news release covering the visit, the lab's workforce consists of 22 Navy and Army personnel and 11 career civilians, who work alongside 152 Egyptian scientists and 97 contractors.