Abstract
Historically in the United States, occupational health and medical surveillance programs for biodefense laboratories that work with Biological Select Agents and Toxins (BSAT) or other infectious organisms are sponsored by the federal government (DoD, HHS, USDA, etc.) or state universities (Jahrling et al., 2009; Kortepeter et al., 2008; Risi et al., 2010). These programs are operated through the use of onsite occupational health clinics or local hospitals. The clinics employ occupational health nurses, infectious disease physicians, and other licensed medical health professionals who provide services to all employees at a laboratory facility. The National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC) at Fort Detrick, Maryland, is a Department of Homeland Security National Laboratory that is operated as a Federally Funded Research and Development Center by the Battelle National Biodefense Institute (BNBI), a private company. As such, the establishment and implementation of an occupational health and medical surveillance program proved to be challenging for BNBI and the Health and Safety Office in particular. This article documents all the constituent parts of a functional, effective, and responsive occupational health and medical surveillance program for a government-owned, contractor-operated biodefense laboratory, as well as how NBACC collaborates with other National Interagency Biodefense Campus (NIBC) partners in this effort. The partners of the National Interagency Confederation for Biological Research (NICBR) are: U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command; National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; National Cancer Institute, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service; Department of Homeland Security; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Naval Medical Research Center; and Food and Drug Administration.