Excerpt

In October of 2011, NIH (National Institutes of Health) provided a 1700 page "90 percent" draft of the revised risk assessment (RA) for the NEIDL (National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories) to the NRC (National Research Council) Committee for its review. (This is the penultimate draft of the document before it is released for public comment.) The Committee met in closed session on November 1, 2011 to compile its questions and comments for a discussion with the (NIH) Blue Ribbon Panel and the NIH contractor team the following day, November 2. This letter report contains the NRC Committee's written comments in response to that November 2 meeting.

Contents

• Letter from the National Academies to Dr. Francis Collins
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION
  • Statement of Task for This Letter Report
• COMMITTEE RESPONSE TO THE NOVEMBER 2, 2011 MEETING
  • General comments
  • Chapter 1: Introduction
  • Chapter 2 and Appendices A and B: Facility Design, Operation, and Site Descriptions
  • Chapter 3 and Appendix C: Pathogen Characteristics
  • Chapter 4 and Appendices D, E, and F: Event Sequence Analysis
  • Chapter 5: Transportation and Appendix G
  • Chapter 6: Threat Assessment
  • Chapter 7 and Appendix H: Environmental Persistence
  • Chapter 8 and Appendices I, J, and K: Health Effects Following Exposure
  • Chapter 9 and Appendix L: Secondary Transmission
  • Chapter 10 and Appendix M: Environmental Justice
  • Chapter 11: Risk Characterization
• SUMMARY
• Attachment A Committee Roster and Biographies
• Attachment B List of Editorial Comments