Laboratories conducting research on lethal pathogens, often suitable for biological warfare, are springing up all over, according to a 2007 U.S. General Accounting Office report. Seattle already houses at least 10 such labs.

The exact number is unknown because the law does not require public notice. Operated by universities, private corporations and government, those laboratories are intended to develop defenses against bioterrorism, pandemics such as a humanly transmissible avian flu, incurable diseases such as ebola and new treatments for existing diseases.

Notwithstanding their laudatory purposes, the labs, which operate almost entirely without government regulation or public oversight, already have had scores of accidents.

In 2004 at the privately operated Seattle Infectious Disease Research Institute, three employees were infected with potentially lethal aerosolized tuberculosis. Apparently, a containment vessel had leaked.

In 2006 at Texas A&M University's bioresearch lab, a scientist was infected with brucella bacteria, which could cause serious heart and neurological damage. The lab had neglected to inform her that brucella required precautions in addition to those needed for work with other dangerous pathogens.

Three years ago, at Boston University's biolab, three researchers working with tularemia, a potentially fatal pathogen suitable for biological warfare, became infected.

Last fall, foot and mouth virus, which can devastate livestock herds, escaped from a U.S. laboratory in England. Several hundred cattle had to be killed as a precaution. The virus apparently escaped through faulty pipes. None of those accidents was made public by the lab operator.

The 2007 GAO report indicated that the public safety risk posed by the labs is growing. It further noted "these labs represent a capability that can be misused by terrorists or people with malicious intent." Clearly, continued self-regulation by the labs is simply high-tech Russian roulette.

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