That is the lead finding of a new Global Biolabs report, scheduled for publication next month, which builds on a worldwide database of the highest-security labs, called BSL-4, first published in 2021. At the time, Lentzos says, “there were lots of open questions,” and she and Koblentz were inundated with questions from journalists and policymakers: “So how many labs are there? Where do I get the list? And of course, there isn’t a list. There’s no official international list of these labs. There’s no international oversight body.” They found themselves referring journalists to Wikipedia, which they agreed was “pathetic.”
When they first compiled their database, in May of 2021, there were 59 BSL-4 labs operating or under construction throughout the world. In the update to be published next month, less than a year later, that number will have grown to 69, thanks mostly to announcements of new planned labs. The number passed only 10 just before the turn of the millennium; it has more than doubled since 2010.
As Koblentz and Lentzos point out, not all of these labs are especially concerning from a safety perspective, nor is the fact that there are more of them being built. Many are quite small and perform relatively rote diagnostic work at hospitals or universities. Size and safety level are also not necessarily indicative of risks, they say: There isn’t anything necessarily worrying about a BSL-4 processing blood tests for Ebola, and you can do potentially dangerous work at BSL-3 and BSL-2 labs, as well, if you’re working with relatively benign pathogens that could grow significantly more transmissible or deadly in the lab.
Given the value of new knowledge about viruses, Koblentz and Lentzos are careful to describe themselves not as anti-science but pro-research, and even supportive of some potentially risky research, assuming the proper oversight is in place and the cost-benefit calculation was made thoughtfully. “But there are very clear risks that come out of these labs, and we’re building more globally and in places that don’t have as good oversight as there is in the places where these labs have traditionally been built,” Lentzos says. “The more pandemic research you do,” Koblentz adds, “it does potentially lead to more risks of an accident.”
How might we limit that potential? A single coherent national framework, for starters, in which all such research would be registered and subjected to oversight and approval based on careful evaluations of the risks and benefits. Ideally we’d also have global governance on the same model; automatic investigation of new outbreaks, with expectations of international cooperation, as Kane has called for; clearer guidance for “in-between” categories of laboratories sometimes called “BSL-3+”; new safety standards for research in the field, which is at present “almost completely unregulated,” Koblentz says; and a new culture of research practices, Lentzos suggests, emphasizing safety and transparency over risk-taking in the laboratory.