Column: Congress isn't qualified to investigate CDC

A recent air leak from a laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta is a very serious security breach that has the potential to harm both employees and the public. These labs study dangerous pathogens, such as influenza, tuberculosis and rabies.

But fear not, Americans: Congress has assembled a team mostly of lawyers to solve this leak problem, which was first reported by this newspaper.

Sadly, that is not an exaggeration. The 54-member House Committee on Energy and Commerce has requested documents from the CDC about the incident. Though the committee does have four medical doctors, not a single member is a scientist. Instead, the panel is stacked with 19 lawyers.

One of the precious few members of Congress who is actually qualified to discuss infectious disease — former microbiologist and public health expert Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y. — doesn't serve on the committee.

Where's the expertise?

Are we really supposed to believe that this House committee is in any position to perform a productive, scientifically rigorous investigation? Of course not.

If Congress wants to demonstrate that it is serious about investigating this issue, it should allow the CDC to continue, unhindered, with its own investigation. If that is unacceptable due to a potential conflict of interest, then Congress should appoint an independent commission of microbiologists, public health officials, biosafety experts and engineers. Such a team would have the expertise to determine what, if anything, is going wrong at the CDC.

The last thing we want is for Congress itself to get directly involved. Unfortunately, given its long history of sticking its nose where it doesn't belong, Congress will also likely be involved. And congressional investigations often do not serve the public well.

How many times have we seen committee members engage in political grandstanding, partisan bickering and feckless finger-pointing? Doubtless, there will be attempts to connect the possible failures at the CDC with the Obama or Bush administrations. Crocodile tears will be shed over inadequate funding. In other words, members will do what they typically do during congressional investigations: Use the opportunity to get free face time on national television for the upcoming campaign season.

A serious concern

But unlike the Roger Clemens steroid scandal — another issue Congress chose to investigate — this topic is actually important. And it should be treated that way.

Indeed, if the claim is true that there are longstanding, systemic problems with biosafety at the CDC, then we simply do not have time to watch the kabuki dance that has become so typical of congressional investigations. Moreover, we don't have time to listen to politicians ramble on about bioterrorism. The pertinent issue before us is the safety of public health research laboratories and not politics, money or the war on terrorism.

Only a CDC-led investigation or an independent commission of experts will be focused enough to understand this.

Given that the current makeup of Congress has demonstrated an inability to understand even basic science, such as vaccines and genetic modification, our fear should be that its involvement would mean possibly several months of professional politicians — most of whom probably don't know the difference between a bacterium and a virus — lecturing lifelong scientists and public health officials on how to run a microbiology laboratory.

That would not be an enlightening experience for any of us.