Washington

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has produced a report describing serious security weaknesses at 11 unnamed university laboratories that conduct research on deadly toxins and pathogens.

The report, which is dated March 25 but was posted on the Web site of the department's inspector general only last week, is based on reviews that were conducted during 2002 and 2003 but never made public. It was developed in response to requests from academics for information about the reviews.

The report cites lapses in physical security and record keeping at all 11 of the labs and inadequate information-technology controls at 5 of them. Such weaknesses could allow intruders to steal biological agents or to intercept sensitive information sent by e-mail, the inspectors concluded.

Lab security became a hot issue in late 2001, after letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to members of the news media and government officials, including the Senate's Democratic leader, Thomas A. Daschle of South Dakota. Experts suspect the anthrax came from a laboratory in the United States.

Since the reviews were conducted, however, universities have begun abiding by a new set of safety regulations issued by the Departments of Agriculture and of Health and Human Services. Those rules require the labs to register with the federal government, disclose their inventories of "select agents," and establish security plans. Select agents are identified in federal regulations as micro-organisms or infectious substances capable of posing a severe threat to public health and safety.

The 11 universities, which receive funds for bioterrorism research from the National Institutes of Health, say that they have since corrected many of the problems identified in the reviews were conducted, the document says.