GoKawiilTwo scientists at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, have been charged in connection with biological material they brought into the United States from abroad.Credit: PBH Images/Alamy
Two virologists at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) are facing charges related to the alleged smuggling of non-infectious monkeypox virus (MPXV) and other biological samples into the United States, in a case that has become a flashpoint for legal and political concerns around biosecurity.
The charges centre on samples that NIH scientists Vincent Munster and Claude Kwe were carrying when they arrived in Detroit, Michigan, in January after doing research in the Republic of the Congo. Samples tested by the US Federal Bureau of Investigations as of 29 May contained MPXV DNA, according to a criminal complaint, but none were infectious. Such samples do not require an import permit but must be declared to federal officials.
Arrests of scientists over smuggled samples add to US border anxiety
According to the complaint, which was brought by the US Department of Justice, Munster and Kwe allegedly failed to declare the samples and then lied to officials about them. Both scientists have pleaded not guilty. Benton Martin, a federal community defender representing Kwe, who had his initial hearing last month, said that his client “is presumed innocent and we will await future proceedings before commenting further”. An attorney for Munster, who is scheduled to appear at an initial hearing 22 July, did not respond to a request for comment.
The case is the latest in a string of prosecutions of researchers for smuggling biological samples. It has brought additional scrutiny to Munster and Kwe’s workplace, the NIH’s Rocky Mountain Lab (RML), in Hamilton, Montana, and to the import of pathogens for study. The RML declined to comment, and a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH, declined to provide additional comment because the case is ongoing.
Members of Congress have sought an investigation of the lab and introduced legislation to impose severe sentences for smuggling biological agents. “Illegally smuggling dangerous viruses into our country threatens the health and safety of all Americans,” Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, said in a statement.
Monkeypox virus (green, artificially coloured) causes the disease mpox.Credit: NIAID/National Institutes of Health/Science Photo Library
Some scientists have defended the pair, and argue they did nothing dangerous.
Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, noted that inactivating viruses with potent chemicals is a reliable way to render them inert. “You could drink them and not get infected,” she wrote in a blog post.
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