House Committee Questions CDC on Capacity of Laboratory Response Network

The U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee recently requested that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provide information to the Committee about the capabilities of the CDC’s Laboratory Response Network (LRN). The LRN launched in 1999 to improve the public health laboratory system and its capability to respond to bioterrorism and other public health emergencies. The network includes more than 150 federal, state, local, military and international labs.

House Committee members emphasized the network’s responsibility for ensuring the U.S. has the technology and resources to “test suspicious materials” and promptly detect and respond to potential incidents of bioterrorism or other public health emergencies. Specifically, the committee wants to know how many labs in the U.S. can participate in such activities and the extent of their capabilities. The committee also asked about the number and type of assays that have been developed to facilitate response to such public health emergencies and the network’s ability to detect “emerging infectious diseases” such as Zika and Ebola—as well as the process for qualifying those assays for use in the LRN. Questions also addressed the Public Health Actionable Assay Program, the number of assays developed through the program and the roles of federal agencies in the program.