Comment from Taylor Hunt

This comment is in response to the proposed rulemaking Foreign Quarantine; Etiological Agents, Hosts, and Vectors, Docket No. CDC-2011-0007, RIN 0920-AA37. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to revise the regulations that concern importing etiological agents and vectors into and around the United States is generally a very well thought out piece of legislation. After reading through the bulk of the proposed rulemaking a few times, it seemed to me the primary point is to protect the safety of the citizens of the United States from potentially harmful infectious material by making sure applicants for an importation permit for biological agents are up to par with their safety guidelines before they can even apply for a permit. In my opinion, this is an excellent idea. There should be no risk of potentially harmful material entering and circulating around the United States before the importer is within the compliance guidelines. Limiting laboratory-acquired infections is also something that needed to be included within the new regulation. Overall, this proposed rulemaking provides much clarification on what does and does not need to be done for obtaining a permit to transport hazardous agents into and across the United States. I do think there should be more initiative to make this a global program towards these types of regulations. If the entire world is able to install these types of regulations on hazardous biological material, it would make it much safer globally. However, an initiative of that magnitude I would imagine would be relatively expense to oversee.