THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

All 1500 or so in this country alone, have no real oversight or plan for what they are doing.

Spurred by the anthrax attacks in the United States in 2001, an increase in “high-level containment” labs set up to work with risky microbes has raised the number to about 1,500 from a little more than 400 in 2004, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Yet there has never been a national plan for how many of them are needed, or how they should be built and operated. The more of these labs there are, the G.A.O. warned Congress last week, the greater the chances of dangerous blunders or sabotage, especially in a field where oversight is “fragmented and largely self-policing.”

As the labs have multiplied, so have mishaps. According to a 2012 article by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of reported accidents involving microbes that can cause severe illnesses grew rapidly — from just 16 in 2004 to 128 in 2008 and 269 in 2010, the last year reported. Many of the accidents involved leaks, spills or other releases of infectious material inside the laboratories, potentially infecting workers and often requiring extensive decontamination.

Another report, by the Department of Homeland Security in 2008, provided a rare glimpse into the types of accidents that have occurred at high-level labs around the country, often at universities.

Lab workers at different sites accidentally jabbed themselves with needles contaminated by anthrax or West Nile virus. An air-cleaning system meant to filter dangerous microbes out of a lab failed, but no one knew because the alarms had been turned off. A batch of West Nile virus, improperly packed in dry ice, burst open at a Federal Express shipping center. Mice infected with bubonic plague or Q fever went missing. And workers exposed to Q fever, brucellosis or tuberculosis did not realize it until they either became ill or blood tests detected the exposure.

The good news is that relatively few lab workers have become ill from accidental exposures: only 11 from 2004 to 2010, according to the C.D.C. report. None died, and none infected other people.

So far real life has not imitated the movies, yet. But the people involved have no confidence in that staying true forever or even much longer. But don't expect Congress to do anything. With the government infested with Teabaggers who believe your health and safety should be the responsibility of the free hand of the marketplace, you better hope one of those fools doesn't bring Ebola back from his African junket.