[NHCOLL-L:5411] Re: [PERMIT-L] Sending specimens to China

[Doug Yanega]

Ellen Paul wrote:

>So let's start with this simple premise:
>
>The people to whom you are sending these items should be working as 
>hard at their end to avert problems as you are at your end. They are 
>responsible for knowing what the permit and biosafety requirements 
>are for their countries and for conveying that information to you. 
>You should always ask them to provide this information before you 
>ship.

One would hope so, but when the regulatory agencies themselves cannot 
agree on simple questions like "Do these rules apply to dried insect 
specimens?" then the situation devolves into a matter of the personal 
interpretation of each individual inspector who comes across a 
scientific shipment; some will understand that pinned insect 
specimens are not a biosafety hazard, others will not. Some will 
believe that insects are not *covered* by the regulations, others 
will think they *are*. There are plenty of regulations *on the books* 
that are not or cannot be treated as enforceable (or applicable in 
certain contexts), including a few I dare not mention in public 
because zealous enforcement could have serious repercussions. It's a 
serious question: if there is a one-in-a-thousand chance that a 
shipment you are expecting could be stopped and held up, even if the 
shipment is technically in the clear (based on interpretation of the 
regs), are we nonetheless expected to tell people NOT to ship us any 
specimens unless they fulfill all of the requirements, even if those 
requirements are inapplicable?

>I strongly suggest you NOT boycott all countries that apply 
>biosafety regulations to scientific specimens because guess what?

I was not suggesting we should, either.

>The United States does it. Canada does it. The European Union does 
>it. Pretty much every country wants to exclude pathogens that do not 
>already occur in their country. In the U.S. it is (for birds) - 
>"Exotic" Newcastle (we have three of the four forms here but not 
>Viscerotropic Velogenic Newcastle Disease) and HPAI H5N1. The USDA 
>has proposed to include all HPAIs on the excluded/restricted list; 
>the OC suggested that the science does not support this.

I have never heard of the US or Canada intercepting shipments of dead 
insects as biosafety violations. Some EU countries have, in fact, 
done so.

>For mammals it is Swine Vesicular Disease, Hoof-and-Mouth Disease, 
>rinderpest (which has been eradicated but I'm not sure if they have 
>lifted restrictions yet), Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis, African 
>Horse Fever, Classical Swine Fever, Contagious Equine Metritis, and 
>Classical Swine Fever.
>
>The CDC has authority over the pathogens that affect human health 
>(including African rodents, civets, small turtles, and non-human 
>primates).

If dead insects (or pickled fish, etc.) cannot carry these diseases, 
then why should such shipments require certification that they are 
disease-free? That makes more work for everyone, with no benefit.

>I think you have misconstrued my comments about the fees. No one is 
>doing this because it generates revenue. They are doing it because 
>they need to exclude these pathogens. That they allow you to bring 
>this stuff in at all is an exemption to a prohibition that applies 
>to everyone else. There is an express provision in the regulations 
>that says you can import it for scientific study under conditions 
>that they deem will prevent the introduction of harmful pathogens. 
>And that whole system depends on your getting permits, because that 
>is the manner in which they can assure themselves that the material 
>is handled appropriately.
>
>My point about the permit fees is that once they have a system of 
>permits, they need people to administer that system of permits and 
>those people are employees who have to be paid, who work in 
>buildings that have to be purchased or leased, lights that have to 
>be paid for, phones and computers that have to be paid for, etc. 
>Appropriations don't begin to cover the costs. U.S. law requires 
>that agencies charge user fees when they provide services to 
>recipients that are not provided to the general public 
>[<http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars_a025/>http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars_a025/].

If, say, 90% of all scientific material exchanged between 
institutions cannot possibly carry diseases, then these agencies 
could presumably cut down on their labor, paperwork (and maybe even 
staffing) by as much as 90% if they simply made things like pinned 
insects and pickled fish exempt from all these biosafety permitting 
requirements in the first place. It sounds like their costs are so 
high in part because they are trying to apply their regulations far 
too broadly.

>In the case of APHIS, user fees are also authorized by section 
>2509(c)(1) of the Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 
>1990, as amended (21 U.S.C. 136a). APHIS is authorized to establish 
>and collect fees that will cover the cost of providing import- and 
>export-related services for animals, animal products, birds, germ 
>plasm, organisms, and vectors. Since fiscal year (FY) 1992, APHIS 
>has received no directly appropriated funds to provide import- and 
>export related services for animals, animal products, birds, germ 
>plasm, organisms, and vectors. Their ability to provide these 
>services depends on user fees.
>
>So they have to charge fees by law and those fees, by design, are 
>supposed to defray the cost of providing the service. However, the 
>cost of providing the service outstrips the appropriated funds and 
>the revenue from fees. So they are reluctant to reduce the revenue 
>from fees by combining permits or issuing blanket permits.

Then why not exclude as much as possible from *requiring* permits? If 
they don't have to issue permits for dead arthropods, or fish, or 
mollusks, etc., then that reduces the costs of their services, right?

I do, honestly, understand the motivation and need for regulations 
like these, and would not dispute the *intent* of the law. But, at 
the same time, if the rules are written without careful attention to 
when and where they should and should not be applied, then there can 
be a severe disconnect between the *intent* of the law, and the 
*letter* of the law. Maybe, as an entomologist, I am overly sensitive 
to this sort of thing; after all, I've literally stood in the 
presence of a BLM ranger harrassing a colleague for collecting 5 
insect specimens along a roadside, and noticing that the grill on his 
jeep had over 30 dead insects visible on it (and every car driving 
past us, as well). In some cases, the rules are ambiguous, and it's 
like playing roulette as to whether you run afoul of someone who 
interprets them too strictly - in some cases, the rules are not 
ambiguous (and in your favor), but the agents responsible for their 
enforcement are actually unaware of those rules (as in the case of 
the BLM ranger above, who earned a reprimand when we contacted his 
superiors) - and the biggest problems are rules that are unambiguous 
and inappropriately broad. The work Andy Bentley has done regarding 
hazardous materials shipping regs has been exemplary in this regard, 
getting exemptions written into the laws that facilitate our 
scientific endeavors (a single vial containing 3 ml of 95% ethanol 
and a dead wasp is NOT hazardous); one would hope that these 
biosafety regulators would be open to similar changes to their rules, 
for the same reasons.

Sincerely,
-- 

Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314        skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/private/nhcoll-l/attachments/20110506/48a21469/attachment.html