Facing a Security Deadline, Labs Get a 'Provisional' Pass.

When the U.S. government wheeled out an aggressive timetable for implementing a new antibioterrorism law last year, research lobbyists warned that it couldn't be done. Over the past half-year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been choking on thousands of newly required security checks for researchers, by early this week, not a single laboratory had received the official go-ahead that the rules required by November 12, 2003. As a research shutdown loomed, the government announced on Monday that researchers can continue working without a background check, for now, as long as they have submitted the appropriate paperwork. Under the current interpretation of the law, all laboratories possessing or working with select agents had to submit comprehensive security, training, and record-keeping plans in order to be registered by either the Department of Health and Human Services or the U.S. Department of Agriculture.