In United States law, Select Agents are pathogens or biological toxin

Toxin

A toxin is a poisonous substance produced within living cells or organisms; man-made substances created by artificial processes are thus excluded...

s which have been declared by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to have the "potential to pose a severe threat to public health and safety". The Centers for Disease Control administers the Select Agent Program, which regulates the laboratories which may possess, use, or transfer select agents within the United States. The Select Agent Program was established to satisfy requirements of the USA PATRIOT Act

USA PATRIOT Act

The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of the U.S. Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001...

 and the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002

Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness Response Act

Signed into effect on 12 June 2002, the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness Response Act, was signed by the President, the Department of Health and Human Services DHHS and the U.S...

, which were enacted in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks

September 11, 2001 attacks

The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...

 and the subsequent 2001 anthrax attacks

2001 anthrax attacks

The 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States, also known as Amerithrax from its Federal Bureau of Investigation case name, occurred over the course of several weeks beginning on Tuesday, September 18, 2001, one week after the September 11 attacks. Letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to...

.

The active use of select agents in biomedical research prompts concerns about dual use

Dual-use technology

Dual-use is a term often used in politics and diplomacy to refer to technology which can be used for both peaceful and military aims. It often refers to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, but that of bioweapons is a major issue as well. The scientific reviews Dual-use is a term often used in...

. The federal government has created the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity

National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity

The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity is a panel of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. It is tasked with recommending policies on such questions as how to prevent published research in biotechnology from aiding terrorism, without slowing scientific progress...

, a critical component of a set of federal initiatives to promote biosecurity in life science research. This advisory board is composed of government, education and industry subject matter experts who provide policy recommendations on ways to minimize the possibility that knowledge and technologies emanating from vitally important biological research will be misused to threaten public health or national security.

HHS select agents and toxins

• Abrin
  Abrin
  Abrin is a toxalbumin that is found in the seeds of a plant called lucky bean, rosary pea or jequirity pea. Abrin is similar to but far more deadly than ricin, a toxin found in the seeds of the castor oil plant.-Physical Properties:...
  
  
• Botulinum neurotoxins
• Botulinum neurotoxin producing species of Clostridium
  Clostridium
  Clostridium is a genus of Gram-positive bacteria, belonging to the Firmicutes. They are obligate anaerobes capable of producing endospores. Individual cells are rod-shaped, which gives them their name, from the Greek kloster or spindle...
  
  
• Cercopithecine herpesvirus 1 (Herpes B virus)
• Clostridium perfringens
  Clostridium perfringens
  Clostridium perfringens is a Gram-positive, rod-shaped, anaerobic, spore-forming bacterium of the genus Clostridium. C. perfringens is ever present in nature and can be found as a normal component of decaying vegetation, marine sediment, the intestinal tract of humans and other vertebrates,...
  
   epsilon toxin
• Coccidioides posadasii
  Coccidioides posadasii
  Coccidioides posadasii is a pathogenic fungus that, along with Coccidioides immitis, is the causative agent of coccidioidomycosis in humans. It resides in the soil in certain parts of the Southwestern United States, northern Mexico, and certain other areas in the Americas.C. posadasii and C...
  
   / Coccidioides immitis
  Coccidioides immitis
  Coccidioides immitis is a pathogenic fungus that resides in the soil in certain parts of the southwestern United States, northern Mexico, and a few other areas in the Western Hemisphere....
  
  
• Conotoxin
  Conotoxin
  A conotoxin is one of a group of neurotoxic peptides isolated from the venom of the marine cone snail, genus Conus.Conotoxins, which are peptides consisting of 10 to 30 amino acid residues, typically have one or more disulfide bonds. Conotoxins have a variety of mechanisms of actions, most of...
  
  s
• Coxiella burnetii
  Coxiella burnetii
  Coxiella burnetii is an obligate intracellular bacterial pathogen, and is the causative agent of Q fever. The genus Coxiella is morphologically similar to Rickettsia, but with a variety of genetic and physiological differences. C...
  
  
• Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus
• Diacetoxyscirpenol
• Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus
  Eastern equine encephalitis virus
  Eastern equine encephalitis virus , commonly called sleeping sickness or Triple E, is a zoonotic alphavirus and arbovirus present in North, Central and South America and the Caribbean. EEE was first recognized in Massachusetts, USA in 1831 when 75 horses died of encephalitic illness...
  
  
• Ebola virus
  Ebola virus
  Ebola virus causes severe disease in humans and in nonhuman primates in the form of viral hemorrhagic fever. EBOV is a Select Agent, World Health Organization Risk Group 4 Pathogen , National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Category A Priority Pathogen,...
  
  
• Francisella tularensis
  Francisella tularensis
  Francisella tularensis is a pathogenic species of gram-negative bacteria and the causative agent of tularemia or rabbit fever. It is a facultative intracellular bacterium....
  
  
• Lassa fever virus
• Marburg virus
  Marburg virus
  Marburg virus disease is the name for the human disease caused by any of the two marburgviruses Marburg virus and Ravn virus...
  
  
• Monkeypox virus
  Monkeypox virus
  Monkeypox virus is the virus that causes the disease monkeypox in both humans and animals. It was first identified in 1958 as a pathogen of crab-eating macaque monkeys being used as laboratory animals. The crab-eating macaque is often used for neurological experiments...
  
  
• Reconstructed replication competent forms of the 1918 flu pandemic containing any portion of the coding regions of all eight gene segments (reconstructed 1918 influenza virus)
• Ricin
  Ricin
  Ricin , from the castor oil plant Ricinus communis, is a highly toxic, naturally occurring protein. A dose as small as a few grains of salt can kill an adult. The LD50 of ricin is around 22 micrograms per kilogram Ricin , from the castor oil plant Ricinus communis, is a highly toxic, naturally...
  
  
• Rickettsia prowazekii
  Rickettsia prowazekii
  Rickettsia prowazekii is a species of gram negative, Alpha Proteobacteria, obligate intracellular parasitic, aerobic bacteria that is the etiologic agent of epidemic typhus, transmitted in the feces of lice. In North America, the main reservoir for R. prowazekii is the flying squirrel. R...
  
  
• Rickettsia rickettsii
  Rickettsia rickettsii
  Rickettsia rickettsii is a unicellular, gram-negative coccobacillus that is native to the New World. It belongs to the spotted fever group of Rickettsia and is most commonly known as the causative agent of Rocky Mountain spotted fever . By nature, R...
  
  
• Saxitoxin
  Saxitoxin
  Saxitoxin is a neurotoxin naturally produced by certain species of marine dinoflagellates and cyanobacteria Saxitoxin (STX) is a neurotoxin naturally produced by certain species of marine dinoflagellates (Alexandrium sp., Gymnodinium sp., Pyrodinium sp.) and cyanobacteria Saxitoxin (STX) is a...
  
  
• Shiga-like ribosome inactivating proteins
• Shigatoxin
• South American haemorrhagic fever viruses
  • Flexal
  • Guanarito
  • Junin
    Junin virus
    -Morphology and genome structure:The Junin virus virion is enveloped with a variable diameter of between 50 and 300 nm. The surface of the particle encompasses a layer of T-shaped glycoprotein extensions, extending up to 10 nm from the envelope, which are important for mediating...
    
    
  • Machupo
  • Sabia

• Staphylococcal enterotoxins
• T-2 toxin
• Tetrodotoxin
  Tetrodotoxin
  Tetrodotoxin, also known as "tetrodox" and frequently abbreviated as TTX, sometimes colloquially referred to as "zombie powder" by those who practice Vodou, is a potent neurotoxin with no known antidote. There have been successful tests of a possible antidote in mice, but further tests must be...
  
  
• Tick-borne encephalitis complex (flavi) viruses

Central European tick-borne encephalitis
Far Eastern tick-borne encephalitis
Kyasanur Forest disease
Omsk hemorrhagic Fever
Russian spring and summer encephalitis

• Variola major virus (smallpox virus)
• Variola minor virus (Alastrim)
• Yersinia pestis
  Yersinia pestis
  Yersinia pestis is a Gram-negative rod-shaped bacterium. It is a facultative anaerobe that can infect humans and other animals....
  
  

Overlap select agents and toxins

Bacillus anthracis

Brucella abortus

Brucella melitensis

Brucella suis

Burkholderia mallei (formerly Pseudomonas mallei)

Burkholderia pseudomallei (formerly Pseudomonas pseudomallei)

Hendra virus

Nipah virus

Rift Valley fever virus

Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus

USDA select agents and toxins

African horse sickness virus

African swine fever virus

Akabane virus

Avian influenza virus (highly pathogenic)

Bluetongue virus (exotic)

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy agent

Camel pox virus

Classical swine fever virus

Ehrlichia ruminantium (Heartwater)

Foot-and-mouth disease virus

Goat pox virus

Japanese encephalitis virus

Lumpy skin disease virus

Malignant catarrhal fever virus
(Alcelaphine herpesvirus type 1)

Menangle virus

Mycoplasma capricolum subspecies capripneumoniae
(contagious caprine pleuropneumonia)

Mycoplasma mycoides subspecies mycoides small colony (Mmm SC) (contagious bovine pleuropneumonia)

Peste des petits ruminants virus

Rinderpest virus

Sheep pox virus

Swine vesicular disease virus

Vesicular stomatitis virus (exotic): Indiana subtypes
VSV-IN2, VSV-IN3

Virulent Newcastle disease virus 1

USDA plant protection and quarantine (PPQ) select agents and toxins

Peronosclerospora philippinensis (Peronosclerospora
sacchari)

Phoma glycinicola (formerly Pyrenochaeta glycines)

Ralstonia solanacearum race 3, biovar 2

Rathayibacter toxicus

Sclerophthora rayssiae var zeae

Synchytrium endobioticum

Xanthomonas oryzae

Xylella fastidiosa (citrus variegated chlorosis strain)

External links

• The CDC's Select Agent Program
• list of select agents, www.selectagents.gov
• A list of select agents (PDF format)
• NSABB: http://www.biosecurityboard.gov/