Rocky Mountain Labs Had Safety Breach With Deadly Foreign Pathogen In November, WCWP Reveals

Rocky Mountain Lab isolated and monitored an employee they believed was potentially exposed to the highly pathogenic disease Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), as reported by Greg Piper for Just The News, after the White Coat Waste Project (WCWP) uncovered a “biological incident” on 11/13/25. Piper reported that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told him on Wednesday night that the incident was related to a potential exposure to CCHF, and that it was later confirmed that no actual exposure occurred. HHS told Piper that there was an “accidental breach of personal protective equipment.”

The HighWire reported in November that the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in Manhattan, Kansas, has partnered with Texas Tech and UC Davis to breed tick colonies for the study of CCHF, a pathogen that has never been detected on US soil and has a 30% mortality rate. In 2023, the NBAF relocated to Kansas from Plum Island, which is the facility that was studying Lyme disease near the original outbreak.

FDA Commissioner Marty Makary recently said, “I can tell you with a high degree of probability [Lyme disease] came from lab 257 on Plum Island just outside of Connecticut, just 25 miles from Lyme, Connecticut, where the first case was described.” Makary referenced the book Bitten, written by Kris Newby, who detailed the tick research that was being conducted by Dr. Willy Burgdorfer, who believed ticks could be used as bioweapons.

While HHS has told Piper that the November “biological incident” was not an actual case of transmission or exposure, the incident raises alarms amongst researchers who have been calling for biosafety and an end to research on dangerous pathogens that are not an immediate threat.

The HighWire revealed 22 bat studies that were being funded by US tax dollars at Colorado State University in May 2024, which were uncovered by a WCWP investigation. Biosafety Now co-founder Bryce Nickels told The HighWire at the time that it’s hard to separate virology from military and that studying many BSL-3 and BSL-4 pathogens is only for the purpose of bioweapons research. However, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) entered into force in 1975, which “effectively prohibits the development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use of biological and toxin weapons.”

Aside from the concern that tax dollars are funding experiments that biosafety experts say are effectively bioweapons research, there is a reality of lab leaks that is not zero. The HighWire also reported on a wild boar infected with African Swine Flu (ASF) in Spain, near a USDA-partnered high-containment facility studying the same strain.

In addition, federal intelligence agencies believe patient zero for the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan was infected from a strain that likely leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in research that was funded by the United States. In that case, it was denied by Dr. Anthony Fauci that gain-of-function research was being conducted in the laboratory, a claim that Senator Rand Paul has opposed vehemently.

NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya has been in charge of the agency that is responsible for ending GoF research, but has been criticized for his support of Jeffery Taubenberger as acting NIAID Director. Taubenberger dismissed the COVID-19 lab leak theory and was involved in GoF research to reconstitute the 1918 Spanish Flu. That experiment of Taubenberger’s is something Bhattacharya said was “really cool.”

Richard Ebright, Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University, posted evidence on X that biosafety committees for BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs have “ceased functioning” as four straight meetings from June through November were cancelled. Ebright said this reflects “inattention by the NIH Director and inattention or worse by the Acting NIAID Director (Taubenberger) and OSP.”

RML, where the CCHF incident occurred in November, was also conducting GoF experiments until June 2025, when they were paused as part of President Trump’s executive order. They conducted GoF experiments on hantaviruses, bunyaviruses, and livestock-adapted chronic wasting disease.

“For years, White Coat Waste has been leading a campaign to expose and defund NIH and RML’s dangerous CCHF experiments on primates and other animals,” said Justin Goodman, Senior Vice President of Advocacy and Public Policy for WCWP. “CCHF is a foreign virus that causes massive bleeding, multi-organ failure, and has a kill rate as high as 40 percent.”

“NIH recklessly importing CCHF to the US for dangerous animal experiments is an accident waiting to happen – and one just did,” Goodman continued. “Through our investigations and lawsuits, we’ve exposed photos and other disturbing and devastating evidence of RML’s deadly CCHF experiments on animals, including primates from Fauci’s Monkey Island. Unfortunately, the NIH’s “animal testing czar,” Deputy Director Nicole Kleinstreuer, has allowed this madness to continue. RFK’s recent pledge to end primate testing should start at the Rocky Mountain Lab before another NIH-funded lab sparks another pandemic.”

Ebright also criticized Director Bhattacharya for not mandating that IBC minutes and DURC-IRE minutes be shared so local communities can prepare for potential breaches when dangerous foreign pathogens are studied nearby. “This highest-risk research is the research of highest concern to local government first responders (who must equip and train to deal with its accidents), federal policy makers, and the public. But it is precisely the research for which NIH shares no information,” Ebright wrote on X.

Alison Young, Author of Pandora’s Gamble: Lab Leaks, Pandemics, and a World at Risk, said lab leaks occur more frequently than the public knows, and there are hundreds of safety breaches every year at labs that conduct experiments on dangerous pathogens. She added that the humans who conduct the experiments are not infallible, so they make mistakes and sometimes cut corners. Young wrote, “The public rarely learns about these incidents, which tend to be shrouded in secrecy by labs and the government officials whose agencies often both fund and oversee the research.”