Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson on Tuesday joined lawmakers from his state in demanding that federal agencies account for recent lab safety incidents at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Johnson, alongside members of the state's House delegation, wrote to the leaders of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) seeking information on "possible exposure incidents involving gain-of-function research which appears to have been funded by HHS at a University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) lab led by virologist Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka."

They pointed to a 2013 exposure incident that CDC considered a "serious exposure" and cited a news article indicating that Dr. Kawaoka had told NIH officials that the university had a designated quarantine apartment but that the agency subsequently learned that was not the case. In a 2019 incident, a trainee at the school was exposed to H5N1 when that individual's respirator hose disconnected.

"The report of these two researchers’ potential exposure to a genetically engineered virus and alleged failures to adequately address said exposures raises questions about HHS’s oversight of biosafety incidents," they wrote. 

Johnson and company subsequently requested that HHS provide a complete list of biosafety incidents reported to the incident since 2013, as well as information pertaining to the University of Wisconsin incidents.

They further asked HHS to outline its reporting guidelines with respect to potential exposures, setting a deadline of May 19.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.