Dallas Morning News, July 28, 2007 COLLEGE STATION, Texas - At least one Texas A&M University lab employee exposed to a dangerous infectious agent last year didn't have federal approval to work with it, according to records reviewed by The Dallas Morning News. And other high-level experiments were conducted in a lab not authorized for them, the records show. The revelations are the latest in a mounting scientific scandal at A&M, stemming from the university's failure to report to the federal government one illness and several other cases of workers being exposed to "select agents." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has so far suspended the federally funded biodefense program's prize research and jeopardized its future.  A&M has received the bulk of the scrutiny; 19 federal investigators left College Station on Thursday, after four days examining a Brucella infection and several Q-fever exposures in campus labs. But it's not the only Texas university with biological security breaches. Personal injury and occupational safety reports at the six state universities conducting lab-based biodefense research show just a handful of infections by select agents, such as anthrax and smallpox, over the last five years. Even with 350 facilities nationwide authorized to use select agents, CDC officials have learned of just 15 select agent exposure incidents since 2006. Among the cases reviewed by The News: An employee at the University of Texas Medical Branch pricked herself with a needle used to treat an anthrax-infected mouse in July 2006. The employee took antibiotics and did not got sick. "They're very rare - and most of them aren't even the kinds of exposure we're required to report," said Dr. Stanley Lemon, who directs the federally funded Galveston National Laboratory at the UT Medical Branch. "When they happen, we take them very seriously. ... The biggest hazard in a laboratory like these is to the lab worker, and it's being stuck by a needle. We work extremely hard to make the environment as safe as possible for these individuals."