The lab states their goal is to develop techniques to identify bioterrorist organisms and learn ways to counteract them. Critics are concerned about LANL's plan to expand the scope of biowarefare agents already at the lab. The rationale the lab gives for wanting to go further into biowarfare investigation is their scenario that if someone dropped anthrax into the air from a plane, it could be identified so people could then be vaccinated. Critic's question how enough detectors will be spread around the country in order to detect this possible toxin and how people will get vaccinated soon enough.
Some biowarfare agents kill within minutes.
If LANL plans to work with live strains of deadly organisms, the quality assurance must be incredibly tight. Critics point out that incidents and accidents occur frequently at the lab, therefore having a lack of faith that an accident won't happen. LANL states the building will not have windows and that they will control the air pressure so deadly bio-agents will not escape to the outside. However, LANL has the same criteria for plutonium, and with over 50 years of experience, they still emit plutonium into the air. Likewise, on a regular basis LANL emits tritium into the air.