Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface company Neuralink is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Transportation for allegedly packaging and transporting contaminated hardware in an unsafe manner, a DOT spokesperson confirmed to CNBC.
In a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg Thursday, the animal-welfare group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine said it obtained public records that suggest Neuralink could have mishandled devices carrying infectious pathogens that posed risks to human health in 2019.
The devices were faraway from the brains of nonhuman primates and could have been contaminated with viruses like Herpes B and antibiotic-resistant bacteria like Staphylococcus and Klebsiella, in accordance with the letter. PCRM claimed the materials weren’t properly contained or transported, possibly because Neuralink employees had not received proper safety training.
A DOT spokesperson told CNBC it’s “standard practice” to research alleged violations of hazardous materials transportation regulations. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, a part of the DOT, is conducting a “standard investigation to make sure compliance and the general public safety of staff and the general public” based on the data it received from PCRM, the spokesperson said.
Representatives from Neuralink didn’t reply to requests for comment.
Neuralink is one in all many corporations within the emerging brain-computer interface, or BCI, industry. A BCI is a system that deciphers brain signals and translates them into commands for external technologies, allowing patients to maneuver cursors, type and even access smart home devices using only their minds. Several corporations have successfully created devices with these capabilities.
Musk, who can also be CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter, co-founded Neuralink in 2016 with a bunch of scientists and engineers. The corporate is developing a BCI that’s designed to be inserted directly into the brain tissue, and while it is just not testing its device in humans yet, Musk has said he hopes to accomplish that this 12 months.
The general public records obtained by PCRM, which were reviewed by CNBC, include emails exchanged between Neuralink and the University of California, Davis. The university partnered with Neuralink between 2017 and 2020 to assist the corporate conduct experiments on primates.
In a single exchange in March of 2019, a UC Davis staffer, whose name is redacted, wrote in an email that hardware had been handled incorrectly, and the transportation of hazardous materials needed to be performed by a trained hazardous material handler.
The staffer wrote that if Neuralink employees had not accomplished the crucial training, UC Davis personnel were “all the time blissful” to package and ship materials.
“Because the hardware components of the explanted neural device are usually not sealed and it was not disinfected prior to leaving the Primate Center, this presents a hazard for anyone potentially coming in touch with the device,” the UC Davis staffer said in the e-mail. “Simply labeling it ‘hazardous’ doesn’t account for the chance of doubtless contracting Herpes B.”
In one other instance in April of 2019, a UC Davis staffer, whose name is redacted, wrote in an email that three explanted devices had arrived in an “open box with no secondary container.” The staffer noted that the uncontained, monkey-contaminated hardware put members of the Primate Center in danger.
“That is an exposure to anyone coming in touch with the contaminated explanted hardware and we’re making a giant deal about this because we’re concerned for human safety,” the staffer said in the e-mail.
PCRM obtained these records from UC Davis through a public information request. Since Neuralink is a personal company, it is just not subject to public records laws. Representatives from UC Davis didn’t reply to requests for comment.
PCRM opposes the usage of animal testing in medical research, and the group has raised concerns about Neuralink before. In February 2022, the group filed a criticism with the U.S. Department of Agriculture alleging that Neuralink had violated the Animal Welfare Act during its partnership with UC Davis. The criticism was referred to the USDA Inspector General, who has allegedly launched a federal probe into the corporate, in accordance with a Reuters report.
The advocacy group also asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December to research Neuralink for possibly violating good laboratory practices.
Representatives from the USDA and FDA didn’t reply to requests for comment.
Ryan Merkley, director of research advocacy at PCRM, said the newest investigation by the DOT suggests Neuralink has been “sloppy in a complete recent way,” he told CNBC. He said there is no such thing as a evidence that anyone was infected due to exposure to the hardware, but that the concerned tone of UC Davis personnel within the emails “reflects the seriousness of this potential pathogen leak.”
“This can be a whole other thing that obviously affects not only the animals involved, however the people working at Neuralink, the people working at UC Davis and everybody they got here in touch with,” he said.