I am sorry, I have not worked in many countries. I have worked in the United States and Canada. In a very broad way, the approaches are similar in most western countries, and that is you have a stratification of the micro-organism in terms of the danger and the confinement level that needs to be approached. Over the years the definition of the laboratory confinement levels 2, 3, and 4 have been pretty much similar.
The classification of the organisms has been by and large similar, although there are differences between countries for some organisms. I could give you an example of some things that are level 2 in Canada and a level 3 in the United States, and vice versa, and arguably these things are properly called two and a half, I guess. But by and large, in terms of the general approach in the stratification of the organisms and the levels of confinement, there are a lot of similarities and I would say an evolution towards a consensus.
What we have seen in the United States in some examples is that sudden, very drastic regulations have appeared that have been very forcibly, and perhaps unreasonably, enforced. I'm proud to say this is not usually the Canadian way.
I think what's also very much clouding the issue is bioterrorism. There's been a concern. You have the issue of containing an outbreak of infectious disease. You have the issue that, for diagnostic laboratories and research laboratories, the handling of these cultures must be done in such a way that they do not pose a risk to the scientific staff and to the population at large. There are also a certain number of organisms that are felt--sometimes for good reason and sometimes for reasons that appear less convincing--to pose a threat of being used for bioterrorism. That's an additional level of concern that has been heightened over the past several years.