The Sunshine Project, a Texas-based group that has monitored safety and oversight issues in research on bioterror agents, suspended operations on February 1, according to the group's Web site.

Ed Hammond, who heads the non-profit operation and whom I've spoken with a handful of times, has gained a reputation as something of a pitbull tearing on the pantleg of the US's growing biodefense research program. One of the group's main strategies has been simply to file one Freedom of Information Act after another requesting details from government agencies and universities on research on bioterrorist agents, and then publicizing the results - or lack thereof, when the sources refused to provide them.

Hammond wasn't immediately available when I phoned and Emailed him for more details, but the reason for the group's closing is lack of funds, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports. "The end of their operations would create a vacuum," Richard Ebright, a professor of microbiology at Rutgers University, told the Chronicle. "We'll go back to silence."

Last year, the Sunshine Project exposed several instances of biosafety lapses at labs around the US working with dangerous pathogens, prompting Congressional review. Hammond has also argued against the need for a new bio-agro defense facility.