In a recent interview, Carroll defended his book.
"I'm no scientist, and this isn't a textbook," said Carroll during an interview. He maintained that the point of the book was to expose the potential hazards of a poorly run institution; he has nothing against better-run, more secure institutions such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The best offense is a good defense," he said. "You have to know how things interact, germs, bacteria, etc. You [just] don't need to create millions of them to know how to create them and make them more virulent.
"I don't want to shut it down," he added. "I just don't want it to continue as it currently is."
However, Carroll, an attorney, admitted to The Associated Press that he has no direct evidence of his book's horrific tales, just years of research. "Every investigation is about connecting the dots," he said.
Others disagree with his stories.
"I personally just don't think that has any merit," David Weld, the executive director of the American Lyme Disease Foundation, told the AP.
And Maureen McCarthy, an official of the Department of Homeland Security -- which now oversees the lab -- told the AP, "I guess my first impression is you can't judge a book by its cover."
Plum Island's history can provoke concern. When it was founded, after just after World War II, the lab was a research center for biological warfare.
The U.S. Army and the Department of Agriculture, in particular, were instrumental in the design and building of Lab 257 and its companion, Lab 101, on the island. Like other government scientific facilities, it's had an aura of mystery: Plum Island earns a mention in "The Silence of the Lambs," and thriller writer Nelson DeMille set a novel there.
The Army later handed over control of the facility to the USDA.
