- "Human error or terrorist attacks might spread fatal
bioweapon diseases outside the lab was too great to accept."
-
- Hmmm. The university would be developing biological weapons?
-
- Eminent microbiologist, the late David Kelly in his last
public interview said, "The only difference between biological weapons
and defensive research is the intent."
-
- Why is the NIAD funding development of biological weapons?
-
- JR
-
- Sparks Fly On Boston Lab Plan
- By John Dudley Miller
- 5-4-4
-
- Plans to build a high-security bioterrorism research
laboratory at Boston University (BU) have split the local life sciences
research community, pitting hundreds of scientists against one another.
-
- Last September, the National Institutes of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases (NIAID) awarded about $120 million for BU to build
the $178 million lab in Roxbury, a poor, densely populated part of the
city's South End. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and Massachusetts Governor
Mitt Romney support the project, which awaits the completion of state and
federal environmental assessments and the approval of the Boston City Council.
-
- Penn Loh, executive director of Roxbury's Alternatives
for Community and Environment (ACE), told The Scientist the lab should
not be built in Roxbury, because the area is more densely populated than
that around any comparable US site already housing biosafety level 4 (BSL-4)
labs.
-
- A March report from the inspector general of the Department
of Health and Human Services concluded that lab security in US universities
is unsatisfactory, following on a September report by the US Department
of Agriculture with similar conclusions. Construction of bioterrorism research
labs has been a tough sell in other areas of the country as well.
-
- Opponents to the BU lab cite a December 2000 memo written
by NIAID's director of its division of intramural research stating that
one important reason why a lab for NIAID employees should be built in Hamilton,
Mont., was its sparsely populated location.
-
- On April 18, 146 Massachusetts university professors
sent a letter to the mayor and BU's trustees opposing the lab, claiming
that the risk that human error or terrorist attacks might spread fatal
bioweapon diseases outside the lab was too great to accept. Two days later,
the university took out full-page ads in the Boston Globe and the Boston
Herald, giving 10 reasons to support the lab and listing 330 supporting
scientists.
-
- Sheldon Krimsky of Tufts University has proposed that
an independent panel of scientists and citizens be appointed to examine
the scientific evidence and make a recommendation about building the lab.
He has served on two such panels in neighboring Cambridge in the past,
investigating the safety of DNA research in 1976 and examining the safety
of a proposed chemical warfare research facility in the mid 1980s. Both
worked extremely well, he said, the DNA panel allowing research with oversight
and the chemical panel rejecting the weapons lab as too dangerous. "Boston
should have brought together" such a group in this case, Krimsky told
The Scientist.
-
- Scientists who oppose building the lab have additional
concerns beyond the density of the population. Robert Lamb, of the University
of Chicago, said it is a bad idea to locate any high-level lab on a university
campus, because they typically won't invest as much money as federally
operated labs at places like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
do in running them. "Universities are always cutting corners afterwards
to save money, because they're always broke," he told The Scientist.
"It's complex and it's cumbersome, and you need a huge support staff."
-
- David Ozonoff, a public health professor at BU, said
he opposes the lab because it will steal from the public health research
agenda. "The bioterrorism initiative is like a cancer," he told
The Scientist. "It's hollowing out pubic health from within."
-
- Loh said BU officials have been unresponsive, not releasing
their NIAID proposal to opponents and city council members until mid April,
more than a year after ACE began asking for it. The lab's principal investigator,
associate provost Mark Klempner, told The Scientist that that BU had planned
to release the 1500-page document "within a few days of the notice
of the award" last September 30, but couldn't because of a Freedom
of Information Act request filed by ACE.
-
- It is unclear when the lab-building dispute will be resolved.
Three members of city council have introduced an ordinance that would ban
BSL-4 facilities citywide. According to Loh, the council should take up
and vote on the ordinance next fall, while the environmental reviews should
go through the summer and perhaps longer.
-
- Links for this article "NIAID funds construction
of biosafety facilities," National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases press release, September 30, 2003.
- http://www2.niaid.nih.gov/Newsroom/Releases/nblscorrect21.htm
-
- Alternatives for Community and Environment
- http://www.ace-ej.org
-
- Inspector General, Department of Health and Human Services,
Summary Report on Select Agent Security at Universities, March 25, 2004.
- http://oig.hhs.gov/oas/reports/region4/40402000.pdf
-
- M. Anderson, "USDA: lab security too lax,"
The Scientist, November 26, 2003.
- http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20031126/02/
-
- Adam Rankin, "Western BSL-3 labs face fight,"
The Scientist, February 18, 2004.
- http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040218/02/
-
- Director, Division of Intramural Research, National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Memo of December 2000, enclosure to
letter from Paul Marshall to James Miller, December 15, 2000.
- http://www.ace-ej.org/NIAIDmemoRMLsiting.pdf
-
- Sheldon Krimsky
- http://www.tufts.edu/~skrimsky/
-
- Robert A. Lamb
- http://www.biochem.northwestern.edu/ibis/faculty/lamb.htm
-
- David M. Ozonoff
- http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/webph/index.php?index_id=X6904
-
- Mark S. Klempner
- http://www.bumc.bu.edu/Departments/PageMain.asp?Page=5608&Depar
tmentID=348
-
-
- ©2004, The Scientist Inc. in association with BioMed
Central.
-
- http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20040505/02
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