- WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Opponents
of a Boston biodefense laboratory are not persuaded by assurances the lab
will be safe and they doubt officials at the university in charge of building
the facility really have the ability to control the work done there.
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- Set within the city limits at the Boston University Medical
Center, and surrounded by nearly 600,000 people in the greater metropolitan
area, the lab is one of the federal government's two new National Biocontainment
Laboratories. It will house a Biosafety Level 4 laboratory as well BSL-3
and BSL-2 labs with less strict containment. A BSL-4 lab, with seals and
a negative air flow to trap pathogens inside, is required for work with
the deadliest bacteria and viruses.
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- "The history of these laboratories is very safe.
In the nearly 80 years of combined operation of these Level-4 laboratories
in North America there's never been a community incident or environmental
release," said Ellen Berlin, a BUMC spokeswoman.
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- "Look at space shuttle. We had the best technology
in the world. (We had) safe guards in place, (but) accidents happen,"
said Tomas Aguilar, a spokesman for opposition group Alternatives for Community
& Environment. "Just think if these pathogens escape out into
the neighborhood. What then?"
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- Aguilar noted there was an elementary school within a
few blocks of the proposed site and a residential neighborhood nearby with
a mix of condos and housing projects.
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- ACE is not the only group worried about safety. The Boston
City Council held a hearing on the subject earlier this year and three
council members support legislation to ban the lab. They wrote in the legislation
"the protection of the health and safety of the residents ... is more
important than the economic development stimulus that could potentially
result from Boston University's receipt of the grant."
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- It was during a city council meeting on lab safety that
questions arose over whether Boston University would actually control the
facility and be able to say "no" to unwise projects.
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- "One of the things that the community here said
is, 'look, you can't make any promises,'" said an opponent of the
lab who asked not to be identified. "They're not going to necessarily
know what is going on or be able to run the building."
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- The problem is BU does not have a contract to operate
the lab, only a contract to build one. The National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Md., confirmed to United Press International
it will be a couple of years before the agency begins the process of contracting
for lab management.
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- The concern first arose during the bidding process for
the contracts. Potential bidders asked whether the National Institutes
of Health "would control 100 percent of the activity in the building."
Because NIAID is part of NIH, the lab would have to give its biodefense
work preferential treatment.
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- A letter to BU from NIAID still left unclear the who
will control the facility.
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- "Research to be conducted at the NBL will be at
the determination of BU in accordance with its respective existing research
review procedures (Biosafety, animal care) and consistent with the NIAID
Biodefense Research Agenda," said an April 26 letter from Rona Hirschberg,
the senior program officer. Whether the protocols would have any teeth,
or be simple lists of procedures, remains unresolved.
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- Dr. Mark Klempner, principal investigator at the new
lab, sought to stake the issue to the ground in an interview with UPI.
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- "We will own, operate (and) manage," he told
UPI. "All the research protocols -- including the people involved
in the research, the nature of the research, the purpose of it, the detail
of how the research will be conducted, the relative risk benefit, the ethics
of the research as it pertains to animals and humans -- will be reviewed
and subject to approval by the Boston University Medical Center Committee."
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- He also said review committees would have the right to
say no to research projects and would have people from the community as
members.
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- It reads well, but such a strong statement will be worth
little if NIAID, the chaps with the check book, disagree. Fortunately for
lab proponents NIAID seems more inclined towards the idea that control
should be local.
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- In response to a request from UPI, the agency sent the
following somewhat clearer statement on control at Boston University and
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston where the other national
biocontainment lab is located:
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- "Research to be conducted at the NBLs will be at
the determination of BU and UTMB in accordance with their respective existing
research review procedures (biosafety, animal care, etc.) and consistent
with the NIAID Biodefense Research Agenda."
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- This stronger statement, that research "will be
at the determination of BU," supports BU's assertion of control. If
this is the case, it also should support the university's other assurance
to Boston residents it will not conduct "classified" studies.
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- Classified research, though necessary in some instances,
raises issues on a campus like BUMC's.
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- First, it arguably can be seen as more dangerous -- otherwise
it should not be classified.
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- Second, even if a classified project is safe, average
people will not know that and the secrecy, in and of itself, raises anxiety.
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- There is a third, albeit less obvious, problem with classified
work: BUMC is a teaching facility and BU grad students could be working
on biodefense projects said Berlin. Classified research would change the
atmosphere of the campus, leaving some students on outside of the traditionally
open exchange of information. Grad students on classified projects could
find themselves cut off from publishing results, undermining their careers.
These are some of the key reasons the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
decided not to allow classified research projects on its campus.
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- NIAID officials said it does not do classified research
has no such plans. They left the door open, however, to change the policy,
saying "it is possible that in the future the criteria for what should
and should not be classified might change."
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- If NIAID changed its policy about classified research,
would the national labs -- in particular the one at BU -- have to follow
suit?
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- "Our position is very simple, Klempner said. "BUMC
does not support any secret or classified research and we have no plans
to do so." If BU officials really do make the decisions, then they
ought to be able to make the decision against conducting classified projects
stick.
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- Still, one must wonder what the reality would be in a
crisis. When anthrax letters began arriving in the fall of 2001, the federal
government tossed out the normal negotiating procedures and pushed the
manufacturer of the antibiotic Cipro into a special deal. State laws covering
outbreaks of disease permit extraordinary actions, such as quarantine under
armed guard.
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- Who knows what would happen if there were another bioterrorism
attack? One hopes local control is never put to the test.
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- Copyright 2004 by United Press International. All rights
reserved.
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