AR-News: Boston Weighs a Ban on Biodefense Studies

Fri Apr 30 22:07:04 EDT 2004

From: primfocus at waste.org

Science, Vol 304, Issue 5671, 665 , 30 April 2004
BIOSAFETY:
Boston Weighs a Ban on Biodefense Studies
Andrew Lawler
BOSTON--A deeply divided city council has asked for legal advice on whether
it can ban scientific research it deems dangerous to the community. The
target is a $178 million biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) facility funded by the
National Institutes of Health (NIH), to be built by Boston University (BU)
near the city center. Even lab opponents say they are unlikely to win an
outright ban, but a stormy 5-hour hearing on 20 April demonstrated that
scientists disagree sharply over the facility's value, community activists
are outraged, and BU is on the defensive.
NIH chose the university in October as one of two private sites for the
high-security labs, which will conduct research into infectious
agents--including those which might be used by terrorists. The other, in
Galveston, Texas, has encountered far less opposition.
BU officials insist that their lab, which is awaiting land-use and
environmental-impact reviews, will be a plum for the city. They note it will
be designed with advanced safety and security systems, bring in construction
jobs and high-tech positions, improve the public health, and cement Boston's
position as a leader in biological and biotech research. But opponents say
the dense urban site is a poor choice, given the expected traffic in deadly
materials. They also question whether BU will control all the research,
which they claim could include secret studies.
The battle over the lab's fate, which began last fall and is likely to rage
into the autumn, is turning heads even in a city known for the gusto of its
political brawls. On City Hall Plaza, protestors in white biohazard suits
carrying FedEx packages protested in the bright spring sunshine, while
nearby vendors sold the day's newspapers with a full-page ad paid for by BU
touting the lab's benefits. Inside, a city council member sharply accused
opponents of engaging in "scare tactics" while one onlooker's angry outburst
led to his ejection from the council chambers.
BU senior vice president Richard Towle testified that it was highly unlikely
any dangerous material could be released, because in more than 70 years of
total operating time, no U.S. BSL-4 lab has had a serious containment
failure. BU officials promise a series of impenetrable barriers: advanced
biometrics for personnel identification, layers of security, and thick
concrete walls. But neighbors are skeptical. "Nothing can be built" to work
as a perfect container, said Dolly Battle, who chairs Safety Net in the
nearby neighborhood of Roxbury.

Uncontained. Protestors outside Boston City Hall vigorously oppose
construction of an advanced biolab in their neighborhood.
CREDIT: ALTERNATIVES FOR COMMUNITY AND ENVIRONMENT

Towle said that NIH had recently given its assurance that BU will be fully
responsible for research done at the lab, adding that "there will be no
bioweapons and no classified research at this facility." But David Ozonoff,
a BU public health professor, told the council that BU will not have the
authority to determine what kinds of research can and cannot be done in the
lab. Although NIH does not do classified research, he noted, it does partner
with organizations that do, such as the U.S. Army, which might want to use
BU's facilities. And if classified research goes on at the lab, "federal law
will not permit them to disclose" that, Ozonoff added.
Opponents also charged that the lab will do more to threaten than promote
public health. Ozonoff, who first backed the new facility last year, has
changed his mind. The lab "is not likely to meet a public health need--and
it may make us less safe" by creating new biological agents that could be
used by terrorists, he told the council. He is not alone. More than 140
scientists, physicians, public health professionals, and academics wrote to
Boston Mayor Thomas Menino 13 April, arguing that the lab poses "real and
catastrophic risks to the health and safety of people in the local and
surrounding communities." Harvard Medical School cell biologist Daniel
Goodenough adds that the benefits are likely to be so meager, and the
threats so great, that "the biolab should not be built at all."
City council members held off consideration of an ordinance prohibiting
BSL-4 research but asked the corporation counsel to research legal
precedents for banning research. Four members present were highly critical
of the facility and likely would back such an ordinance. But council member
Maura Hennigan--who supports a research ban--told Science that she's not
optimistic it would pass, given that trade unions and Menino favor the lab.
"We may have case law on our side, but if [Menino] supports the project,
then I don't think the council will go against it." Opponents still could
throw up roadblocks before construction is due to begin in the first half of
2005. A draft environmental-impact statement will be released around June,
and the Boston Redevelopment Authority must issue permits, a process that
doesn't begin until fall.

Crystal Miller-Spiegel
Senior Policy Analyst
American Anti-Vivisection Society
801 Old York Road, #204
Jenkintown, PA  19046
phone 215.887.0816
fax 215.887.2088
email: cspiegel at aavs.org
web:
www.aavs.org
www.banpoundseizure.org
www.stopanimalpatents.org

the wild, cruel beast is not behind the bars of the cage. he is in front of it - axel munthe

"Never doubt that a small group of dedicated citizens can change the world. 
Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."      Margaret Mead
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