Boston’s Roxbury/South End area is home to an unopened laboratory that was scheduled to house a biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) facility called the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory (NEIDL). Although the building is finished, the lab remains unopened, and controversy over its plans remain strong.
Opposition has been ongoing since Boston University was awarded a $128 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2003. The building was set to be one of two high and maximum containment laboratories for pathogenetic research. Research would be conducted on the world’s most deadly know infections, including the Ebola virus and bacteria like shigella (the plague).
A report recently published by the National Research Council has rekindled the debate questioning the methodology of risk assessment by the contractor, Tetra Tech.
The National Research Council at the request of the NIH was asked to analyze the public risk associated with the operation of the laboratory. In a cover letter on the report of its findings the NRC said, “These analyses do not, so far, represent a thorough assessment of the public health concerns raised by the committee in its previous reports.”
In a recent discussion at Boston University, David Ozonoff professor of Environmental Health at the university, said that at first he was for the bio lab as he thought it wasn’t such a bad idea to study the infections. After meeting with colleagues in the field however, he changed his mind because he realized that the bio lab, “was not about public health and was deeply entrenched in the biodefense enterprise.”
Ozonoff added that diseases like anthrax and the plague don’t exist in the United States. In fact there have only been five anthrax cases in the United States and they have come from one of the bio defense research laboratories.
Public concern is that many of these pathogens are airborne. It is estimated that there are approximately 25,000 people that live within one mile of the proposed site, and the location would be the only BSL-4 facility located in an urban city.
The Boston facility is not the first to raise controversy. Oklahoma State University shut down a biosafety level 3 facility also funded by a federal grant from the NIH. The facility conducted research on anthrax vaccines and treatments on baboons.
According to Ozonoff, a group of 758 microbiologists “looked at the biodefense initiative and we’re very concerned.” He said, “This lab is going to make us less safe, not more safe.”
Opposition has been ongoing since Boston University was awarded a $128 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2003. The building was set to be one of two high and maximum containment laboratories for pathogenetic research. Research would be conducted on the world’s most deadly know infections, including the Ebola virus and bacteria like shigella (the plague).
A report recently published by the National Research Council has rekindled the debate questioning the methodology of risk assessment by the contractor, Tetra Tech.
The National Research Council at the request of the NIH was asked to analyze the public risk associated with the operation of the laboratory. In a cover letter on the report of its findings the NRC said, “These analyses do not, so far, represent a thorough assessment of the public health concerns raised by the committee in its previous reports.”
In a recent discussion at Boston University, David Ozonoff professor of Environmental Health at the university, said that at first he was for the bio lab as he thought it wasn’t such a bad idea to study the infections. After meeting with colleagues in the field however, he changed his mind because he realized that the bio lab, “was not about public health and was deeply entrenched in the biodefense enterprise.”
Ozonoff added that diseases like anthrax and the plague don’t exist in the United States. In fact there have only been five anthrax cases in the United States and they have come from one of the bio defense research laboratories.
Public concern is that many of these pathogens are airborne. It is estimated that there are approximately 25,000 people that live within one mile of the proposed site, and the location would be the only BSL-4 facility located in an urban city.
The Boston facility is not the first to raise controversy. Oklahoma State University shut down a biosafety level 3 facility also funded by a federal grant from the NIH. The facility conducted research on anthrax vaccines and treatments on baboons.
According to Ozonoff, a group of 758 microbiologists “looked at the biodefense initiative and we’re very concerned.” He said, “This lab is going to make us less safe, not more safe.”
