Seachange Bulletin #138

February 16, 2005

Massachusetts Nurses Association, January 25, 2005

<http://www.massnurses.org/pubs/positions/BUlab.htm>

Canton - The Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) is the professional association for registered nurses in the Commonwealth and is committed under our professional ethics to advance public policy that protects the health and safety of all residents of our communities. It is with this mission in mind that we register our opposition to the placement of any Biosafety Level 4 laboratory (BSL-4 lab) in an urban, densely populated area, where the accidental or deliberate release of a deadly biological agent could have a devastating impact on a large population of residents. Therefore, we believe the BSL-4 lab proposed for a site located very near and directly between Boston Medical Center and the I-93 on-ramp should not be built in inner-city Boston. ...

Adam Smith, Sampan, April 12, 2004

<http://www.aaca-boston.org/SampanWeb/ehtml/2004/biostories/bioinfo.htm>

Boston University Medical Center plans to build a high-level biodefense research laboratory in the South End. Only about four such labs (also called BSL 4 labs) are in operation in the country. The laboratories are controversial because they house research of highly infectious, hazardous and exotic pathogens, such as Ebola. Sampan has written many stories about the laboratory, which will be housed in the nearly 15-acre BioSquare research complex, whose program manager is Robert Walsh, a former Boston Redevelopment Authority director. BioSquare was first proposed in the early 1990s but only parts of it have been completed. The original plan included bioresearch facilities as well as a hotel and parking garages. The new project - the result of federal grant money to create the biodefense laboratory - includes no hotel, a cutback in laboratory space and the top-level biodefense laboratory.

Boston Herald, April 22, 2004

<http://news.bostonherald.com/opinion/view.bg?articleid=3839&format=>

The national bioresearch lab proposed for Boston University Medical Center has been the victim of a raging outbreak of that most infectious of diseases - ignorance. It's one thing to be afraid of that which we don't know. That's quite natural. It's another to simply ignore the facts. And that is what is going on with the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory, as it is properly known. The $178 million project, expected to generate some 660 permanent new jobs, would be largely federally funded and could open as part of the medical center's BioSquare campus by 2007. An estimated 13 percent of the facility's space (a nine-story building is planned) would be devoted to a secure biosafety Level 4 research site with state-of-the-art security, including biometric ID systems and retinal scans. ...

Michael Blanding, Boston Magazine, June 2004.

<http://www.bostonmagazine.com/ArticleDisplay.php?id=395>

Depending on who you believe, a new bioterror laboratory planned by Boston University will be a boon to the city - or a catastrophe beyond imagining. Anthrax. The word itself lodges in the mouth like a sore - the nasal first syllable, the scrape of the tongue along the front teeth, the end bristling in the back of the throat. Three years ago, few of us knew what it was. Then traces of a white powder started showing up in post offices. And soon, five people lay dead. The government responded to the scare by throwing money at the problem. A lot of money. The federal budget for this year earmarks $3.8 billion for biodefense research including funding for 11 new biocontainment laboratories. Two of these will be biosafety level-4 (BSL-4) labs for studying the nastiest of the nasty. Think Ebola. Think plague. Think anthrax. Out of seven applicants vying for the grants, two winners were chosen in the fall: the University of Texas in Galveston and Boston University Medical Center in Boston. ...

<http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2004/08/08/when_bioterror_moves_next_door>

Deep within the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Frederick, Maryland, a maze of hallways, done up floor-to-ceiling in gradations of beige, leads to a wing called "the slammer." The two-room isolation ward on the Fort Detrick base takes its name from the unnerving clank that the reinforced-steel air lock makes as it seals behind you. It sees very little action. When it does, something has gone very wrong. Last winter, the ward saw its first patient in nearly 20 years after a young researcher pricked herself with an Ebola-tainted needle while experimenting with the deadly virus in one of the facility's maximum-containment, level-4 biosafety laboratories - known as "hot" labs. She spent the better part of February in quarantine, her only face-to-face contact coming with the medical personnel, clad in protective gear, who periodically shuffled in to monitor her condition. She exhibited no symptoms during her three-week internment. No longer a threat to her colleagues, family, or the surrounding community, the young woman returned to work. She was lucky. Months later, in May, under similar circumstances - Ebola, a needle prick - a Russian researcher perished slowly in isolation as fever gave way to vital organ failure, then to unfettered internal bleeding. ...

Stephen Smith, Boston Globe, September 30, 2004

It is a tried-and-true advertising formula: a cheery family, a catchy tag line. What's different about the ad campaign that debuted this week on T trains and buses is that it's trumpeting the virtues of a high-security research lab in the South End where scientists would study the deadliest biological agents known to mankind. Boston University Medical Center launched the ads - emblazoned with the phrase ''Finding Cures. Saving Lives." - just days before a public hearing on the lab by the Boston Redevelopment Authority, which must give its blessing to the research center before it can be built. ... The Boston lab, and another being built in Texas, are cornerstones of the Bush administration's expanding initiative to prepare for acts of bioterrorism. Hundreds of scientists would work in the building, hunting for vaccines and treatments against deadly germs and viruses that could be turned into weapons. ...

Associated Press, September 30, 2004

<http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/09/30/boston_university_lobbying_for_biosafety_research_lab>

Boston - Boston University Medical Center is taking its message of the benefits of a proposed $1.6 billion high-security biosafety research laboratory to the people. The center has installed hundreds of ads - with the slogan "Finding Cures. Saving Lives." - on subway cars and buses, just days before a hearing on the Biosafety Level 4 lab called by the Boston Redevelopment Authority. The agency must approve construction of the facility, where scientists would study the deadliest biological agents known to mankind. The thrust of the ads, which are aimed at residents of the South End and Roxbury neighborhoods, where the lab would be built, is to explain that the facility would not pose a risk, but instead would foster treatments for lethal diseases. ...

Elliot G. Mishler, Cambridge, Boston Globe, October 6, 2004

<http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2004/10/06/campaign_of_deceit_over_biotech_lab>

Boston University's ads in T trains and buses trumpeting the virtues of its proposed "high-security research lab"("BU uses T ads," Page C1, Sept. 30) is the most recent instance of its campaign of deceit and evasion regarding work that will go on in what is more accurately called a bioweapons research facility. As your reporter points out, these labs are the "cornerstones" of the Bush administration's bioterrorism initiative. If BU's advertising slogan "Finding Cures, Saving Lives" really reflected the end-products of such labs, why would 160 bioscientists, scholars, and public health professionals in universities and medical schools in Greater Boston sign a letter opposing construction of this laboratory, including several senior faculty in BU's own School of Public Health? And why would residents in Roxbury and the South End, with allies in nearby towns and cities, engage in an active and growing protest movement focused on the dangers of building such a facility in a densely populated area - a lab where "scientists would study the deadliest biological agents known to mankind"? And, why would three Boston city councilors prepare an ordinance to ban such labs? Obviously, biological scientists, community residents, and councilors are all in favor of curing diseases and saving lives. But they know that this aim is being undermined by the Bush administration's policy of switching funds from other public health projects to bioweapons research. ...

Marie Szaniszlo, Boston Herald, October 14, 2004

<http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=48993&format=>

A proposed laboratory where researchers would develop vaccines to combat bioterrorism would have a state-of-the-art security system to prevent leaks and attacks on the South End compound, a hospital official said yesterday. Smaller, regional biosafety labs already exist in Atlanta, San Antonio and Winnipeg, and there has never been a leak or an attack at any of them, said Dr. Mark S. Klempner, associate provost for research at Boston University Medical Center. The National Institute of Infectious Diseases has chosen BUMC and the University of Texas at Galveston to build two national biocontainment laboratories that would develop drugs, vaccines and treatments against infectious diseases that occur naturally or are deliberately introduced through bioterrorism, such as anthrax, botulism, plague and smallpox. ...

Jack Murphy, BU Medical Center, Boston, Boston Globe, October 17, 2004

<http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2004/10/17/biosafety_lab_will_find_cures>

Elliot Mishler is incorrect in his description of the Biosafety Laboratory at Boston University Medical Center ("Campaign of deceit over biotech lab," letter, Oct. 6). The mission of the laboratory is to study emerging infectious diseases, whether they occur naturally or are introduced through a bioterrorism event. Boston University Medical Center officials have stated that there will be no research on bioweapons conducted in this facility. Opponents of the lab continue to spread this misinformation to scare residents. As a South End resident, a biomolecular researcher for more than 30 years, and the co-principal investigator on the laboratory, I believe that the Biosafety Lab has a true public health mission - to find cures and save lives. ...

<http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/10/30/us_says_location_of_biolab_is_safe>

A federal draft environmental review of Boston University Medical Center's proposed high-security biodefense laboratory says the facility as planned will be safe and have a negligible impact on the densely populated South End neighborhood around it. However, a Boston-based environmental advocacy group is criticizing the review as inadequate for failing to seriously consider less-populated alternative sites for the biolab, which would research treatments and vaccines for lethal agents such as anthrax and botulism. "They didn't do any review of alternative locations," said Carrie Schneider, a lawyer with the Conservation Law Foundation. "It's impossible to come out for it or against it without a full picture. But we are very concerned about this infectious disease lab being put into a very dense neighborhood." Federal draft environmental impact statements typically include analyses of sites other than the main proposed location, to ensure that the facility is built in the most suitable place. ...

Marie Szaniszlo, Boston Herald, November 4, 2004

<http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=52479&format=>

Concerns about bioterrorism and infectious diseases have prompted Boston and a growing number of other cities to start electronic tracking systems to quickly detect outbreaks. By compiling data from emergency rooms, poison control centers and other sources, Òsyndromic surveillanceÓ can both serve as an early warning system and help eliminate false alarms, health officials say. ÒIn the past, you could have an outbreak, and no one might detect it because no one was putting together the big picture,Ó said Dr. Julie Pavlin, chief of the Field Studies Department at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Pavlin was one of more than 400 participants from 43 states and 12 countries who attended the first day of the National Syndromic Surveillance Conference yesterday at the Boston Marriott in Copley Square. ...

Michael Jonas, Boston Globe, November 28, 2004

<http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/11/28/grass_roots_backing_for_biolab_not_taking_hold>

At first glance, it resembles many Boston development battles - neighborhood groups pitted against big institutional players looking to build in a city where people love urban living but often hate the idea of a new business or building on their block. But this is no Dunkin' Donuts showdown, where residents must weigh the benefits of a late-night chocolate-glazed against the nuisance of added traffic and doughnut debris that might cake their neighborhood. Boston University Medical Center's proposed $128 million "biodefense lab" would bring the most deadly known pathogens and viruses to the South End, part of a huge federal initiative to develop vaccines against emerging threats such as anthrax and Ebola. The project raises the specter of an accidental release of toxic agents or a targeted terrorist attack. ...

Boston Herald, November 29, 2003

<http://news.bostonherald.com/opinion/view.bg?articleid=4336&format=>

The measure shouldn't be how quickly the money is spent, but rather how well it is spent. Massachusetts may rank last in a national survey of state spending rates of federal bioterrorism grants, but better that than pouring the money down the maw of local governments ill-prepared to use it wisely. In a survey conducted by a national public health association, Massachusetts was 47th of 47 states responding in the spending of the first wave of its $50 million share of federal bioterrorism funding since the Sept. 11 attacks. The Romney administration was slow to consolidate bioterrorism coordination from three state agencies into one new Center for Emergency Preparedness. But it's done now and Suzanne Condon, a talented state public health leader, has been put in charge. A recent Washington Post investigation into the haphazard expenditure of other federal homeland security funds assures us that slower is, in some cases, better. ...

Jack Meyers, Boston Herald, December 15, 2004

<http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=58948&format=>

A national public health advocacy group yesterday gave Massachusetts a bad diagnosis: The Bay State's readiness to deal with a bioterrorism attack ranks dead last, tied with Alaska. The Romney administration's public health chief disputed the ranking, saying the criteria used by the nonprofit Trust for America's Health overlooked factors that make Massachusetts a national leader in handling dangerous public health threats. ÒThis report does not hold each state to the same standards,Ó said Public Health Commissioner Christine C. Ferguson. She said the federal Centers for Disease Control ranked Massachusetts as well prepared, with a round-the-clock disease surveillance system and rapid laboratory responses to an emergency. ÒMassachusetts is well prepared to respond to a public health emergency,Ó Ferguson said. ...

Stephen Smith, Boston Globe, January 13, 2005

A controversial plan to build a biodefense research laboratory in the South End won final local approval yesterday, receiving the unanimous support of the city's Zoning Commission. The action appeared to clear the last significant barrier to a spring groundbreaking by Boston University Medical Center for the Biosafety Level 4 lab, where scientists will have the license to work with the deadliest known germs and viruses, including anthrax, plague, and ebola. While the lab, which has the promise of generating $1.6 billion in federal research and construction grants over the next two decades, must undergo one last round of federal government scrutiny, that review is almost certainly a formality. It was the same agency, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, that selected BU in September 2003 to operate one of the nation's two new Level 4 labs, cornerstones in the Bush administration's campaign to prepare for acts of bioterrorism. ...

<http://www.dailyfreepress.com/news/2005/01/18/Opinion/Biosafety.Lab.Does.Not.Belong.In.South.End-834619.shtml>

Mayor Thomas Menino speaks out against rent control, but at the same time supports Boston University's construction of a Level 4 Biosafety laboratory. One of the reasons the Mayor gave for rejecting rent control is it would reduce the property tax revenue. However the Biosafety lab will be another tax-exempt property in the City of Boston. Level 4 is a designation for pathogens that have no known cure. It's a classification of an organism that causes severe human disease and is a serious hazard to laboratory workers. It may present a high risk of spreading into the community and there is usually no effective treatment. I don't know why the mayor is helping Boston University build a research facility that has the potential of generating revenue and prestige for BU, but gives nothing tangible back to the community. ...

Shreema Mehta, The Daily Free Press, January 19, 2005

<http://www.dailyfreepress.com/news/2005/01/19/News/Bill-Proposes.State.Regulations.For.Biosafety.Lab-835454.shtml>

Roxbury activist groups and Massachusetts legislators recently filed a bill to place Boston University's Biosafety Level 4 laboratory under state jurisdiction. Organizations such as Alternatives for Community and Environment and Safety Net will consider suing the university if the National Institutes of Health gives a positive review of the lab's environmental impact on the city, said Tomas Aguilar, an ACE spokesman. Aguilar said NIH did not comply with the National Environmental Policy when it allocated $127 million to BU before conducting an environmental review. Boston University officials could not be reached for comment. Aguilar said ACE expects the NIH to release their report in March or April. ACE, an environmental protection group, and Safety Net, a tenants' rights group in Roxbury, worked with Rep. Gloria Fox (D - Seventh Suffolk) to introduce a bill that would create a state committee to regulate and inspect the laboratory. ...

Stephen Smith, Boston Globe, January 19, 2005

Three Boston University researchers became ill last year after being exposed in a laboratory to a potentially lethal bacterium called tularemia, university and public health authorities said yesterday. It was the first known instance of researchers in a Boston lab becoming infected with a biological agent they were studying, according to a city public health official. And it came at an awkward time for BU - when it was seeking local and federal approval for a high-security lab to study the most feared infectious diseases in the world. How the workers became infected remains unclear, although BU officials said that researchers had violated procedures intended to protect them from exposure. Two researchers became ill in May and a third in September, apparently after separate exposures. But their illnesses were not linked to tularemia until October. BU reported the cases to city, state, and federal health authorities in November - about the time public hearings on the high-security lab were being held. But neither the university nor the government agencies disclosed the cases to the public at the time, saying there was no risk to public health because tularemia is not transmitted from person to person. Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who learned of the cases from BU and city public health officials, also decided against telling city residents. ...

Boston Globe, January 19, 2005

<http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/01/19/answers_about_tularemia>

How did the researchers get it? It's not yet clear. The scientists, however, thought they were working with a weakened strain of the bacteria but it turned out to be contaminated with a highly infectious strain. Also, lab workers did not follow proper procedures to protect themselves. Can I get it? Tularemia is not known to be spread from person to person. Most people get it from being bitten by an infected tick, deerfly, or other insect; handling infected animal carcasses; eating or drinking contaminated food or water; or breathing in the bacteria. ...

Steve Bailey, Boston Globe, January 19, 2005

<http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2005/01/19/bu_flunks_the_trust_test>

They didn't think we would want to know? Of course they knew better, and that is exactly why Boston University and the city, state, and federal officials who want to build a $128 million ''biodefense lab" that would bring the most deadly known pathogens and viruses to the South End kept their mouths shut about a breach in another BU lab that infected three researchers, putting two of them in the hospital, and spawning a series of investigations. This was no secret, said Ellen Berlin, a spokeswoman for Boston University Medical Center, who was left yesterday to defend the indefensible. People were told. It may not have been a secret if you were on the inside of one of the public health investigations - or inside the Menino administration, where the mayor knew early on - but the problem at the BU lab will come as a surprise to almost everyone else. ...

Stephen Smith, Boston Globe, January 20, 2005

Boston University officials waited nearly two weeks to notify public health authorities that they had serious concerns that researchers might have been exposed to a potentially lethal bacterium while conducting experiments, a delay that could have violated laws requiring prompt reporting of suspected infectious disease cases. The university yesterday confirmed that on Oct. 28, test results showed that researchers who had thought they were working with a harmless variety of the bacteria tularemia instead had been working with material that appeared to be contaminated and that might have caused illnesses in three researchers. ...

<http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/01/20/critics_blast_bu_city_officials>

Boston University and city officials squandered public trust and galvanized opposition to a planned high-security laboratory by waiting until this week to tell city residents that three BU researchers were infected last year with a potentially lethal bacterium in a less-secure lab, advocates and elected officials said yesterday. "It is a public safety mistake not to tell people what danger exists," said Representative Byron Rushing, a Boston Democrat who has not opposed the proposed Biosafety Level 4 lab that will study deadly infectious diseases. The vice chairman of the city's Zoning Commission, which last week approved locating the high-security lab in the South End, suggested that BU officials had hurt their public image by not telling the commission about the exposure to tularemia last year. "It goes back to this issue of trust," said Robert Fondren, a Cambridge architect who chaired the Zoning Commission meeting last week. ...

Boston Globe, January 20, 2005

<http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/01/20/how_events_unfolded_after_the_exposures>

These are key events in the exposure of three Boston University scientists to tularemia. May 22, 2004: First researcher becomes ill with fever, cough, and headache. May 24: Second researcher becomes ill with similar symptoms and is hospitalized overnight. Sept. 20: Third researcher becomes ill with symptoms similar to the two earlier cases and is hospitalized several days. Oct. 28: Concerned about the workers' illnesses, BU scientists perform DNA analyses of two samples of tularemia used by researchers. The samples are believed to contain identical strains of a weakened, harmless form of the bacteria, but on Oct. 28, results show the samples have different DNA profiles, suggesting that one of them could be contaminated and represent a threat to researchers; the university's occupational health division is notified. Nov. 4: BU notifies Dr. Peter A. Rice to stop his tularemia vaccine research. ...

Boston Globe, January 20, 2005

<http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/01/20/three_workers_exposed_to_bacteria_in_bu_lab>

Boston - Boston's director of communicable disease control said Boston University should have notified her office as soon as someone suspected that three researchers at the school who fell ill last year had been exposed to the potentially lethal bacterium tularemia. Tularemia is a reportable disease in Massachusetts, and state law requires cases or suspect cases of such diseases to be reported to public health authorities "immediately, but in no case more than 24 hours" after being identified, Dr. Anita Barry said Wednesday night. ... The acting provost of BU's medical campus, Dr. Thomas J. Moore, said Wednesday that he could not explain the delay in reporting the exposures. ...

Boston Globe, January 20, 2005

<http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2005/01/20/lab_insecurity>

To persuade Boston and its congested South End-Roxbury neighborhood to accept a proposed Boston University bio-defense laboratory working with highly lethal disease agents, BU and public officials have promised state-of-the-art precautionary practices and maximum openness with the public. In the case of the three lab workers infected last year with tularemia germs in an existing, less secure BU lab in the South End, officials have failed on both counts. In their defense, officials say the events at the lab never presented a threat to public health. They are probably right, since tularemia is not transmissible from person to person. Still, the incident has threatened public confidence, especially since officials concealed news of it from the public for months. The infections also point up the need for national standards and public inspection procedures for research laboratories. ...

Boston Herald, January 20, 2005

<http://news.bostonherald.com/opinion/view.bg?articleid=64351&format=>

We knew the Conservation Law Foundation was full of obstructionists, but who knew it was full of such sore losers, too? One of the more pathetic e-mails to come our way in a while was the offer sent to several media outlets yesterday to chat with CLF president Phil Warburg about the Òdeveloping story of the infection of 3 researchers at a Boston University lab.Ó And why would we want to do that, again? This non-story - which enjoyed prominent, if bewildering, coverage in that other paper in town - goes something like this. Three Boston University researchers at a Biosafety Level 2 lab were infected with the lethal biological agent tularemia last May and September. The infections were properly reported to public health authorities, Mayor Tom Menino was given a heads up and the researchers recovered. Since there was no public health threat, there was no public disclosure at the time. That all this occurred while Menino, Sen. Ted Kennedy, Gov. Mitt Romney and many others were pushing the approval of the siting of a Biosafety Level 4 lab in the South End is irrelevant. The new federal research lab - which has since received local and state approvals - will indeed house dangerous biological agents, like anthrax and plague, but only under the strictest security conditions in the field. ...

<http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=64398>

South End residents fighting the construction of a Boston University biohazard lab are suing the school, the state and the city, claiming environmental laws were ignored and worst-case scenarios were not vetted out. The lawsuit comes on the heels of news that three researchers in a BU campus lab were infected with Òrabbit feverÓ last year after being exposed to the potential bioterror agent. The city and the university never told the public. ÒWe never trusted them, and now everyone sees what we've been talking about,Ó said Rose Arruda, one of 10 people suing BU, Boston Medical Center, the Boston Redevelopment Authority and four state offices. ÒThe suspicion that I've always had is coming true now,Ó said Dolly Battle, another plaintiff. Researchers at the proposed lab near the Southeast Expressway would work with agents such as anthrax, ebola and botulism under a national defense initiative. ...

Alternatives for Community & Environment, January 27, 2005

<http://www.ace-ej.org/BiolabWeb/Biolabdocs/AmendedComplaint.pdf>

Ê

What did BU report and when did it report it?Ê We filed a request forÊrecords with the Boston Public Health Commission, under the Massachusetts Public Records Law,Êfor documents.Ê Here is what we requested the Boston Public Health Commission to provide ...

Jeff Hecht & Debora MacKenzie, New Scientist, January 20, 2005

<http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6903>

Three researchers at the Boston University Medical Center fell ill in 2004 after being exposed to a potentially deadly bacterium in a Level 2 biosecurity lab. Yet city and university officials kept the news quiet until after the centre's application to build a more high-level biosecurity lab (Level 4) in a densely populated part of Boston was accepted by the city this January. University officials blamed careless procedures in their existing Level 2 lab, and say the researchers were studying a strain of the bacterium which causes tularaemia, also known as "rabbit fever", but had thought the strain was harmless. A spokeswoman told New Scientist that the affected lab has been decontaminated, but tularaemia research has been stopped until staff members are retrained and a new manager appointed - the former head of the infectious disease section was removed from his post. Yet the incident raises warning flags about the proliferation of biodefence labs working with dangerous pathogens in the US, in the wake of the still-unsolved anthrax attacks of 2001. According to the Biosecurity Center of the University of Pittsburgh, US, federal funding for civilian biodefence research rose from $414 million in 2001 to an estimated $5.5 billion in 2004. ...

Stephen Smith & Scott Allen, Boston Globe, January 21, 2005

The investigation into how three Boston University researchers became infected with tularemia when they thought they were working with a harmless form of the germ is increasingly focusing on the possibility that a naturally occurring lethal strain contaminated animal blood used to promote growth of the bacteria. The BU scientists, who were trying to develop a tularemia vaccine, were using a form of the bacteria that had been modified to not cause illness. But after the workers became ill, two in May and one in September, tests showed that the dangerous strain had contaminated BU's supply. The workers, who recovered, apparently had inhaled that lethal strain. ...

Alice Dembner, Boston Globe, January 21, 2005

<http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/01/21/infections_not_listed_in_bu_bid_for_biolab>

In making its case last year for government approval of a high-security biodefense laboratory, Boston University Medical Center touted the safety record of its existing laboratories, saying in written environmental impact statements in July and August that no "laboratory-acquired infections" of workers had occurred in the last decade. But BU failed to correct those documents after it determined in November that three lab workers had been infected with the tularemia bacterium, and state and city officials subsequently signed off on the lab based on the outdated reports. Under state environmental regulations, BU was obligated to correct any errors in the 7-inch-thick report, according to Joseph O'Keefe, spokesman for the state Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. Yesterday, state environmental officials asked BU to provide details of the infections as the first step in deciding whether to reopen the state environmental review. Federal officials are conducting a separate environmental review, based on documents filed in October that include the same safety assertions BU made to the state. That federal review, conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is the final hurdle for the project. "The purpose of these documents is to provide open and informed decision-making," said Carrie Schneider, a staff lawyer at the Conservation Law Foundation, which has opposed the lab. "If it is based on incorrect information, the whole process becomes meaningless." ...

Thomas J. Richard, Concord, NH, Boston Globe, January 21, 2005

<http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2005/01/21/new_protocols_needed_in_biolabs>

The accident at Boston University resulting in transmission of tularemia to laboratory workers ("Bacterium infected 3 at BU biolab," Page A1, Jan. 19) is another example of the hazard of working with microorganisms that are not in a biological safety cabinet. It is common practice to examine clinical laboratory specimens and even manipulate organisms at the microbiology bench. In Westchester County in New York, three laboratory workers became infected with brucellosis on different occasions because they had not examined and manipulated the organisms in a biological safety cabinet. Manipulating, testing, and examining organisms creates the potential of generating aerosols. Laboratory workers who wear personal protective equipment are not necessarily protected from this hazard. ...

Jessica Fargen, Boston Herald, January 21, 2005

<http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=64581>

Legislators and city councilors yesterday continued to battle against the construction of a high-level bio-hazard lab in the South End by backing a plan to inject more regulation into the proposed lab. They also pounded Boston University and state and city officials for failing to promptly reveal that three researchers at a BU campus lab were infected with dangerous bacteria last year, but the public was never told. ÒThey all hide the truth,Ó said Rose Arruda, one of 10 residents suing Boston University, the Boston Redevelopment Authority, Boston Medical Center and four state offices in an effort to block the lab. The bill, supported by more than a dozen legislators and three city councilors, would place a moratorium on construction of any ÒBioSafety Level 4Ó labs until such time as security, transportation of materials and other regulations are in place. It also calls for lab inspections and an oversight board. Researchers at the federal lab would work with the world's most dangerous bio-hazard agents such as anthrax, smallpox and Ebola. The federal government, not the state Department of Public Health would have oversight over a Level 4 lab, said a DPH spokeswoman. The Boston Public Health Commission, which could also have jurisdiction, was unavailable for comment. Mayor Thomas Menino said people who are up in arms about the lab Òdon't know the facts.Ó ...

The Daily Free Press, January 21, 2005

<http://www.dailyfreepress.com/news/2005/01/21/Opinion/Illnesses.Bad.For.Business-837920.shtml>

The failure by Boston University administrators to respond promptly to the infection of three researchers by a deadly bacterium has blown a Roxbury-sized hole in its credibility as it moves to construct a Level 4 Biosafety Laboratory for extremely deadly diseases. In April of last year, The Daily Free Press urged the university to carefully consider criticism from South End residents and earnestly address and ease these concerns, insisting that "BU must keep safety as its number one priority and remain honest with the community if problems do arise." The university did not heed these cautious words and is now awash in a seemingly irreparable public relations quagmire. BU needed to win the trust and confidence of Boston community before erecting this lab, and it has now utterly failed to do so. With yesterday's reports that certain BU administrators failed to report a contamination of deadly bacterium for almost two weeks after it was confirmed by tests and almost two months after the third researcher fell ill, the university has demonstrated a near complete disregard for safety concerns raised by the Boston community over the last year. ...

Hellman, Greg, The Daily Free Press, January 21, 2005

<http://www.dailyfreepress.com/news/2005/01/21/News/Bu.Confirms.Scientists.Illness-837911.shtml>

Boston University officials have not fully disclosed the dangers of the proposed biological weapons research lab, said several Boston City councilors and members of Safety Net, a Roxbury tenants' right group at a City Hall press conference Thursday. Councilors At-large Felix Arroyo and Maura Hennigan and Councilor Chuck Turner (Roxbury), as well as Safety Net spokeswoman Rose Arruda, called for greater accountability and a halt to the lab's activities after three BU scientists became infected with a potentially deadly bacterium from the lab. The city officials' comments came in the wake of the announcement that four Chinese scientists and two Iraqi nationals may be plotting a "dirty bomb" attack on Boston. "If Boston is attractive to terrorists now, can you imagine what would happen" with the installation of a bioterror lab, Arroyo asked. Turner recited from a list of 80 health and safety regulations the lab violated, including the dumping of silver and the use of mercury thermometers, among others. "BU cannot be trusted in terms of their actions around this issue of the bioterror lab," Turner said. "The fact that they wouldn't disclose during the process shows the lack of integrity that the institution has. We have to come together as the people of the city to protect ourselves against BU." ...

McLaughlin, Ryan, The Daily Free Press, January 21, 2005

<http://www.dailyfreepress.com/news/2005/01/21/News/3.Researchers.Infected.With.rabbit.Fever-837913.shtml>

The strain of the bacterium that infected the Boston University researchers last year unknowingly contained a more dangerous type of the bacteria, according to Medical Campus Acting Provost Thomas Moore. The infections came from samples of tularemia sent from a center in Nebraska. While the researchers infected requested type B, a less hazardous strain than type A, they received both strains in the same sample. "One of the vials is the vaccine we expected it to be, but the second is the vaccine and the second more dangerous type of bacteria," Moore said. "[The researchers] believed they were working only with the strain that did not cause illness." Although the infection was due to the contamination on part the Nebraska center, Peter Rice, the chief of the infectious diseases and senior scientist involved in the research, has been asked for his resignation and demotion. ...

<http://www.aaca-boston.org/SampanWeb/ehtml/2005/0705/lab.htm>

At least two researchers connected to a federally funded tularemia project that led to the infection of three Boston University scientists last year were expected to conduct work in the university's proposed biodefense lab, which will handle some of the world's deadliest pathogens. Dr. Peter A. Rice, chief of infectious diseases in the university's department of medicine, led the ill-fated vaccine development project, and another researcher, Dr. Lee M. Wetzler, an associate professor of medicine and microbiology at the school, also acknowledged on Wednesday that he had been involved in the project as well. According to the university's grant application for the federally sponsored project, Wetzler is in line to work in BU's proposed National Biocontaiment Laboratory, or NBL, which will study pathogens such as anthrax and Ebola that could be used as agents of bioterror. Rice had also been expected to work in the proposed lab, BU spokeswoman Ellen Berlin confirmed Friday. ...

Jon Brodkin, Middlesex Daily News, January 21, 2005

<http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=88124>

The incidents in a Boston University research biolab, involving employees exposed to a potentially lethal bacterium, are unlikely to happen in local research laboratories, which typically work with substances that pose no public threat, officials said. "We do no work with any infectious agents," said Dan Quinn, a spokesman for biotechnology company Genzyme Corp., which has research space at its Framingham facility and conducts research on rare genetic diseases, immune system diseases, cancer and other diseases. Framingham public health officials monitor Genzyme regularly by maintaining a biosafety committee that meets every three months with the company to visit the facility and review its projects, said Bob Cooper, director of public health. The committee was formed in 1982 under local and federal regulations on recombinant DNA technology, he said. The BU incident will probably be discussed at the next committee meeting with Genzyme, but Cooper said he's never been aware of a similar event happening at the company. ...

Scott Allen, Boston Globe, January 22, 2005

<http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/01/22/u_of_nebraska_asks_bu_for_bacteria_samples>

University of Nebraska officials are asking Boston University to provide them with bacteria samples taken from three lab workers who contracted tularemia last year in hopes of proving that the disease outbreak began in Boston rather than in a research shipment sent from Nebraska. Dr. Steven Hinrichs, director of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Nebraska in Omaha, asserts that BU has unfairly suggested that Nebraska researchers sent contaminated vials to Boston for use in developing a vaccine against tularemia, a highly contagious and sometimes fatal condition. Hinrichs said a more likely source of the disease cluster is leftover bacteria from a patient who died of the disease at Boston Medical Center in 2000. Boston University officials "have not approached this in the usual collegial and academic way I would have expected," said Hinrichs, who said he learned of BU's suspicions about the source of the outbreak from the media. "The way they circled the wagons and started shooting at everything ... at a minimum, we're disappointed." ...

<http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050123/REPOSITORY/501230385/1013/NEWS03>

Boston - The revelation last week that a laboratory slip-up led three Boston University scientists to become infected with tularemia, a flulike disease sometimes referred to as "rabbit fever," has fueled criticism of a plan to build a state-of-the-art research lab to study some of the world's most lethal germs in Boston's South End. The project, which is expected to bring more than $1.6 billion in grants and other funding to the city, has generated intense community opposition in the two years since Boston Medical Center began trying to persuade the federal government to site the project here. Slated for groundbreaking later this year, it would be one of just a handful of full-scale Bio-safety Level 4 (BSL-4) laboratories in the country - a classification that would permit research on diseases such as anthrax, Ebola and the plague. The lab would be located in a more densely populated neighborhood than the others, including those in San Antonio, Atlanta and Frederick, Md. ...

<http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20050124/02>

The city of Boston plans to toughen up laboratory safety protocols after revelations that three Boston University (BU) researchers were accidentally infected with a lethal strain of tularemia they thought was harmless. The illnesses last year were made public January 18 by university and public health authorities, a day before a "dirty bomb" scare rocked the city. That was some 2 months after BU reported the cases to public health officials. Word of the contaminations - two last May and one in September - and the delay in making them public intensified controversy over plans to build a $178 million Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) research lab at BU in a crowded urban neighborhood. Some critics accused authorities of delaying the revelations until after public hearings on the BSL-4 lab, which earlier this month won approval from the city's zoning commission. ...

Stephen Buckler, Boston, Boston Globe, January 24, 2005

<http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2005/01/24/bio_lab_should_be_in_remote_area>

I am still an agnostic about whether placing a biosafety level 4 lab in a congested area such as the South End-Roxbury neighborhood makes sense. What concerns me is less the project itself but the process or lack thereof. In the spring of 2004 I queried Boston University about a statistic listed on its Website that indicated that 52 percent of the South End was behind the bio lab. Living in the South End I knew that at the time most people were unaware of the potential for such a lab to be placed within their backyard. I asked in the question and answer section on the BU Website if they could share how they arrived at such a number. After querying them, I received no response. Second, they draw comparisons with Boston and established Bio Lab 4 labs, claiming that they are in similar urban locations. As this information is publicly available it is clearly not an apples to apples comparison, but open for manipulation. ...

Jeff Hecht, New Scientist, January 24, 2005

<http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6916>

New questions have arisen regarding the handling of deadly microbes at the Boston University Medical Center where, in 2004, three laboratory workers contracted a virulent strain of the tularaemia bacterium. The security lapses were not made public until after the centre won approval to build a new, maximum containment biodefence laboratory, prompting heavy criticism. But now New Scientist has learned that this is not the first time workers at the Clinical Microbiology and Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory were accidentally exposed to tularaemia. In 2000, a dozen people were exposed to samples from a patient who caught the disease from a wild rabbit and died (Journal of Clinical Microbiology, vol 40, p 2278.) They had handled the samples with no special precautions, even though doctors who treated the patient suspected he had died of tularaemia. All but one, who was pregnant, were treated with antibiotics and none came down with the disease, but the lab retained some samples. Tularaemia is a potential biowarfare agent because inhaling less than 10 airborne bacteria can cause the disease - which kills about 1% of patients. People cannot transmit it to each other, but it is one of the three easiest infections to catch in the lab and has infected hundreds of workers in the past. ...

Scott Shane, The New York Times, January 24, 2005

<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/24/national/24lab.html?oref=login>

Last year, while working on a vaccine to protect against bioterrorist attacks, three laboratory workers at Boston University were exposed to the bacteria that cause a rare disease called tularemia, or rabbit fever. The workers recovered, though two of them had to be hospitalized. But the prognosis is less certain for the university's ambitious plan to build a high-security biodefense laboratory, part of a national boom in germ defense research touched off by the Sept. 11 attacks and the anthrax letters of 2001. The tularemia episode, acknowledged by university officials only after inquiries last week from the news media, has outraged opponents of the proposed $178 million laboratory and reignited a national debate over whether the rapid expansion in work with dangerous pathogens is adequately regulated and scientifically justified. The Boston case follows other mishaps in germ research, including the accidental shipment of virulent live anthrax from Maryland to California last March, and an investigation that revealed multiple spills of anthrax bacteria in the Army's biodefense laboratory. Such incidents have led some scientists to ask whether the growing number of germ laboratories - financed from the $14.5 billion in federal money spent on civilian biodefense since 2001 - may pose a menace to public health comparable to the still uncertain threat from bioterrorism. Dr. David Ozonoff, a professor of environmental health at the Boston University School of Public Health who originally supported the new laboratory but now opposes it, argues that biodefense spending has shifted money away from "bread-and-butter public health concerns." Given the diversion of resources and the potential for germs to leak or be diverted, he said, "I believe the lab will make us less safe." ...

Keith Barry, Tufts Daily, January 25, 2005

<http://www.tuftsdaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/01/25/41f5deebb9c6b>

In accordance with its plans to construct a Regional Biocontainment Laboratory (RBL) on its Grafton campus, Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine (TUSVM) has applied for a $20 million grant from the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the United States Public Health Service. NIAID requested applications for the building of five to eight RBLs for the purpose of examining possible agents of bioterror. The 30,000 sq. ft. lab would be classified as Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3), which the National Institutes of Health (NIH) classifies as "low community risk." There is no need for concern on the part of Grafton residents, according to Associate Dean of Administration and Finance for the Veterinary School Joseph McManus. At a Grafton Selectman's meeting, he announced that the risk to residents would be "negligible." "There are multiple layers of identity and access control for the building," McManus wrote in a flyer distributed to attendees of a Jan. 12 campus forum. "This RBL will be a purpose-built, standalone building designed specifically for worker and community safety. Access to the building will be strictly controlled," he wrote. BSL-3 labs are already located on the Tufts campus at the Medical School and at the Veterinary School in Building 20. A controversial bioterror lab to be built at Boston University will be classified as BSL-4. Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) labs are defined as having the greatest community risk. ...

Boston Globe, January 25, 2005

<http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/01/25/lawmakers_argue_against_lng_terminal>

The Massachusetts Nurses Association, the statewide nurses union, has decided to oppose the siting of a high-security biodefense laboratory in the South End, the union's spokesman said yesterday. The organization's board voted Thursday to oppose the lab at Boston University Medical Center, prompted by BU's handling of the infections last year of three employees who fell ill with potentially deadly tularemia after being exposed to the bacteria in another, lower-security lab. ''BU has already shown itself to be irresponsible" in failing to promptly notify the public about the exposures, said David Schildmeier. He said the group opposes location of the lab in any urban, densely populated setting and advocates stronger oversight of laboratories and prompt public reporting of any problems.

Alice Dembner, Boston Globe, January 26, 2005

<http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/01/26/osha_investigating_infection_at_bu_lab>

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has launched an investigation into the infection last year of three lab workers who were handling the tularemia bacterium at Boston University Medical Center, an OSHA spokesman said yesterday. OSHA officials began the investigation Friday with an inspection of the lab in the Evans Biomedical Research Center on Albany Street, where the exposure occurred, said John Chavez, spokesman for the OSHA regional office in Boston. The inspectors will determine whether BU violated any of the federal agency's rules on the health and safety of workers. Chavez said the investigation could take up to six months. ... Also yesterday, a BU spokeswoman responded to a decision by the Massachusetts Nurses Association to oppose siting of a high-security bioterrorism defense laboratory run by BU in the South End. The nurses association cited concerns about BU's delay in reporting the tularemia exposure at one of its lower security labs and worries about whether a lab handling even more lethal substances would be the target of terrorists. The lab "will be designed to operate safely and in design will exceed existing safety standards," Berlin said. "This lab will be important to the nation's public health by finding cures for infectious diseases and saving lives."

Priyanka Dayal, The Daily Free Press, January 27, 2005

<http://www.dailyfreepress.com/news/843297.html?mkey=1653784>

City Councilors lambasted Boston University yesterday for its "irresponsible behavior" regarding its Biosafety Level 4 laboratory, citing that since 2000, the university has violated 80 state health regulations. After recently publicized accident, where three researchers contracted tularemia from a strain of experimental bacteria last year, the university has come under fire from both area residents and politicians. "I have nothing against Boston University," Councilor Charles Yancey (Dorchester, Mattapan) said at the Council's weekly meeting. "But I do have concerns about what they're trying to do by establishing a Level 4 bio lab in the center of the city." Yancey said Boston is the wrong location for a high-security biosafety lab because residents would be at risk if scientists were to make mistakes with infectious, incurable diseases. Councilor Chuck Turner (Roxbury, Dorchester) said BU's lab is not just a place to study harmful diseases, but also a research center for biological weapons. "The purpose of this laboratory is to focus on developing antidotes to bio weapons," Turner said. "This is a bio-terrorism laboratory. That's what the [federal] government is spending money on." Turner added that since 2000, BU had broken 80 health standards set by the Massachusetts Water Resource Administration. "Why would we expect them to do any better with a Level 4 bio laboratory?" he said. ...

City Council members clashed yesterday over Boston University's controversial plans for a high-security bioterrorism laboratory in the South End. Fueled by the recently disclosed infections of BU researchers, councilors Maura Hennigan, Felix Arroyo, Chuck Turner, and Charles Yancey sponsored a measure to block the research facility, which is supported by Mayor Thomas M. Menino and has been approved by the city's Zoning Board of Appeal. ''This biolab Level 4 should be banned from the city of Boston," Arroyo said, referring to its high-security designation. The facility would be ''a menace to our safety and our health. The people that are supposed to be in charge seem to have too many previous cases of mistakes." Officials recently acknowledged that three BU researchers who handled the tularemia bacterium became infected last year. The information did not become public until this month, triggering criticism from lab opponents. ''From my perspective, if BU is having difficulties with its Level 2 facilities, how can we deal with a Level 4, which is the most threatening to public safety?" Hennigan said. ...

Joan Vennochi, Boston Globe, January 27, 2005

<http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/01/27/menino_and_bus_biolab>

The New Boston surely doesn't care more about architectural design than anthrax. So, why does it look easier to stop a hotel with historic preservation issues than to stop a biodefense lab over public safety issues? For example: A $100 million hotel in the old Charles Street Jail at the foot of Beacon Hill has been on the drawing board since September 2002. The project ''has had the gestation period of an elephant," developer Richard L. Friedman recently told the Globe, partly due to historic preservation requirements, which include keeping bars on some windows and an actual jail cell. Other development projects are stopped in Boston simply because neighbors don't like the shadows they might cast. On the other hand, Mayor Thomas M. Menino is determined to fast-forward a proposal to allow Boston University to build a high security lab - called a Biosafety Level 4 lab - that would bring millions of federal dollars and hundreds of jobs, along with deadly pathogens and viruses, to the South End. He is so determined to see the project through that he was willing to keep quiet about a breach in a lower security level 2 lab that resulted in three researchers being infected with a bacterium called tularemia. ...

Sam Allis, Boston Globe, January 30, 2005

<http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/01/30/affair_to_remember>

It's Saturday morning before the Big White last weekend, and Mike Capuano, the guy from distant Somerville who represents the Eighth Congressional District, is holding a constituent powwow at Dorchester House, the neighborhood multiservice center on Dot Avenue down by Fields Corner. I don't know Capuano from Adam. He materialized on my ballot in Jamaica Plain in November, replacing Steve Lynch out of Southie in the Ninth. (Congressmen come and go with redistricting like Canada geese.) So I figure I might as well find out whether he gives a good spiel as remain under my bed in the womb position with blizzard fright. ... The Boston University bioterrorism lab slated for the South End is a hot topic. Becky Pierce from Codman Square prods Capuano to drop his support for the project in light of recent news that BU failed to disclose the infections of three researchers from a disease at another facility. Capuano's staying with it, as is Menino, for its economic impact. He is, remember, a former mayor of Somerville and prizes urban jobs like Krispy Kremes. (Menino, who arrives early for his meeting, listens intently from the door.) ...

Jeanne Guillemin, Boston Globe, January 31, 2005

<http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/01/31/making_bus_biolab_safe>

In 1942, when the United States started its biological warfare program, two Columbia University microbiologists, Theodor Rosebury and Elvin Kabat, made a detailed estimate of the diseases whose agents were best suited for weapons development. At the top of their list was anthrax, with its hardy spores and 80 percent mortality rate for untreated inhalational cases. Ranked almost as high was tularemia, with a mortality rate of 30 percent. Rosebury and Kabat cited 56 laboratory accidents to suggest that the bacteria for this disease could easily become airborne without losing virulence. Later military experiments proved them right. After World War II, as the secret US program burgeoned, the discovery that antibiotics could cure tularemia opened the door to human research on the bacterium and, from there, to a standardization of the amount needed for bombs and spray generators. In 1969, President Nixon terminated the US program before its advanced weapons could be used. In all those 28 years, no enemy posed a serious biological weapons threat. Instead, the US program, lacking oversight from either Congress or the executive branch, aggressively targeted enemy civilians in the USSR, China, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere. ... Throughout this 20th century history of biological weapons, no major power worried much about defending their own citizens against intentional epidemics. Times have changed. In the aftermath of 9/11 and the 2001 anthrax letters, Washington moved quickly both to regulate dangerous pathogens and to encourage research to protect Americans against dozens of select biological agents. Inexperience is the operative word for this project, in all sectors involved. The Department of Defense, the main proponent for biodefense projects, is geared to secrecy in the pursuit of military advantage in war and poorly equipped to understand medical science. Its weapons-oriented mind-set has deeply influenced all biodefense initiatives, within and outside the new Department of Homeland Security. The lack of federal government oversight and increasing secrecy in the Department of Health and Human Services and other agencies bode ill for accountability to the public. ...

Laura Yanne, Scituate, Boston Globe, February 1, 2005

<http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2005/02/01/bu_lab_workers_not_the_only_victims>

The three laboratory workers stricken ill by the tularemia bacterium ("OSHA investigating infection at BU lab," Jan. 26) were unwitting victims of an experiment gone awry, and the long delay in reporting the exposure complicates an already morally dubious situation. Tularemia (or "rabbit fever"), in aerosol form, is considered a possible bioterrorist agent. In warfare, persons who inhale it likely experience severe respiratory illness. In laboratories, animals without rights who are forced to inhale it suffer in the same way, but they're not treated and released; they're killed. The nurses association has expressed concern, and residents of the South End may well be wary of the proposed siting in their neighborhood of the new Level 4 bio lab that would deal with much more dangerous pathogens than BU's present Level 2 facility. Accidents and cover-ups have surfaced, even as the tyranny over animals continues. Another BU bio lab would be another big dirty bomb.

Scott Copley, Cambridge, Boston Globe, February 2, 2005

<http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2005/02/02/projects_like_lab_not_always_bad>

It's sad to see Joan Vennochi hew the same old tired anti-development line the Globe has promoted for years (''Menino and BU's biolab," op ed Jan. 27). What Vennochi fails to note is how the recent problem at a separate BU lab posed no risk to the general public and that the lab the school seeks to build is similar to one in Atlanta, which operates in an urban center with nary a calamity despite all of the fearmongering of the opposition. In the interests of fairness, might the Globe hire at least one pro-development voice to speak for those who appreciate the benefits of worthwhile projects such as this one? The real effect of rampant NIMBY-ism is not of ordinary people fighting powerful interests; it is a loss of jobs and tax revenue that leads to a stagnant, anti-growth city.

Boston University, February 3, 2005

<http://www.bu.edu/dbin/nbl/Actual/news.php>

Boston - To respond to comments on the draft environmental impact statement, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has recently decided to prepare and issue a Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (SDEIS) as part of the National Environmental Policy Act approval process for the Boston University Medical Center Biosafety Lab. The initial draft environmental impact statement was released for public comment in October 2004. For the next few weeks, NIH will prepare the new SDEIS for public release. The SDEIS is going to focus on and examine comments provided to the NIH during the public comment period, which ended Jan. 3. There will be an additional comment period and a community meeting to collect comments from the public once the SDEIS is released. These comments will be responded to in the final environmental impact statement. ...

Stephen Smith, Boston Globe, February 4, 2005

The National Institutes of Health expects within a month to issue a revised environmental impact statement on a proposed high-security laboratory at Boston University where scientists would study the world's deadliest germs and viruses, a federal official said yesterday. The announcement that NIH will issue a new draft environmental statement, as well as conduct another public hearing, was made two weeks after BU and public health officials disclosed that three researchers had fallen ill with tularemia last year after working with the bacterium that causes the disease in a lower-security lab. "That's a coincidence," said Valerie Nottingham, chief of the environmental quality branch at NIH. Nottingham said discussions within the agency about revising the environmental assessment began three or four weeks ago after authorities reviewed letters and questions from the public regarding the proposed Biosafety Level-4 lab, scheduled to rise on Albany Street in Boston's South End. ...

Boston University scientists ran tests in August that showed two laboratory workers had been exposed to tularemia, but they did not connect the results to their illnesses three months earlier because they were convinced that they were working with a weakened strain of the bacteria that could not cause disease, BU officials said yesterday. A top university administrator and the state's leading infectious disease official said that the test results should have spurred the researchers to investigate more thoroughly. But it was not until two months later, weeks after a third worker fell ill, that the researchers determined that the bacteria they were working with were probably contaminated with the active, disease-causing form. Also yesterday, BU said Dr. Peter Rice, who headed the campus's tularemia research, had resigned all his positions at the university and at Boston Medical Center. BU had placed him on leave and removed him as head of infectious diseases at BMC, saying he had allowed safety lapses in his lab. Rice has worked at BU for about 30 years. ...

Theo Emery, Associated Press, February 6, 2005

<http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=89911>

Boston - A barren strip of asphalt, sandwiched between busy highway ramps on one side and the city's wholesale flower market on another, has become an urban battleground over the nation's defense against disease and bioterrorism. Boston University plans to replace the parking lot, which abuts a bustling residential neighborhood, with a laboratory where scientists will handle some of the most dangerous disease strains. Sure, those materials will be handled under tight security, funded with post-9/11 federal funds. But the plans for what's known as a Biosafety Level 4 lab have stirred strident neighborhood opposition - particularly after recent reports that three BU employees at a lower-security lab came down with a disease called tularemia last year and the university delayed reporting the infections. "The idea of putting this bioterror lab in a highly populated neighborhood is absolutely insane. It's ludicrous," said Rose Arruda, 39, a community organizer affiliated with the anti-lab group Safety Net. "We absolutely do not want this in our neighborhood." There are now four BSL-4 labs around the country, another six - including the Boston University project - are under way, and another handful are proposed. ...

Deborah Asbrand, TechnologyReview.com, February 8, 2005

<http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/02/wo/wo_asbrand021005.asp?p=0>

Boston University Medical Center was on a roll. Armed with a fat, $120-million federal grant to build a seven-story germ laboratory on its urban campus, the school had overcome community opposition and was one approval away from starting construction on the high-security lab. That meant access to plentiful grant monies in the emerging field of biodefense. Then came the accident. Pressed by media reports, university officials admitted in early January that they had failed to report the 2004 accident that caused three lab workers to be sickened by tularemia, the virus better known as rabbit fever, which produces flu-like symptoms and is treatable with antibiotics. The gaffe posed no imminent public danger since the virus isn't spread from person to person, and people who have tularemia do not need to be isolated, according to the web site for the Center for Disease Control. However, the public perception that the university misled the community about the dangers of lab practices could fuel a wider distrust of scientists and jeopardize public support for research in areas such as stem cells or nanotechnology, says Mark Frankel, director of the scientific freedom, responsibility and law program for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "The bottom line is that scientists need to develop relationships of trust with the communities in which they work, and the events in Boston are counterproductive to doing that," says Frankel. Perhaps more disconcerting for science policymakers is that the disclosure led to a new round of questions over whether the United States is creating an overabundance of research centers for studying potentially lethal viruses. ...

Mike Prokosch, submitted to Dorchester Reporter, February 2005

They told you so. For two years, Roxbury activists have been saying that the middle of Boston isn't the place to build a lab that will be experimenting with the deadliest diseases on the planet. They've also been saying that BU, the lab's manager, can't be trusted to police itself. Guess what? They're right about the trust. Last week we learned that three BU lab workers were exposed to tularemia, a potentially lethal bacterium. Cases like that are supposed to be reported immediately to public health authorities. BU waited two weeks - while, by sheer coincidence, public hearings were giving them the final go-ahead to build their new Level 4 "Biosafety" Lab. In those hearings BU claimed a perfect safety record. Let's be charitable. BU may not have broken any laws. But they broke the trust of the Massachusetts political establishment, which has been bending over backward to help BU build the lab. BU convinced our elected officials that this cutting-edge lab would bring more biotech jobs to Boston. So from Teddy Kennedy through Mike Capuano and Diane Wilkerson to Ego Ezedi, they greased the process to bring BU's Level 4 lab to Boston. Problem is, BU thinks there's one set of rules for BU and another for everyone else. The special treatment they got from Tom Menino & co. confirmed them in their arrogance. Dorchester's city councilors, at least, split down the middle. Chuck Turner and Charles Yancey fought the lab every step. Jim Kelly supports it - building trades unions want it, black people oppose it, 'nuff said. Maureen Feeney recused herself from the affair because she's on the board of Boston Medical Center where the lab is to be built. A lawyer told her that could create a conflict of interest. Now the conflict is on the other foot. Councilor Feeney may want either to tell her constituents how she has used her position on the board to make them safe, or resign from the board so she can do so. ...

Bruce Gellerman & Jeff Young, Living on Earth, February 11, 2005

<http://www.loe.org/ETS/organizations.php3?action=printContentItem&orgid=33&typeID=19&itemID=243#feature2>

Coming up ... Is it safe? Some Boston residents question whether a new, high tech biodefense lab in their neighborhood will make them more or less secure. ... This is a story about a minority community, national security, high tech laboratories and what scientists call "select agents." Now, don't let the innocent sounding name fool you. Select agents are the most dangerous organisms on earth - among them Ebola, anthrax, Lassa fever and plague. In the wrong hands, these pathogens could wreak unspeakable havoc. Since 9-11, the Bush administration has increased funding for biodefense research more than 18 fold from 400 million dollars to more than seven and a half billion dollars a year. ...

Christine MacDonald, Boston Globe, February 13, 2005

<http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/02/13/has_the_worm_turned_in_biolab_debate>

The morning commute can be bad enough, but Rose Arruda says she had particular reason to be demoralized: those ads on the T touting the safety of Boston University Medical Center's planned biolab in the South End. "It was hard seeing those BU ads when we don't have a big advertising budget," said Arruda, a longtime Roxbury activist who lives a 10-minute walk from the proposed lab, where scientists hope to study anthrax, ebola, and other lethal biological agents. Arruda's "we" would be Safety Net, a Roxbury neighborhood group that has vocally opposed those plans. BU officials have pledged that the lab will follow stringent measures to assure neighborhood residents' safety and that the public will be informed pronto if an outbreak were ever to occur. With backing from Governor Mitt Romney, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, and a majority of the City Council, BU officials were poised to complete the planning process and break ground on the $128 million facility. But opponents of the high-security lab say the debate is turning in their favor since news broke last month that three BU researchers were accidentally infected with tularemia while working with the infectious bacterium in a lower-security lab on the same campus last year. Before news of the accidental infections became public, said Arruda: "People just ignored us. They'd say, 'You are just a bunch of crazy activists.' Now people are asking questions. "All of a sudden, people were taking us seriously," said Arruda, who said her phone began ringing incessantly after word of the tularemia accidents first broke in mid-January, three months after the infections were confirmed. ...

Birmingham Business Journal, February 4, 2005

<http://birmingham.bizjournals.com/birmingham/stories/2005/01/31/daily25.html>

UAB today announced plans to extend its research corridor along 19th Street South with construction of the Southeast Biosafety Laboratory Alabama Birmingham. The university will demolish two buildings at the 9th Avenue and 19th Street site to make way for the lab. Construction of the nearly 35,000 square-foot, $22.3 million facility is scheduled to begin at the end of this year, with completion anticipated in late 2007. UAB received almost $16 million from the National Institutes of Health in September 2003 to construct the research facility. In addition, the State of Alabama has committed $5 million to the construction and UAB is providing nearly $1.4 million. The lab will help develop the next generation of vaccines, drugs and diagnostic tests for emerging infections such as SARS and West Nile. The facility also will house research that will defend against organisms such as pox viruses that might be used in bioterrorists attacks. Scientific experts decided after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that the nation needed additional laboratory facilities research these diseases and biological agents. Subsequent anthrax cases and spread of diseases such as West Nile virus and SARS also prompted their decision. UAB received one of the initial 11 grants after the NIH asked for proposals on such labs. ...

<http://www.sunshine-project.org/biodefense/sriibc.html>

On June 10th, Childrens Hospital Oakland (California) announced that a shipment of "dead" anthrax sent to it by the Southern Research Institute (Frederick, Maryland location) in fact contained live bacteria. This error is reported to have resulted in the exposure of 5 to 7 laboratory workers to the bacteria. Believing that the anthrax was "killed", the workers handled the live agent with inadequate personal and environmental biosafety precautions. ... It should be noted that, according to the minutes of the 26 November 2003 meeting of the SRI's Institutional Biosafety Committee (the last meeting before at least 10 March 2004 and, thus, the last before the anthrax was sent to California), SRI did not have a biosafety officer (BSO). With no BSO on its institutional biosafety committee, SRI stood in violation of federal biosafety guidelines. SRI was in further noncompliance because its biosafety committee did not have the two required community members (who SRI pays for their services). In fact, only four IBC members attended the meeting, representing a limited range of disciplines and interests. ...

Ian Hoffman, Inside Bay Area, January 25, 2005

Just weeks before Oakland researchers found they mistakenly had been working with virulent anthrax, two other biodefense researchers at Boston University became ill from handling what they thought was a harmless bacteria. In fact, the germs in Boston were live tularemia bacteria, a germ so capable of disabling humans in infinitesimally small doses that it became a weapon for the United States and almost every nation with a biological arsenal. Doctors for the Boston researchers overlooked tularemia in diagnosing their illness, figuring instead on a bad cold and giving them drugs. They grew well enough to return to work inside the university's infectious disease lab. An alarm had sounded, and no one heard it. Later last summer, more alarms would go off: Dozens of mice injected with a supposedly harmless form of anthrax bacteria at Oakland Children's Hospital Research Institute would die - more than 98 percent - and a third Boston University researcher would become sick with tularemia. After relatively clean decades with a smattering of accidental lab exposures to infectious agents, the $14.5 billion explosion of US biodefense work after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has brought a spike in biosafety incidents. Some have occured in veteran biodefense labs, but more recently the problem has arisen in unregulated laboratories staffed by researchers who never before have worked with biowarfare germs. In both Boston and Oakland, two labs on two coasts, researchers plunged into the lucrative field of biodefense science, working at first on what they believed were nonvirulent germs. Such work is easy to start because it is unregulated. No approvals or background checks are required. State and federal officials do not know the labs or the researchers. Yet live and potentially lethal microbes apparently were shipped to Oakland and Boston across several states, and researchers handled them casually, with few of the recommended biosafety measures for handling Class A biowarfare germs. Despite the Oakland and Boston incidents, authorities at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who are charged with approving biodefense work see no need for tighter controls. ...

Richard Ochs, Portside, October 6, 2004

<http://lists.portside.org/mailman/htdig/portside/Week-of-Mon-20041004/006619.html>

Members of the Peace Resource Center (PRC) in Frederick, Maryland, are organizing against the construction of a Level 4 biosafety lab and two more Level 3 labs at the Fort Detrick Army base there. According to attorney Barry Kissin, Mayor Dougherty of Frederick reported that people picketed in Bethesda, Maryland, against building the labs there. The protesters said that the "research facilities" should not be located in a metropolitan area like Bethesda, a suburb of Washington, DC, but instead in Frederick, 20 miles away. Attorney Kissin, who has lived in Frederick for 30 years and lives one mile from the base, pointed out that the 200,000 people who live in the Frederick area are already dangerously impacted by existing facilities there. He referred to the very high incidence of cancer among neighbors of Fort Detrick, as reported in the local press. He also cited the sloppiness of Fort Detrick personnel in the handling of terribly deadly biological agents, as exposed in the best selling book, "The Hot Zone." In April 2002, anthrax spores were twice found outside secure areas at Fort Detrick. The Army has yet to disclose the cause of the accident. ...

Washington - The Department of Homeland Security has said it will move forward with planning and construction of a new biodefense laboratory at Fort Detrick in Frederick, after the project cleared its environmental review. The National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center, scheduled to be completed in 2008, will have Biosafety Level 4 laboratories, which handle the most dangerous and infectious agents. It will research the causes of those diseases and develop countermeasures to possible bioterrorism. A final environmental impact statement released Friday said construction and operation of the center would have "negligible to minor adverse impacts" and that the need for biodefense labs outweighed the negative environmental impacts. Contracts for the project are expected to be awarded next month. ... The new facility will share space with other biodefense laboratories at the National Interagency Biodefense Campus, which will be adjacent to USAMRIID. Other federal agencies taking part in biodefense research at the campus include the Department of Defense, Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health. ... [T]here was no significant opposition to the project. The environmental impact statement came after public meetings, community forums and a public comment period. Both Greenpeace and the Sierra Club say their organizations have no position on infectious disease labs like the ones at Fort Detrick.

Mark Seagraves, WTOP Radio, February 7, 2005

<http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?sid=412448&nid=25>

Washington - The DC government is partnering with the Federal government to build a level-3 bio-terrorism lab within the city, WTOP Radio has learned. A level-3 lab can handle such deadly agents as ricin and anthrax. Level-3 is the second most secure type of facility. There are a handful of level-4 labs around the country, including Ft. Detrick in Frederick. One of the preferred sites for the lab is the former DC General Hospital site near the US Capitol, according to a spokesperson for DC mayor Tony Williams. It's unclear if the lab is intended just for emergency readiness, which experts say pose little threat to the community, or if there is a research component.

Michael Moore, Missoulian, February 12, 2005

<http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2005/02/12/news/local/news08.txt>

A researcher at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton may have been exposed to a weakened form of Q fever, a disease that isn't noticeable in about half the people who have it. Lab officials said in a press statement that the unnamed researcher noticed liquid leaking from a container at the lab Friday. The leak occurred because of a faulty container seal; possible causes are under investigation. The worker will be monitored to determine whether exposure to the fever occurred, officials said. The leak occurred in the biosafety level 3 part of the lab and was contained there. ...

The Billings Gazette, February 13, 2005

<http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2005/02/13/build/state/90-montana-digest.inc>

Missoula - A researcher at Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton may have been exposed to a weakened form of the bacteria that causes Q fever, the lab said Friday. Q fever comes from a bacterium known as Coxiella burnetti, which was co-discovered by scientists at the lab in the 1930s. Infection in humans usually result from breathing barnyard dust that contains manure, urine or dried fluids from the birth of infected calves or lambs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Half the people who get Q fever don't have any symptoms. It is treatable with antibiotics. Lab officials said an unnamed researcher noticed liquid leaking from a container at the lab Friday. ...

Jenny Johnson, Ravalli Republic, February 14, 2005

<http://www.ravallinews.com/articles/2005/02/14/news/news02.txt>

A leaky container exposed a Rocky Mountain Laboratories scientist to a dangerous bacterium Friday. A researcher at the federal biological lab in Hamilton came in contact with a weakened form of the bacterium that causes Q fever and is being monitored. The researcher noticed liquid leaking from a container as a result of a faulty seal, according to a press release issued by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which oversees RML. The leak happened in a biosafety level 3 lab. The researcher followed all required safety and reporting procedures after the exposure and will be evaluated for infection. ... The agency said it will investigate all possible causes for the equipment malfunction which allowed the leak to occur. ...

Sarah Greenblatt, Home News Tribune, June 30, 2002

<http://www.thnt.com/thnt/story/0,21282,586147,00.html>

Deadly bacteria and viruses are delivered to university research labs the same way retail catalogs, phone bills and Mother's Day cards find their way to your mailbox: through the US postal system. From Bacillus anthracis - the bacterium that causes anthrax - to the deadly and highly contagious Ebola virus, microorganisms that can act as biological weapons are transported by mail. With research spending on infectious pathogens slated to spiral 45 percent at the National Institutes of Health this year, there will be a corresponding increase in the number of parcels containing infectious materials that will be dispatched to university labs across the country. Yet federal regulations governing the transport of toxic microorganisms have not been updated since 1997, long before last year's release of Bacillus anthracis in the nation's postal system. Bacterium-laden letters led to five deaths and 13 more cases of infection, while wreaking havoc with the postal service in New Jersey and the rest of the nation. Post offices and distribution centers in Hamilton, Washington, DC and Wallingford, Conn. have been closed for months, as a result of the contamination caused by the tainted letters. But with university scientists poised to conduct bioterrorism research, a growing volume of pathogens may soon enter the mail stream legally. ...

Sarah Greenblatt, Home News Tribune, July 1, 2002

<http://www.injersey.com/news/backstories.pl?id=586531&paper=2>

With a wave of funds for bioterrorism studies poised to wash across the nation's university laboratories, some scientists warn that the coming research boom poses new risks to public safety. Thanks to a proposed five-fold spending increase for bioterrorism research within the National Institutes of Health budget - to more than $1.7 billion - studies of dangerous pathogens are expected to unfold in a growing number of university labs. Agencies like the US departments of Defense and Agriculture are also slated to receive more research dollars, expanding the pot for academic scientists that much more. Yet federal standards for handling lethal pathogens within laboratories have not changed since 1995 - well before last year's release of weapons-grade Bacillus anthracis into the US postal system. "That's a formula for disaster," said Richard Ebright, a biochemist at Rutgers' Waksman Institute of Microbiology, and one of several scientists who contend existing safety and security standards at research labs need to be strengthened. "After 9/11, (current standards) no longer can be viewed as adequate." Ebright said researchers will begin receiving pathogens like Bacillus anthracis - the anthrax-causing bacterium - in labs that are not as safe or secure as they should be. "The funding has moved much more rapidly than the regulations," he said. ...

Sarah Greenblatt, Home News Tribune, July 1, 2002

<http://www.injersey.com/news/backstories.pl?id=586530&paper=2>

Organisms that could become biological weapons lie in a locked underground freezer at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark, home to two of just three high-security public research labs in the state. The bacteria, virulent strains of Bacillus anthracis and Yersinia pestis, will help UMDNJ researchers develop tools for quickly diagnosing anthrax and the plague, in the event of a bioterror attack. The collection will soon feature three more species of bacteria and five viruses, enabling scientists to develop diagnostic tests for a range of potential bioweapons. In all, the researchers plan to develop tests for diagnosing monkey pox - a cousin of small pox - tularemia, glanders, hanta virus, dengue fever, multi-drug resistant tuberculosis and the flu, as well as anthrax and the plague. ...

Sarah Greenblatt, Home News Tribune, July 1, 2002

<http://www.injersey.com/news/backstories.pl?id=586529&paper=2>

Laboratory biosafety levels for research involving disease-causing organisms as defined by the federal Centers for Disease Control: Biosafety Level 1, Biosafety Level 2, Biosafety Level 3, Biosafety Level 4. ...

<http://www.sunshine-project.org/publications/pr/pr071003.html>

Austin - In a ruling late yesterday, the Texas Attorney General rejected the Sunshine Project's Public Information Act request to review documents from the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) Institutional Biosafety Committee. UTMB is focusing on biodefense research and was recently awarded new federal grants to become a national center for work with the most dangerous disease agents. The Attorney General's ruling means that the public has zero ability to examine UTMB's measures to try to avoid human health and environmental damage resulting from its research on biological weapons agents. The decision is disappointing; but not surprising, according to Edward Hammond, Director of the Sunshine Project, "Because of a variety of circumstances, I think that this will prove to be a pyrrhic victory for the University of Texas. Arms control, health, and safety advocates from across the country are concerned about the expansion of the US biodefense program and are demanding transparency and explanations of its activities," says Hammond, "The University of Texas has fought for and won its right to be secretive; but the cost will be stigmatizing. It will erode public confidence in the safety and security of biodefense research in Texas and across the country." ... Hammond concludes, "Although a setback for the Sunshine Project, this ruling does clarify some of the problems with public accountability of research on biological weapons agents. The Project will persist in requests for this type of information from institutions in Texas and across the country. Sunshine has several additional cases already moving toward the Attorney GeneralÕs office in Texas. We will work, over the long-haul, to establish openness in research on bioweapons agents because it is required to ensure public safety and US treaty compliance." ...

Dawn House, Salt Lake Tribune, February 12, 2005

<http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2565451>

A Senate committee on Friday turned down a proposal that would have provided oversight to operations at Dugway Proving Ground, a top-secret military installation in Tooele County that tests defenses against biological and chemical warfare. On Friday, Republicans defeated the bill that would have resurrected the Utah Federal Research Committee on a 3-2 vote in the Senate's Government Operations Committee. Sen. Gene Davis, D-Salt Lake City, sponsored the bill to re-establish the oversight committee, which former Gov. Mike Leavitt disbanded in the late 1990s. But Davis is far from giving up. "I've talked to the governor's office and others and next week, I'll try to get the committee to reconsider," said Davis. "We must have some oversight." ...

<http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/207526_bioterror12.html>

The University of Washington is seeking federal money to build a high-security laboratory on its Seattle campus that would greatly expand research into infectious diseases and help bolster the nation's defense against bioterrorist attacks. In December, university officials quietly applied for a $25 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to build a regional biocontainment lab that would study a wide range of deadly pathogens, including anthrax and the plague. Raising concerns about public safety, the proposed 56,000-square-foot lab would be located near Portage Bay in the middle of one of the city's most densely populated neighborhoods. And while the UW has already mustered political backing for the project as an economic-development boon, UW officials stressed yesterday that it's far from a done deal. The university isn't expecting a decision on the grant request until spring, and even getting that money doesn't necessarily mean the biolab will get built, according to UW President Mark Emmert. "This is still a very open question here at the university," he said. "We've made no decisions about this." To cover construction costs, the university would need to raise an additional $22 million. If the project does move forward, public hearings would be held, UW officials said. Backing the lab are some major political leaders, including US Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, outgoing Gov. Gary Locke and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels. Each has written letters in support of the UW's application, calling it an opportunity for the university to remain one of the nation's leading research institutions - and attract millions of dollars in related federal grants. ...

The Associated Press, January 12, 2005

Seattle - The University of Washington has applied for a $25 million federal grant to build a laboratory that would be equipped for the study of potential bioterrorism agents such as anthrax. As described in the proposal to the National Institutes of Health by the university's medical school late last month, the 56,000-square-foot "regional biocontainment laboratory" would be built just north of Portage Bay in the southwest part of the campus. Besides the grant funds, the university would need to raise $22 million to build the high-security lab for research on biodefense and infectious diseases. NIH's decision is expected by September. The application, supported by Mayor Greg Nickels, outgoing Gov. Gary Locke and Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, has drawn concern from some faculty leaders and activists. "I don't think anybody objects to the task," said G. Ross Heath, an oceanography professor and chairman of the Faculty Senate. "The question is whether it should be sited on a university campus in a large urban environment next to a body of fresh water." Heath said Tuesday he learned of the proposal by accident and, when he informed the rest of the faculty group's executive committee, most were "astonished, then outraged that the university could proceed with such a project without discussing it with faculty." Matt Fox, head of the University District Community Council and cochairman of the school's community advisory committee, also said he felt blindsided. "We just spent two years on a campus master-planning process, and the topic of a paramilitary, hardened bioterrorism research facility never came up," Fox said. ...

Michelle Esteban, KOMO 4 News, January 13, 2005

<http://www.komotv.com/stories/34776.htm>

Seattle - The University of Washington said Wednesday word leaked out before the official announcement that the university has quietly applied for a grant to build a bioterrorism lab in Seattle. Officials tell KOMO 4 News there's nothing to hide. When you hear about white powder, you think anthrax. It has scared a nation, crippled businesses and even killed. The UW wants to fight back with science and an on-campus bioterrorism lab. "Our goal is to educate people about this completely. "We want everybody to know everything about, this we don't want to hide anything," said Sam Miller, a UW Infectious Disease Specialist. Miller says the UW wants to build the high security lab to study potential bioterrorism agents like the plague and maybe anthrax. "The building of these buildings is going to help public safety," said Miller. Miller said the lab could help keep the nation safe. The UW's goal is develop new antibiotics and vaccines. ...

Sharon Pian Chan, Seattle Times, January 15, 2005

<http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002151623_biolab15m.html>

If the University of Washington were to build a biocontainment lab, federal laws could bar the school from publicly disclosing information about highly lethal pathogens, even if they were stolen, lost or accidentally released. The UW recently applied for federal funds to build a level-3 biodefense laboratory, one step below the most dangerous level, on its south campus near Portage Bay. The facility would be one of nine regional labs the government wants to study biodefense and infectious diseases, and would be subject to federal bioterrorism laws. While the UW says it would inform local and state agencies if an incident at the lab posed a potential public-health risk, the public-disclosure law is murky, lawyers say. It's not clear whether the public would have to be notified and whether those agencies could disclose anything. In Davis, Calif., the City Council opposed the University of California's proposed lab because of the public-oversight issues. "The deciding factor for the City Council was when it became clear that the [agents] that would have been studied in the facility were exempt from the Freedom of Information Act," said Sue Greenwald, mayor pro tempore of Davis. "It might even be illegal to divulge certain information about them, including deaths and leaks and spills." In 2002, Congress passed the Public Health Security and Bioterorrism Preparedness and Response Act, designating pathogens that could potentially be turned into bioweapons as "select agents." ... UC Davis, which had proposed a more dangerous, level-4 lab, initially said all information about its bioterrorism research would be open to the public. But after consulting a lawyer with the federal Department of Health and Human Services, the university changed its position. ...

Sharon Pian Chan, Seattle Times, January 21, 2005

<http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2002156576_biolab21m.html>

While most of the University of Washington regents said they support a proposal to build a biodefense and infectious-disease lab on campus, the faculty senate chairman continued to criticize the school's lack of disclosure. The regents publicly discussed the school's proposal to build a biodefense lab for the first time yesterday. Most endorsed the idea and lauded the economic and health benefits such a lab would bring to the region. "The importance is you will in the long term save lives," said regent Constance Proctor. "This is definitely worth exploration." Late last month the School of Medicine submitted a $25 million grant application to the National Institutes of Health to build a level-three laboratory to study biodefense and infectious diseases. But the proposal wasn't publicly aired until last week. A level-three laboratory, one rung below the most dangerous level, can handle lethal infectious diseases without readily available treatments, such as the bubonic plague. G. Ross Heath, chairman of the faculty senate, said siting such a lab at the UW probably made sense, but he questioned how the university had pursued it. "Is the university doing things right?" he asked the regents. "I believe the answer in this case is no." Heath cited his experience with nuclear-facility assessment, saying that the earlier opponents are involved in the planning process, the safer the outcome. ...

Tom Christiansen, The Daily, University of Washington - Seattle, January 25, 2005

The UW's $25 million grant proposal to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that would allow the building of a Level 3 bioterrorism laboratory has provoked concerns about public safety from regents and community members. While Seattle already has more than 30 smaller Level 3 labs, the proposed 57,000-square-foot facility would house six Level 3 labs and two Level 2 labs devoted to researching diseases that could be used as bioterrorism weapons. Diseases like anthrax, which are held at Level 3 facilities, are curable via drug treatment, although preventative vaccines have not yet been developed for them. ...

Sharon Pian Chan, Seattle Times, February 9, 2005

<http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002174907_biolab09m.html>

University of Washington attempts to allay fears about its proposed biodefense laboratory were met with blistering criticism at a public meeting last night. About 20 residents from the surrounding neighborhood attended the City University Community Advisory Committee meeting, the first public hearing on an application the UW submitted in December to build a level-three biodefense and infectious-disease laboratory on its south campus near Portage Bay. A level-three lab, one step below the most dangerous level, can handle lethal infectious diseases that have treatments but not necessarily cures. The UW plans to study bubonic plague and rabbit fever. "You're talking about putting a