Biolab Forum addresses Albany Street Location
South End News
July 5, 2007
An educational forum around the BioLab being built by Boston University Medical Campus (BUMC) attracted a crowd of about 30 people to the Cathedral High School gym on Monday night.
Asking the question “Why Now, Why Here?,” the forum sought answers from BUMC officials Kevin Tuohey, executive director for operations and public safety at BUMC, and Dr. Jack Murphy, a Boston University microbiologist who will be a principal investigator at the lab. It was the first in a series of seven such forums organized by the Community Liaison Committee, a year-old committee formed to provide information to the public at large and to relay any community concerns back to the executive committee overseeing the lab. The committee has not taken a position on whether or not the BioLab should be built and is not affiliated with BUMC. The forum was moderated by Susan Ryan-Vollmar, editor of South End News and Bay Windows.
Glen Berkowitz, a South End resident and a member of the Committee, was one of the principal organizers behind the forum. Introducing the forum series on Monday night, Berkowtiz stressed that it was not a “BU forum,” but a “citizen’s forum.”
“We feel that this is the first set of meetings ever to take place on the BioLab on which the people who are designing it and operating it have a two-way conversation with the people concerned about it,” Berkowtiz said later, adding that he thought the forum was a success. Asked if he was disappointed by the turnout, he said, “I think the best you can do is provide people the opportunity to come and hear, to give people the opportunity to come and listen and to ask questions.”
The BioLab has been the subject of fierce debate, contentious community meetings and a federal and a state lawsuit since the National Institutes of Health awarded B.U. a $128 million grant to build it. The building, currently under construction on Albany Street, will house biosafety levels 2, 3 and 4 laboratories. The level 4 component of the lab will study the most dangerous infectious diseases and pathogens known to science, including hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola and Marburg, as well as the plague, Lassa fever, and shigella. While biosafety levels 2 and 3 labs are relatively common and also deal with infectious agents, a biosafety level 4 lab is not — there are only four such labs operational in the United States. And although the level 4 lab will only account for about 13 percent of the building’s total lab space, it accounts for virtually all of the community concern.
Past meetings and public hearings about the BioLab, also called the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory, have been extremely contentious. A meeting in Nov. 2006 conducted by the National Institutes of Health to address the types of pathogens being studied in the lab proved so frustrating that community members and NIH representatives that it was called off before the meeting even began.
The educational forum was far more polite than previous discussions of the BioLab have been, with Tuohey and Murphy presenting their responses to the “Why Now, Why Here?” topic, followed by an hour of questions from the audience.
“It was recognized after 9/11 and the anthrax scares … that there were many, many diseases that were understudied,” Murphy said during the “Why now” portion of the forum. Likening the burgeoning national research into emerging infectious diseases to “the war on cancer and the war on heart disease,” Murphy said the NIH recognized the need for a more concentrated focus on emerging diseases that could be made into biological weapons.
“We are, in the city of Boston, no more than 36 hours from any infectious disease. The issue becomes, do we study a disease before it arrives or wait until … it has a foothold?” Murphy continued.
As to why situate the BioLab on Albany Street, Tuohey explained that the Boston area possesses the “intellectual capital” to study the diseases effectively, with brain trusts like Harvard and MIT in the area. More than that, he said, “It’s because we [BUMC] have the infrastructure, we have the expertise … and we have the need to treat these diseases.” Tuohey later said that the lab would need the kinds of resources available in Boston and at the hospital, making the densely populated residential area a better candidate than a less populated, more remote one. Murphy added that he’s frequently asked if he would want the lab in his neighborhood and he said that he tells questioners, “I live in the South End and I walk to work. I would rather have it here in the South End and I want to continue to walk to work … I would work with these agents, I have in the past, and yes, I would support the facility.”
Tuohey and Murphy also explained that not only are the types of pathogens being studied in the lab “not terribly contagious,” but also that there are redundancies built into the building’s system to protect from a potential leak. Murphy explained that there are also checks in place to maintain the safety of the lab workers and to determine fairly quickly whether or not a worker has become infected — an important point for many in the audience, given B.U.’s history. In 2004, three researchers in a B.U. biosafety level 3 lab were infected with tularemia. A Boston Public Health Commission report about the incident was critical in its findings of B.U.’s handling of the incident, including its failure to immediately notify local and state authorities about the infections, as required by law. Questioned about the incident by an area resident during the question and answer portion of the forum, Murphy and Tuohey said that part of the delay in notifying authorities arose from the fact that the researchers visited their personal physicians and were not aware that they were infected with the disease they were studying. Murphy added that since that incident, B.U. has instituted stricter regulations around research. Tuohey also said that “there was almost no delay” in notifying authorities. Previous media reports said that the university waited 12 days before notifying authorities.
Ted Hauri, a resident of Plympton Street who can see the construction from his building, asked the representatives what would happen on the streets around the lab in the event of a terrorist attack. Hauri also pointed out that the lab is located next to Interstate 93 and that Albany Street is a major thoroughfare through that part of the neighborhood. “Have you considered that you’re building a potential terrorist target?” he asked.
Tuohey explained that the requirements for building the structure included provisions for security threats and that the building would have security checks, provided by BUMC, on par with American embassies overseas. “In terms of an attack, we did look at that as part of the program,” he said. However, when asked what the response would be from local and state officials, he said, “I can’t tell you what a reaction would be from local, federal and state authorities, I can only address our plans.”
Still later, in response to another question about any collaboration between BUMC and state and local emergency response officials, Tuohey said that they had been in conversation with the appropriate departments and would be briefing Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis and Boston Fire Department Commissioner Roderick Fraser on the labs in the near future.
Other questions addressed the amount of dangerous materials being studied (holding up a 16-ounce Poland Springs water bottle, Murphy answered that each vial of pathogenic material being worked on amounted to about 1/1000th of the bottle); what kinds of pathogens would be studied; and whether the lab would be developing biological weapons (Murphy maintained that lab is studying the diseases for public health purposes only).
Throughout the meeting, however, residents at times expressed some frustration at the responses Tuohey and Murphy provided. “You haven’t answered the question — why here? Why here in our collective neighborhood?” asked South End resident David Mondell. Tuohey did explain that areas outside Boston were found lacking because of an inadequate infrastructure to support the BioLab in terms of police and fire resources. Later, Mondell said, “You’re not talking to us, you’re talking to yourselves.”
Fenway resident Richard Orario expressed some of the anger that had been witnessed at other meetings. “I believe this project is in everybody’s backyard … You do not allay my fear,” he told Tuohey and Murphy.
Orario also asked how the materials would be transported, a question that Tuohey had been unable to answer in a city council hearing Oct. 30, 2006. This time, Tuoehy explained that the materials would be shipped in special boxes that would include heavy plastic crush-proof cylinders and a layer of disinfectant that could kill any leaked biological agent. There would be two drivers in a truck with GPS technology allowing it to be tracked at all times. The truck would carry only the specimen on a predetermined route and BUMC would know exactly when the package would arrive.
While the forum addressed many issues and future forums will address many more, some residents left feeling unsatisfied. “There are some questions that I feel didn’t have an appropriate answer,” said Michelle Maniscalco of West Concord Street, though she said too that the forum presented some “good information.”
Maniscalco and her partner, Ethan Gould, say that they are both concerned about the BioLab’s construction and don’t believe the lab is appropriate for the densely populated South End. They’re also concerned that BU has not been entirely forthcoming about issues such as the tularemia outbreak. Still, she said, “We are interested in attending [the forums] … basically, we are interested in hearing all that they have to say.”
The next forum is scheduled for July 9, 7 p.m. and will address the topic, “Is the Building Safe?” Questions can be directed to clcmembers@hotmail.com.
South End News Issue Date: 6/28/2007, Posted On: 6/27/2007 Linda Rodriguez lrodriguez@southendnews.com