BU bio lab review called nearly ready
Boston Globe – Boston, Mass.
By Kay Lazar
Dec 16, 2011
An independent scientific panel advising the federal government on Boston University’s controversial high-security research laboratory has concluded that the latest federal assessment of potential safety risks posed by the lab is significantly improved and nearly ready for public comment.
Hours after that panel released its opinion yesterday, the National Institutes of Health posted the latest copy of its draft safety report on the federal agency’s website. It includes various scenarios, such as an earthquake, or a lab worker unknowingly infected by a needle stick, and the possibility that those events would then infect or kill members of the public.
The safety review concluded that such risks were vanishingly small. For instance, it estimated that the likelihood of an infected lab worker unknowingly infecting the public with Ebola virus was just once in 550 to 18,000 years. The chance of fatalities from that scenario was even more remote, according to the draft report, one case in 610 to 20,000 years.
Still, in their analysis of the draft report, the independent scientific panel noted several areas that still need addressing, while saying the 1,742-page federal safety assessment was on solid ground and the panel’s oversight was no longer needed.
“The work they had done was sound scientific work, the scenarios they developed were credible, and the analyses they presented were also sound and credible,” said John Ahearne, a former chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission who chaired the 11-member scientists panel.
The federal safety review was triggered by legal action to block the South End project, first proposed nearly nine years ago and which has sat finished but largely empty since 2008.
The scientific panel convened by the National Research Council to advise the federal government on improving its environmental safety review issued a report in 2007 critical of the government’s earlier BU project reviews.
The facility, largely underwritten by the National Institutes of Health, is designed to allow researchers to work with the world’s deadliest germs, including Ebola, plague, and Marburg.
In their report, the scientists said the government’s study is a “technically complex document” that needs a summary of its key findings written in “plain language” that could be understood by the “lay audience.”
“My committee beat on them so many times over several years that they decided, I think, to do everything they could to `satisfy these people,’ so it is an acceptable size for the issues they are dealing with,” Ahearne said in an interview. “But to not distill it down into readable transparent summaries was really missing.”
The outside panel also recommended BU be required to conduct periodic retraining of staff, especially after any lab accident.
It also said the environmental study lacked enough information about the impact of germs being inadvertently carried out of the lab on equipment or clothing.
And it said the government needed to do a better job assessing the “increased susceptibility” of the minority community around the lab to infections.
Jennifer Rushlow – a lawyer for the Conservation Law Foundation, which sued to stop the lab – said the report underscores the federal government’s failure to adequately assess the lab’s impact on the surrounding community.
“So it’s impossible to believe they have done a proper analysis on whether this is an appropriate location for this facility and whether the risk level of this facility in that location is acceptable,” Rushow said.
BU released a statement saying it was very pleased with the scientists’ review and called it “valuable guidance on improving the risk assessment further.”
The National Institutes of Health released a statement from Dr. Amy Patterson, director of the agency’s Office of Science Policy, saying the government would take the scientists’ comments carefully into account” in finalizing its report, which will be presented to the public next year.
The scientists’ work “helps validate that this is the most scientifically rigorous study possible, which is not only important to the NIH, but also to the community in which the [bio lab] is situated,” Patterson said.
Earlier this month, state environmental officials granted preliminary approval for biomedical research at the lab using germs less hazardous than those that sparked opposition to the project. A final decision is due by the end of the month.
Kay Lazar can be reached at klazar@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @GlobeKayLazar.
Credit: Kay Lazar, Globe Staff