The irony is this: as the biolab has moved toward physical completion, the prospects of it actually conducting BSL-4 research — or even BSL-3 work, which involves fairly spooky subjects such as anthrax and the pneumonic plague — have grown increasingly shaky. The biggest setback yet came this past November, when the National Research Council (NRC), a part of the nonprofit, nonpartisan, congressionally established National Academies, issued a scathing assessment of a draft safety review that the NIH, the biolab’s primary funder, had prepared in support of the project.
That draft, which was completed in July 2007, looked to be a boon for biolab backers. It concluded, essentially, that putting the biolab on the South End-Roxbury border would be just as safe — maybe even safer! — as putting it in two alternate, non-urban locations (Tyngsborough, Massachusetts, and Peterborough, New Hampshire).
The NRC’s retort, which came as the NIH study was being circulated for public comment, was remarkably harsh. The NIH’s scientific analyses, the NRC concluded, were “not sound and credible.” The worst-case scenarios the NIH was supposed to explore were “not adequately identified and thoroughly developed.” And its comparison of risks at the South End site with elsewhere did “not include the appropriate level of information.” Yes, the NRC said, the country needs BSL-4 laboratories; and yes, some of them already exist in major urban areas (including Atlanta and Bethesda, Maryland). Still: “The selection of sites for high-containment laboratories, whether in urban or rural areas, [needs to] be supported by detailed analyses summarizing the available scientific information.” This was a very polite way of saying that the NIH’s study was almost worthless.
That biolab opponents cheered this outcome isn’t surprising. What is surprising, though, is that BU and BUMC are depicting the NRC’s report and its aftermath — the creation, by the NIH, of a “blue-ribbon panel” charged with establishing the biolab’s safety once and for all — as positive developments. “The goal of Boston University Medical Center,” Ellen Berlin, BUMC’s spokesman, told the Phoenix, “is that all the issues and concerns raised are addressed appropriately. And that’s what we’re seeing now.”
From a PR perspective, this is reasonable spin. But it would be far more convincing if the NRC study had been an isolated hiccup on the biolab’s otherwise steady march to completion.
Sadly, that hasn’t been the case. There were, for starters, two lawsuits — one state, one federal — brought by biolab opponents, who claimed that the failure to adequately explore the project’s safety risks violated the Massachusetts and National Environmental Policy Acts, respectively. The state case concluded in August 2006, when Suffolk Superior Court Judge Ralph D. Gants ordered the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs (MEOEA) to review the project again. According to Gants, the MEOEA’s December 2004 decision to sign off on the biolab — which came under the Romney administration and former MEOEA secretary Ellen Roy Herzfelder — had been “arbitrary and capricious,” and failed to grapple with a worst-case scenario involving the accidental release of a pathogen into the surrounding neighborhood.
The federal case, which culminated in a judge’s order two months later, wasn’t a total defeat for biolab supporters. The plaintiffs had asked Judge Patti B. Saris to issue an injunction halting construction of the facility; Saris declined. But Saris also chose to retain oversight of the project — and reserved the right, down the road, to curtail BSL-4 activity at the site.
