Study says biolab not a threat to S. End

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Study says biolab not a threat to S. End

Argues BU facility would be no safer in secluded area

By and Felicia Mello, Globe Correspondent

August 24, 2007

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/08/24/study_says_biola

b_not_a_threat_to_s_end/

A federal health agency said yesterday that a high-security research

laboratory being built in Boston's bustling South End does not

present a serious threat to the neighborhood's safety and that it

would not have been safer if located in a less congested area.

But opponents of the Boston University lab, where scientists would

be able to study the deadliest germs in the world, criticized the

study's methods and said it understated the project's risks.

Controversy has swirled around the project since the National

Institutes of Health awarded the university a grant to build the

laboratory in 2003. It is one of two Biosafety Level-4 labs under

construction in the United States to study biological agents that

could potentially be used by terrorists, including viruses,

bacteria, and funguses.

Residents and a conservation group have sued in both federal and

state courts to halt construction of the lab, which the university

says is now halfway complete and slated to open in 2008.

The new study, funded by NIH and performed by private consultants

and researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalo,

attempts to address concerns raised in those lawsuits that the

university had not considered other sites for the lab and that it

would create an undue burden on the area's low-income, racially

diverse population.

Last August, a state judge ruled that the university needed to add

to its previous environmental impact report, calling the state's

decision to approve the project " arbitrary and capricious. "

" We feel very positive that this additional analysis was consistent

with previous work done, and it has shown that building in the South

End is not going to create a public health risk and that the site is

as good as or better than siting the lab in less congested areas, "

university spokesman Steve Burgay said yesterday.

But several bioterrorism specialists opposed to the lab called the

report biased because it did not examine pathogens that are easily

spread from person to person.

" These scenarios are really contrived, " said Jeanne Guillemin, a

senior fellow at the MIT Security Studies Program.

" The diseases which have been picked are ones which are really not

that contagious, " Guillemin said. " And the diseases which have been

avoided are the ones we really need to be worried about, like avian

flu and SARS. "

Researchers compared what would happen if germs migrated from the

lab into its South End neighborhood with what might happen if the

lab had instead been built on more secluded property owned by BU in

Tyngsborough or borough, N.H.

The report concludes that even if an accident happened in the

lab " under realistic conditions, infectious diseases would not occur

in the communities as a result. "

The study also concludes that " there was no difference in simulated

disease transmission among the urban, suburban, or rural

communities. "

One of the diseases evaluated, Rift Valley fever, might actually

present more of a threat in the less-developed areas, the report

says.

That mosquito-borne disease could spread more easily in remote

locations where such virus carriers as livestock are more common.

The NIH will hold a public meeting in Boston on Sept. 20 to discuss

the report.

A hearing on the state court lawsuit is also scheduled for next

month.

Klare , who lives in Roxbury, 10 blocks from the project, said

the study did not reassure her that the lab is safe.

" Accidents do happen, " she said. " We don't think this should be

built, period. "