Banned in Boston
For Mark Klempner, the infectious-diseases facility
planned for Boston University Medical Center is “a
dream come true.” But for some local citizen activists
and scientists, the big lab isn’t a dream but
a nightmare—right in the middle of Boston’s
densely populated South End.
As currently planned, the National Emerging Infectious
Diseases Laboratories will be located in a nine-story
building with 223,000 square feet of space, about a
fifth larger than Whitehead’s headquarters. Housing
research on anthrax, plague, and other dangerous disease
agents, the $178 million structure will be among the
most “cautiously designed and onstructed types
of buildings in the world,” Boston University
officials stress. It will hold its own ventilation,
electrical, decontamination, and waste disposal systems
plus a state-of-the-art security system.
And the lab will aim purely at advancing basic science,
says Klempner, shown here at the proposed site. “Emerging
infectious diseases are one of the highest-priority
areas for research around the world,” he says.
“This is money incredibly well spent.”
But the plan upsets many in the Boston community. In
September 2003, the citizen action group Alternatives
for Community & Environment (or ACE) served notice
that it was bringing suit against the project for “flagrant
violations” of the Massachusetts Environmental
Policy Act. In March of this year, ACE and another community
group, Safety Net, sent a letter to the National Institutes
of Health detailing a series of environmental and safety
objections to the planned new biodefense lab. They argued
that the facility “would likely constitute an
appealing terrorist target because the patho-gens located
inside could be used for bioweapons and could decimate
large human population centers.”
Some scientists in the Boston metropolitan area also
vigorously oppose the project, among them David Ozonoff,
a professor of environmental health at Boston University
School of Public Health. Although Ozonoff initially
supported the facility, he changed his mind. “I
became convinced that it was not serving the public
health agenda,” he says, adding that he believes
the project is “part of a process that was harming
public health.”
“We have been very clear that this is entirely
about public health–related matters,” Klempner
responds. “All of the research will be public
health–related, and there won’t be any that
will be related to weapons in any way.”
“We’re trying to provide as much detailed
information as possible about the safety and environmental
impact of this laboratory,” he adds.
If the university fares well in regulatory processes,
groundbreaking could come by next summer.
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