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Biosecurity Briefing
NIH Establishes Entities to Address Concerns about Boston Biolab By Michelle Cantu, March 14, 2008 On March 6, 2008, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced two new steps that the agency will take to address public safety concerns about the National Biocontainment Laboratory located at Boston University Medical Center. The Boston laboratory will focus on diagnostic development, treatments, and vaccines for infectious diseases. According to the press release, the NIH has established an internal coordinating committee “to guide the agency's efforts to address safety concerns raised by community representatives and other members of the public.” The coordinating committee will also consider concerns raised by “a recent review by the National Research Council of the NIH draft supplementary risk assessments for the Boston laboratory.”1 The National Research Council’s review of the laboratory risk assessment was covered in a previous Biosecurity Briefing. In addition, the NIH also established a Blue Ribbon Panel that will “review current risk assessments and provide independent technical expertise and guidance.”1 The panel, which includes “experts in infectious diseases, public health and epidemiology, risk assessment, environmental justice, risk communications, biodefense, biosafety, and infectious disease modeling,”1 will act as an advisory group for the NIH Director and other NIH leadership. The Blue Ribbon Panel held its first meeting on March 13, 2008, to start the process of providing advice regarding “the scope of any additional risk assessments that might be necessary” to address comments and concerns voiced by the courts, local community, and general public. As described in a PowerPoint presentation by NIH staff at the March 13, 2008, meeting, in its deliberations the panel should “be especially mindful of issues related to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirements, environmental justice, community liaison, and risk communication.”2 According to an article in the Boston Globe, it is unlikely that any labs of the project will operate without getting full clearance. In his remarks at the March 13 meeting, NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni, MD, told the Panel that he has no expectation that the panel will “rubber-stamp his agency's earlier finding that the lab does not pose a safety or environmental threat to the surrounding South End neighborhood.” He is further quoted as telling the panel “We need to do this right, even if it takes a long time….You should be tough…I can’t say it in any other way. There are no foregone conclusions here.” According to the Boston Globe article, the panel’s deliberations are “certain to delay the opening of the facility until at least 2009 or longer,” leading some to speculate “whether lower-security labs and other parts of the project might open before the Biosafety Level-4 lab gets final clearance.” A spokes woman for BU acknowledged that “such a scenario is possible, but that the university is committed to opening the project as designed, with the Level-4 lab fully functional.”3 For additional resources on biocontainment laboratories and biosafety training, please see the following article, "High-Containment Biodefense Research Laboratories: Meeting Report and Center Recommendations," in the Science and Biosecurity section of the Center’s website. References
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