South End residents have sued in both state and federal courts to try to stop the construction of BU’s infectious disease lab, which will include a biosafety level 4 facility working with dangerous pathogens. So far, they haven’t been successful, although the state judge did order an additional environmental review. BU appealed that case.
Yesterday, the Supreme Judicial Court, Massachusetts’s highest court, said it would hear the case, essentially expediting the matter in allowing the case to skip the appeals court. So hopefully, both sides will soon get some final answers in this four-year battle between BU and residents/activists.
This nervousness surrounding labs on BU’s medical campus was probably the reason why a story about some smoke in a BU BSL-3 lab (working with bacteria that causes rabbit fever) made it to the front page of the Globe Wednesday. It had a big picture of firefighters in grey biohazard suits.
Even though the fire department said no contamination occurred, all the proper precautions were taken and that the smoke probably was due to an electrical issue, the specter this incident conjured up of disease-causing bacteria being unleashed on the community and the image of men in protective suits are enough to make front-page news in this town. Doesn’t exactly help BU’s image. Doesn’t really help science’s image either, I think. This incident (not to mention the big splash of a story about it), will no doubt fuel fears about the new lab under construction.
I have to say that I understand where South End residents are coming from. As a researcher, I know and understand all the precautions that are used in a BL4 facility. I trust the precautions and the equipment. The discomfort and fear I feel about the facility being placed in the middle of the city is wholly illogical and based on nothing at all factual, but it’s still there. Seems to me that BL4 facilities are typically placed away from populated areas as much for psychological peace as for physical safety.
There is a real problem with a false sense of “security”. The equipment for testing CANNOT tell you there is no contamination…it can only tell them when there is contamination. And then only if the levels of organism present are substantial. The majority of equipment first responders have available today will NOT detect the presence of organism at low levels that can still cause infection. The infectivity of some of the organisms (like Francisella ) is so low that even many laboratory based instruments/methods won’t show its presence. The detection devices are great for determining that “YES” it’s there….but are poor performers at low levels of contamination.
I don’t think Anna is being illogical for being worried about a BL4-level facility in Boston. Even if the researchers were absolutely careful in every way, human mistakes occur, and equipment limitations are very real. I feel it’s introducing a significant security risk to have a BL4 facility in the middle of a highly populated urban area. There are other regions in Massachusetts that are less populated and have more open area surrounding them, including a few empty military bases where the first residential properties are a significant distance away.