This is in response to Dr. Klempner's post stating that smallpox will not be studied at the BU's proposed lab. This infectious agent and disease are clearly listed in the Final Environmental Impact Report, vol. 2, appendix 2-9 as an infectious agent that may be studied at the NEIDL. Since this report was prepared by BU and was approved by both NIH and MEPA, the inclusion of Variola major as a possible agent to be studied in the NEIDL must be taken seriously. The fact that research on smallpox is currently restricted in an international agreement should not be seen as hindering this possibility. In the past several years, the US government has shown that they are willing to toss aside long-standing international agreements, such as the Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as well as block discussion on any verification mechanism to the Biological Weapons Convention. When asked about this in a community meeting, Dr. Klempner and Murphy had no explanation. If BU and NIH claim that their inclusion of Variola major as an agent researched in lab in their FEIR is an over-sight, then it is a gross and dangerous over-sight and calls into question the level of attention went into the entire review process.
Sincerely,
Marc Pelletier
Boston, MA
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Those who support the expansion of the nation's biodefense point to the inevitable threat posed by Mother Nature. Densely packed cities and the ability to travel easily from one part of the world to another mean that pathogens can spread faster and farther than ever before. "There is a sense that infectious diseases are emerging more rapidly, and history tells us it's only a matter of time before the next pandemic," says Richard Besser, director of the CDC's coordinating office for terrorism preparedness and emergency response. "We want to be the first generation truly prepared to fight that when it comes."
But some scientists say that argument obscures the true purpose of the current biodefense boom: to study potential biological weapons. "The university portrays it as an emerging infectious disease lab," says David Ozonoff, a Boston University epidemiologist whose office is right across the street from the new BSL4 facility. "But they are talking about studying things like small pox and inhalation anthrax, which pose no public health threat other than as bioweapons." And when it comes to terrorism, Ozonoff says, more labs will only increase the threat of an attack. "There has been one serious bioterror incident," he says. "That was anthrax, and it came from a biodefense lab." While the university has repeatedly stated that the new facility will not house bioweapons research, that might not be a promise it can keep. The original NIH mandate for the lab indicated that many groups—including the CIA and Department of Defense—would be allowed to use the lab for their own research, the nature of which BU might have little control over.
Still, if infectious disease research is necessary, the labs will have to go somewhere. "We have to decide," says Jack Murphy, a biologist at Boston University's medical school who supports the new facility. "Are there things that we should not study at all because they are too dangerous, or aren't there?" As the debate continues, Boston University's newest research facility waits on a corner of the school's medical campus, a complicated lattice of steel, wire and concrete that could one day house the first cure for Ebola—or the next dangerous accident.
© 2007
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