NEIDL study postponed
By Aviva Gat (From South End News), April 8, 2009
The defendants in the lawsuit brought by South Enders Klare Allen, Mel King and others against the Trustees of Boston University, Boston Medical Center Corporation, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) over the proposed Level 4 portion of Boston University’s (BU) National Emerging Infectious Disease Laboratory (NEIDL) announced on April 2 that they will postpone releasing their final findings from their supplemental risk assessment until spring or summer 2010.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has appointed a Blue Ribbon Panel of independent experts on infectious diseases, public health and epidemiology, risk assessment, environmental justice, biodefense, and biosafety to provide scientific and technical advice to the agency in order to determine whether or not a Level 4 lab, which would study some of the most dangerous pathogens and viruses known to humankind, should be allowed to exist in its proposed location on Albany Street.
Some residents have argued that a lab located in a metropolis would endanger their lives, while proponents have said that the lab, which could help prevent future biological attacks and find cures for fatal germs, must be located in an area of high technological and medical capabilities such as the BU Medical Center campus.
The Blue Ribbon Panel provided advice to NIH on which agents should be analyzed in the supplemental risk analysis based on agent attributes, possible scenarios, and the methods of risk assessment. NIH accepted the panel’s advice and partnered with Tetra Tech, Inc. to perform the recommended analyses. Tetra Tech has been at work since September 2008.
NIH plans to continue receiving advice from the Blue Ribbon Panel and to inform the public and the National Research Council Committee, a nonprofit institution established in 1916 to provide science, technology and health policy advice that reviewed the previous assessment, at several intervals during the process. The latest panel teleconference on the assessment process was on April 7.
Laura Maslow-Armand, a staff attorney for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a pro bono organization involved with trying to prevent the Level 4 lab from operating since 2003, said adding a year to the risk assessment was inevitable if NIH was going to do it right.
“I think that’s a sign they’re going to take it seriously,” said Maslow-Armand. “Both BU and NIH realized there’s going to be a lot of scrutiny of this report so it’s going to have to withstand that.”
The defendants had previously said the risk was negligible, which Maslow-Armand disputed.
Maslow-Armand said NIH should have assessed the risk before investing $194 million of taxpayers’ public health money into building the NEIDL. NIH did not immediately respond to inquiry from South End News.
“In order to justify that expense they have to show it’s a zero risk,” she said. “What other risk is acceptable?”
Maslow-Armand said zero risk is impossible because people make mistakes and if the risk assessment does not show that there are some risks, the findings will be incorrect.
“People mess up all the time,” she said. “How are you going to screen people working in the lab? What’s to stop somebody with evil intent from doing harm? What if Ebola infects a lab worker? Who’s going to treat them?”
Maslow-Armand said there are so many other medical areas that need research, like allergies, so building another lab to study pathogens, especially in an urban area, is foolish.
“They have to look at the risks in that particular community, in that population,” she said. “The community will never find any risk acceptable.”
BU spokesperson Ellen Berlin declined to comment on the potential risk factor.
South End resident David Mundel agreed that taking until summer 2010 was more realistic.
“We’re happier with a thorough, more complete assessment,” said Mundel. “Not disappointed with the delay.”
Mundel said the real questions are what is the level of risks of low probability events occurring and what level of risk is acceptable.
“There are many things we do that have some risk,” he said. “This is a very difficult technical issue. It’s no more zero risk than if you walk across Tremont Street.”