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For two years, Klare Allen has fought to keep anthrax out of her neighborhood. Allen and Safety Net, a group of black and Latina women, have led efforts to stop a biological weapons research facility from being built in the most densely populated area of Boston.
In 2003, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases selected Boston University as one of two institutions to receive a $128 million federal grant to build a Bio-Safety Level 4 lab. Without any community input, BU chose to put the BSL4 lab in the BU Medical Center, located in the heart of the Roxbury/South End neighborhood. The proposed BSL4 lab – the level for research on the world’s most dangerous biological agents, like Ebola and anthrax – will take a lead role in the Department of Homeland Security’s biodefense effort.
Opponents of the lab have a long list of reasons against it: no civilian or public control over research, the possibility of classified military research, the potential for an accidental or intentional outbreak of a biological agent, and no benefits for the community.
Despite citywide opposition, many local and state political leaders support the BSL4 lab in part because of the projected $2.9 billion the government will pump into the facility, hypothetically boosting the city’s economy and making BU a leader in biotechnology. BU spokesperson John Murphy promises, “The level of infectious material that will be in the facility – and it will be in a lock-down state – will be very, very small.” The BU Medical Center website claims that the other five BSL4 labs in the United States have had 77 incident-free years.
But accidents and security breaches have happened. In the early 90’s, 27 vials of anthrax, Ebola, and other biological agents disappeared from the Army’s BSL4 lab at Fort Detrick. on March 18, 2003, a package containing West Nile Virus exploded in a Federal Express building in Columbus, Ohio. Later that year, a group of scientists reported that they had found indisputable evidence that the anthrax used in the 2001 mailing attacks could only be manufactured at an American BSL4 facility. In September 2005, amidst the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana’s chief epidemiologist and state police officers had to break into the government’s BSL3 lab in New Orleans and destroy all dangerous biological agents before they escaped or fell into the wrong hands. A few days later, three mice infected with bubonic plague disappeared from a BSL3 lab in Newark, New Jersey. The mice remain missing.
In January 2005, the Boston Globe reported that three researchers in an existing BSL3 lab at the BU Medical Center fell ill after being exposed to tularaemia, a potential biological weapon. The infections occurred between May and September 2004, but BU and city officials decided not to immediately inform the public and waited until after the Globe broke the story, months after a series of public hearings and a week after approval of the proposed BSL4 lab by the City Zoning Commission.
“One thing that has been slacking and lacking is communication,” Klare Allen said. “We have not had good communication with BU or Mayor Menino or NIAID.”
According to community activists, supporters of the lab have been tight-lipped and secretive. Repeated requests and efforts for more information and public debate have been stonewalled. In 2003, an attempt by BU student activists to hold a public forum at BU was shut down the day before the forum after BU officials found out that Klare Allen would be on the discussion panel. Repeated calls by Safety Net and other organizations to see the city’s emergency evacuation plan have been denied. Requests to NIAID and the Center for Disease Control, another federal agency, to disclose more information about the tularaemia infections have not been answered. In one case, the CDC claimed that it was not necessary to inform the public of the tularaemia infections. And despite a letter from Suffolk County’s District Attorney Dan Conley, Mayor Menino and BU officials have been holding illegal “closed-door” meetings with other city councilors in order to ensure their support of the biolab.
Because of BU and the government’s refusal to cooperate with the public at any level, opponents of the lab have adopted a number of strategies to protect their communities from the catastrophic threat the BSL4 lab poses. Safety Net members have filed two lawsuits against BU, city and federal agencies. The first lawsuit was filed days after the Globe exposed the tularaemia infections, on the grounds that BU underestimated the consequences of an outbreak, and violated state law by falsifying community support. The second lawsuit, filed in July, states that the siting of the BSL4 lab is discriminatory, since the neighborhood already has a disproportionately high number of dangerous facilities, including the most hazardous waste sites in Boston. It also mentions an overabundance of parking facilities, coupled with one of the MBTA’s main bus depots, which have caused enough pollution to raise Roxbury’s asthma hospitalization rate among children to 14.7%, the highest rate in Massachusetts.
In 2004, state representative Gloria Fox proposed legislation that would regulate all BSL research labs in Massachusetts. The proposed laws would guarantee the community information about what research is being done when and where, and the right to stop it if necessary. Also included are provisions to ensure safe transportation of biological agents, and better emergency plans.
South End/Roxbury city councilor Chuck Turner, an opponent of the lab since 2002, has proposed the most volatile action against the BSL4 lab: a city ordinance that would ban BSL4 research in Boston. The ordinance clearly states that because of the potential risks to his community, the BSL4 lab cannot be built. Safety Net and the Coalition to Stop the Bioterrorism Lab have made the ordinance a hot issue in the upcoming elections. The coalition has been flyering every community in the city and setting up forums to discuss the BSL4 lab, which BU has refused to attend. At the end of each forum, Safety Net members have candidates sign a commitment to endorse Gloria Fox’s legislation and Chuck Turner’s ordinance.
The devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the government’s delayed response has added fuel to the controversy, as City Council President Michael Flaherty withdrew his support for the lab, writing the director of NIAID and asking that plans for construction be halted immediately. In the letter, Flaherty said that after watching what he called “the total breakdown of government response systems,” he decided that neither Boston nor the government is prepared to handle an accident at such a lab.
“Until the city prepared for every conceivable disaster scenario, constructing a major biolab in the heart of residential Boston is neither a responsible nor safe venture,” Flaherty wrote.
Carlo Boccia, Boston’s Director of Homeland Security, was quoted by the Globe saying that “we’d be in the same shape” as New Orleans if a major disaster were to hit today. Boccia said the present plan has no preparations to transport people without means to leave the city or to shelter people made homeless by a disaster. As was the case in New Orleans, if a disaster struck, Boston’s poor, elderly and sick – those most dependent on the government for safety – would be left behind. Mayor Menino and Governor Romney have promised major revisions to the evacuation plans.
In the meantime, Safety Net held a press conference in City Hall to publicize Flaherty’s change in position. During the conference, Chuck Turner asked, “Can we trust the government? Can we trust BU?” Since neither the mayor, nor BU officials showed up for the conference, Klare Allen and members of the coalition marched into the mayor’s office to ask for a copy of the city’s emergency evacuation plan. The mayor did not show.
With the elections two weeks away, the Coalition to Stop the Bioterrorism Lab is gearing up for an intense November. After successfully holdinga heated forum in the North End, the coalition is holding a SpeakOut on November 2 from 11am to 1 pm at City Hall Plaza. The event is being sponsored by Boston Mobilization, a youth-run non-profit that has been part of the coalition since 2003. SpeakOut will feature activists, politicians, scientists, and concerned citizens voicing their outrage about the biolab. While discussing plans for the event at a coalition meeting, Klare Allen repeated a statement she made at the press conference, “We’re not only fighting for our community, but the city of Boston and the entire state of Massachusetts, because if we don’t stand up, don’t question, don’t fight, then sooner or later, people all over the county will be watching us on television.”
Other articles by Pepe Abola |
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