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A battle over research
BY ADAM REILLY
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Opponents of Boston University Medical Center’s proposed bio-containment facility — which would bring research on some of the world’s most lethal infectious diseases to the South End — face long odds. Mayor Thomas Menino supports the $178 million project, which would be funded through an already-obtained $128 million federal grant and $25 million in contributions from Boston University and Boston Medical Center. So does Governor Mitt Romney. The Boston City Council has yet to weigh in on the issue, however. And at this point, it looks like the council — a body not known for its legislative heft — might be the best hope for detractors who don’t want the facility built. District Seven councilor Chuck Turner has already requested a hearing on whether Boston has the authority to ban Biosafety Level 4 labs — a designation reserved for facilities that, like the proposed BU lab, work on the most dangerous known microorganisms. (There are only five Level 4 labs in the United States; for a virtual tour of such a facility, visit www2.niaid.nih.gov/Biodefense/Public/blt.htm.) Turner’s hearing has yet to be scheduled. But if Tuesday’s council hearing on the proposed facility is any indication, it promises to be eventful. This week’s hearing, which had just passed the three-hour mark and was still going strong when the Phoenix had to leave to make deadline, included presentations from four representatives of BU who sang the proposed facility’s praises and four detractors (including two professors from the BU School of Public Health) who roundly condemned it. The most striking aspect of the two presentations was their almost total incompatibility. For example, Dr. Mark Klempner, associate provost for research at Boston University Medical Center, said that BUMC would own, operate, and administer all research at the facility, and that no classified research would take place. A few minutes later, Kyle Loring, an attorney at Roxbury-based Alternatives for Community & Environment (ACE), told the audience that — given conditions attached to the project’s federal funding — such a promise was simply impossible to make. This pattern was repeated again and again, with proponents painting a picture of an incredibly secure "submarine within a vault" that posed zero risk to the surrounding community, and critics suggesting that if one malicious employee decided to walk out the door with a vial of anthrax or plague or smallpox, wide-scale havoc could ensue. The councilors addressed this conundrum in different ways. District Two councilor Jimmy Kelly got cranky with the panel of detractors, complaining about "scare tactics" and offering the following admonition: "If people are going to be looking to you for leadership, for information, then damn it, get your facts right!" (At one point, Kelly was shouted down by an audience member who was promptly removed from the chamber.) District One councilor Paul Scapicchio took a different tack, asking if the city could take partial measures to ban classified research or if only an all-out ban on Level 4 facilities would do the trick. District Nine councilor Jerry McDermott, who chaired Tuesday’s hearing, said the council’s lawyer is currently evaluating whether a citywide ban on Level 4 facilities would pass legal muster. (A similar ban in Cambridge prohibiting the testing of chemical-warfare agents has been upheld by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.) An ordinance implementing such a ban would need the support of seven councilors to pass and nine councilors to override a probable Menino veto. With Turner and at-large councilors Felix Arroyo and Maura Hennigan the only councilors currently in the opponents’ camp, that doesn’t seem likely. But Klare X. Allen, an organizer at ACE, remains hopeful. "A lot of city councilors could possibly be on the fence," Allen said Tuesday. "Councilors who were die-hards for the facility have gotten enough pressure from their constituents that they’re saying, ‘Wait a minute, let’s see what people are talking about.’ I think it’s a huge step, them having this hearing."
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