STAFF EDIT: Blinded by science?

Last week’s unexplained error in the Boston University Medical center’s Biosafety Level-2 lab left a graduate student ill with a bacterial infection, and onlookers sick with worry. The incident occurred at an inopportune time for biolab supporters, just days before a large scale, dramatic protest against the Biosafety Level-4 lab projected to house such volatile pathogens as anthrax and Ebola in the South End and a little more than a week before the mayoral and municipal elections, which feature the biolab issue as one of the foremost. The case for the Level-4 lab will suffer greatly from this news ‘- thankfully ‘- because after a mistake like this, the cause of which has yet to be identified, one can’t help but imagining it happening on a much larger scale, with much more dangerous diseases, in a highly populated area such as Boston.

Boston University handled the safety breach appropriately, notifying the necessary authorities in a timely manner and disinfecting the lab according to regulatory protocol. And the infected student was properly diagnosed and treated without delay, which should garner applause for the doctors who responded with an immediacy that fit the situation. Though both of these are examples of how well prepared the city is for an incident of this nature, there still leaves something to be said for why and how it happened in the first place. It’s hard not to define those in dissent of the opening of the Biosafety Level-4 as panic mongers ‘- incidences of safety and security breaches are rare, and lab workers face these pathogens every day without getting sick. But there is a time and a place for worry and caution, and after Boston’s small but significant history of biolab breaches make a legitimate case for skeptics. No amount of security measures can prevent human error, and there are some risks that just should not be taken.

A city ‘- like science ‘- has to have limits. There’s only so far a population’s safety should be pushed in the name of progress, and the more mistakes such as the one that occurred at the Level-2 lab last week, the more supporters of the Biosafety Level-4 lab will lose their footing. If voters choose the correct candidates in Tuesday’s election, whatever crisis could emerge from the lab may be averted. In this election, science and politics are facing off in a very necessary and legitimate fight. With concrete evidence of the possibility of a slip-up, the question of whether or not the most dangerous type of biolab should be up and running in the middle of a large metropolitan area isn’t a question of partisanship, ideology or scientific matters, but rather, it’s simply a matter making good decisions for the people of a good city.