The National Institutes of Health moved yesterday to meet court demands to further review the Boston University Biosafety Level-4 laboratory — which will house the world’s deadliest pathogens, including Ebola, plague and anthrax — through a new oversight committee.
The NIH created the Coordinating Committee to manage the court mandated review of the BU Medical Campus site and the Blue Ribbon Panel to help “review current risk assessments and provide independent technical expertise and guidance,” according to an NIH press release.
NIH spokesman John Burklow said the Blue Ribbon Panel will allow for “a comprehensive approach” of the review required by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s Dec. 11 ruling that the environmental impact report for the lab was “arbitrary and capricious.” The ruling was a victory for opponents of the biolab, who have criticized its location in the densely populated South End and claimed the approval process was rushed and insufficient.
“By having this panel of outside experts, they’re providing the outside perspective, the outside consultation,” Burklow said. The NIH will set up the basic infrastructure for the review and will allow the panel to concentrate on analyzing the lab’s safety.
The NIH plans to have a final report on the biolab by April 2009, Burklow said, adding, “We’re just beginning.”
Blue Ribbon Panel chairman and Princeton University professor Adel Mahmoud said it would be “unfair” for him to comment on the biolab before the panel meets for the first time next week.
In November, the National Research Council released a statement that the NIH’s 2006 draft of an environmental impact review green-lighting the biolab was “not sound and credible.” The NRC reported that the NIH review lacked enough information to accurately assess the risks associated with the lab’s urban location and had not “adequately identified and thoroughly developed worst-case scenarios.”
The completion date for the lab was pushed back in January, when the NIH filed federal court documents stating that a full safety review will be completed by April 2009 at the latest. Not until that point can BU apply for the permits necessary to make to the lab operational.
BU welcomes the additional review and is pleased with the appointment of the Blue Ribbon Panel, according to a BUMC statement.
“We are pleased they will consider all concerns, including the community’s and those expressed by the panel assembled by the National Research Council,” the statement said. “We are confident that the lab will be safe, and this third-party examination is an important step in the public process.”