Neighbors rail against BU biolab

When asked to demonstrate their opposition to the Boston University Biolab, three quarters of the more than 300 people assembled at the Roxbury Center for the Arts raised their hands.
The people were gathered to hear community members discuss BU’s BioSafety Level-4 laboratory with the Blue Ribbon Panel. The Blue Ribbon Panel, made up of 13 scientists and doctors, was formed by the National Institutes of Health to independently and scientifically evaluate any risks stemming from the biolab.
The panel began by asking attendees how BU could better disseminate information about the biolab, what kind of action BU should take to ensure oversight and community involvement and what information residents would like to know about the biolab.
BU environmental health professor Patricia Hynes criticized the questions the panel posed to the community and the way the panel was treating audience members during the meeting.
‘The way [the question] is phrased suggests that the community is ignorant and that the university is the [more] knowledgeable of the two,’ she said. ‘Education is a two-way street.
‘Maybe we should be asking, ‘How can communities most effectively reach out to local universities to educate them?’ Hynes added.’
Roxbury resident Olivia Martin said she lives 300 yards from the biolab and that she was upset with the way the panel treated the community.
‘I can’t believe you came to us for the answers to common sense questions,’ she said to the panel during her testimony.
Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner, who represents the Roxbury district that borders the lab, stated his opposition to the project, citing BU’s inability to operate a secure lab. Turner said BU and the NIH lost the trust of the community after they failed to sufficiently evaluate the risks associated with opening a BSL-4lab in a densely populated urban area.
Turner said the biolab is being built as a result of President Bush’s desire to build more high-security biolabs in order to combat bioterrorism.
‘It’s time to put an end to another one of the ill-conceived Bush administration policies,’ Turner said.
More than 40 residents spoke at the meeting, and the majority said that the risks of the lab far outweigh the benefits.
Blue Ribbon Panel chair Adel Mahmoud said the biolab can not develop bioterrorism weapons under federal and international law.
‘Do we live in a country in which the laws are respected or not?’ Mahmoud asked. ‘We are responding according to the laws of the country.’
Greater Boston Legal Services attorney Eloise Lawrence criticized Mahmoud’s faith in the law.
‘The law is only as good as the people willing to support [it],’ she said.
Not everyone in attendance Tuesday night was against the lab, however. United South End Artists director Jane Brayton said she supports it and that many people may oppose the lab because of distrust in the federal government. In addition, she said many biolab supporters did not show up to the meeting because the meetings tend to last for hours and get little done.
‘Unfortunately, we Americans have become very jaded over the last eight years,’ she said.
Massachusetts General Hospital employee Jeffrey Gelfand said he supports the biolab because science needs more medical research and the lab would help further vaccine research, which would be in the interest of public health. Gelfand said if there were an emergency he would be put at risk, and subsequently put his family would be put at risk,’ but the benefits still outweighed the dangers.
‘I’ve been moved by what I’ve heard this evening’ Gelfand said. ‘I’m in support of this laboratory because of our common humanity. I’m a research scientist, and an infectious disease doctor. I, too, am a first responder. If there’s a problem that comes from this lab, I will be dealing with it.’