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Former BU biolab proponent runs for city council, campaigns against biolab

Former Boston University Medical Campus Director of External Affairs Egobudike Ezedi, who originally defended BU’s plans for a Biosafety Level-4 laboratory in the South End, has now taken a stance against the BSL-4 lab in his campaign for Boston City Councilor-At-Large.

Ezedi, who came up with the biolab slogan ‘Finding Cures. Saving Lives.’ during his time at BU from July 2004 to December 2005, said he quit his job because of ‘personal conviction’ after he heard the initial risk assessment of the BSL-4 lab. He currently gives the biolab a ‘thumbs down’ on his campaign website.

‘The people essentially said we cannot guarantee 100 percent safety, period,’ Ezedi said, regarding the initial assessment. ‘I decided at that point I didn’t want to continue to go along with it.’

But some opponents of the BSL-4 lab, who dealt with Ezedi for over a year, said Ezedi should have waited for the assessment results before heavily promoting the BSL-4 lab to a community that largely disapproved of it. Ezedi did more than just act as a community liaison for the lab; he was a strong promoter, some said.

‘He got paid over $150,000 to sell out our community on this biolab,’ Klare Allen, coordinator of Stop the Bioterror Lab, a community campaign against the biolab, said. ‘That’s not listening to the people, that’s talking ‘money and power’ over what we’re saying.”

In a video created by Tufts University students during the beginning of the biolab controversy titled, ‘BIOSAFETY or BIOTERROR?’ Ezedi is videotaped saying, ‘So in September, we’re going to be sticking a shovel in the ground, whether you like it or not.’

Later he states his full name and then says, ‘My name means money is power.’

Ezedi’s sudden change of opinion remains suspicious, Allen said.

‘When you’re running for office, you’ve suddenly seen the light?’ Allen asked.

Ezedi said although he supports a level 2 or 3 laboratory in the current facility, he does not think a BSL-4 should be placed in such a densely populated area. BU has not answered the ‘what if’ question concerning potential emergencies, he said.

‘Again, I don’t disagree with the research,’ Ezedi said. ‘After all, I was the one who came up with the slogan.’

BU Medical Campus spokeswoman Ellen Berlin declined to comment on both Ezedi’s campaign stance against the BSL-4 lab and his reason for leaving his position.

Though the construction for the Albany Street biolab facility is complete, the National Institutes of Health said in April that it would require at least another year to finish its extensive safety review, according to the Boston Globe. The BSL-4 lab would research some of the world’s deadliest pathogens, including anthrax and Ebola.

In response to allegations that his decision to oppose the BSL-4 lab was for political reasons, Ezedi, who is executive director of family service center Roxbury Y as well as a minister for Morning Star Baptist Church in Mattapan, said he did not publicize his decision because it was personal.

‘I did not make my decision based on politics,’ Ezedi said. ‘I made my decision based on my own personal convictions.’

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2 Comments

  1. The Biolab should not happen. Do any of us really believe BU can keep the city of Boston safe from from what’s held there?

  2. The Biolab should not happen. Do any of us really believe BU can keep the city of Boston safe from from what’s held there?