Manhattan, Kansas has been chosen as the site for the much-contested $450 million government biolab, which will house research on some of the most highly infectious human and animal pathogens, according to a draft document from the Department of Homeland Security leaked to the press.

(Click here for the document, posted by the Lawrence Journal World and News.)

The decision on the prospective lab, called the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF), has yet to be finalized by federal officials -- a process which could take a month, the Kansas City Star reports.

However, other sites which have been competing for project -- including facilities in Athens, Ga.; Butner, NC.; Flora, Miss., and San Antonio, TX, -- may not take the news lying down.

"Let me just simply say that we're looking at (a challenge) very seriously because we do think we have the best site and we'll proceed accordingly," Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told the AP Wednesday (December 3).

Meanwhile, biosecurity experts continue to oppose NBAF, which was proposed in 2006 and will be the largest high-security biocontainment lab in the world, conducting research on pathogens such as foot and mouth disease (FMD), rift valley fever, and anthrax.

Richard Ebright, a microbiologist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, summarized his response to the Kansas decision in an email to The Scientist as follows:

"###Unsafe. (Foot-and-mouth-disease virus cannot safely be handled at a mainland location.)

###Unnecessary. (No scientific rationale. No scientific purpose. No scientific necessity.)

###A DHS planning failure on par with Katrina.

###Should be terminated by the Obama Administration or the new Congress."

NBAF would also replace the aging lab on Plum Island in New York, an island facility off the tip of Long Island to which the country's research on FMD has been relegated since 1955. While Plum Island is a biosafety level (BSL)-3 facility, however, the new lab would be equipped to work on still more dangerous pathogens requiring the highest containment level, BSL-4.

An assessment this summer by the Government Accountability Office questioned the safety of positioning such research on the mainland, and experts have noted that several of the proposed sites, including Kansas, are located close to the country's agricultural core, increasing the potential danger posed by a leak.



Related stories:

Mainland animal lab poses risks: GAO [22nd May 2008]

Pathogen labs lack security: GAO [16th October 2008]

US homeland security to build animal biolab [6th February 2006]