Bioagents in the backyard

Boston University School of Medicine has joined the list of schools seeking to build new bioterrorism research laboratories, and the University of Maryland School of Medicine is weighing its chances in the contest for federal lab funds.Like universities in California, Illinois and Texas, the Boston school is waging a public relations campaign in advance of filing its bid for a grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The Baltimore-based medical school has kept its deliberations quiet, so far. But spokesman Larry Roberts confirmed that University of Maryland is considering entering the competition for a share of $275 million in federal grants to build one or two Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) laboratories.The ability to enlist public opinion in support of research on the most dangerous microbes in major population centers is one of the criteria NIAID will use to evaluate applicants for BSL-4 lab grants. University of California, Davis, University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have all gone public with their intentions to bid. Each has sent school officials out to stump for the BSL-4 labs, courting local politicians and the press."It was very important for us to hear the community's concerns," said Ellen Berlin, spokeswoman for Boston University School of Medicine. "The community is a very important part of the process."But on the National Institutes of Health's home turf, citizens say the agency has been unresponsive to public concern over its decision to build a Biosafety Level 3 lab on its campus in Bethesda, Maryland. Construction on the new NIH BSL-3 space, dubbed "Building 33," is expected to start in the fall despite fears expressed by the agency's Community Liaison Council."They're just using us as some sort of announcing forum," said Jack Costello, a retired military man and a member of the body that consults regularly with NIH. "They give a lot of lip service to us, but at the end of the day, when we disagree with them, they do what they want to do anyway.""I imagine there are always folks who feel they are not listened to," Tom Gallagher, NIH's director of community liaison, told The Scientist. The agency will announce plans to conduct a risk assessment of the Building 33 project at its Jan. 30 meeting, he said. "A number of the people who have been opposed, verbally opposed, some of them scientists, will be asked to be on the risk assessment group," Gallagher added.The scenario playing out in Bethesda may be replayed across the country in the coming months. In addition to new university-based BSL-4 labs, as many as a dozen new BSL-3 labs are in planning stages at universities as part of the national anti-bioterrorism infrastructure build-up. Also sprouting are the sort of citizens' groups which in the past have stopped or stymied bioresearch lab expansion from Utah to Plum Island, New York.NIH's Community Liaison Council members have met regularly with the agency for years. If the issue is non-controversial, the lines of communication stay open, Costello said. But when it comes to Building 33, some council members told The Scientist that they are not getting all the facts from officials, that their questions go unanswered and their concerns unheeded. For example, Costello said, NIH officials refuse to explain why they need a new BSL-3 lab in Bethesda or why they selected a site close to the entrance of a Metro station, a grammar school and two major highways. "Nobody is disputing that the work needs to be done, and that it needs to be done soon," Costello said. "But we asked way back in June what alternative sites had been looked at. No answer. I asked what criteria were used to decide the site of the building. No answer."Eleanor Rice, a long-time member of the council and a retired NIH employee, also worries that NIH is promising a level of security that it cannot deliver."None of it can be foolproof and NIH was never meant or intended to be a secure facility," Rice said, adding, "I'm a supporter of NIH, but I'm not a sycophant. I approach them with great skepticism. There is no long term accountability except for us."

Bioagents in the backyard

Putting secure labs in cities: universities seek to avoid PR problem now facing NIH.

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