News

After 15 year fight, BSL 4 studies approved at NEIDL

by Michele D.  Maniscalco
Thursday Dec 14, 2017

After approximately 15 years of review, litigations, city council hearings and other forms of scrutiny at the local, state and federal level, Boston University's (BU) National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory (NEIDL), also known as the Biolab, received approval from the Boston Public Health Commission for research on biosafety level (BSL) 4 research at its facility at 620 Albany Street, according to an announcement released by BU on December 6.

While BSL 4 work is not the majority of the NEIDL's activity, the BSL 4 lab taking up only 13 per cent of the building's space, it has been by far the most contentious and controversial piece in opening the NEIDL at its full capacity, as BSL 4 research involves the world's deadliest pathogens, those with neither cures nor vaccines, raising concerns among neighbors in Roxbury and the South End.

There are 10 BSL 4 labs in the US at locations such as the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, GA; the United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, MD; and the Rocky Mountain Laboratories Integrated Research Facility in Hamilton, MT, with just one other BSL 4 lab located at a university, the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. In the December 6 statement, Ronald B. Corley, professor of microbiology at BU School of Medicine and director of the NEIDL, said in the announcement, "We're extraordinarily pleased."

The statement also said that research on Ebola and Marburg are expected to begin within one to two months. While both diseases are rare and are concentrated outside North America, an Ebola outbreak in Africa resulted in cases in the United States between 2014 and 2016, brought home by travelers to Africa.

Around the South End, reactions were mixed. James Keeney, a former sales representative and financial analyst in the pharmaceutical industry, is a member of the NEIDL's Community Liaison Committee (CLC), Institutional Biosafety Committee as well as the Boston Public Health Commission's (BPHC) Boston Biosafety Committee and has toured the BSL 4 lab.

Keeney welcomed news of the BPHC approval, commenting via e-mail, "During my tenure on these committees, I remain favorably impressed with the redundant safety features built into the laboratories at the NEIDL and of the quality and professionalism of the staff working there. I feel pleased that the BPHC finally has permitted the NEIDL to conduct BSL-4 studies of infectious organisms. I concur with the Commission's findings that there would be little risk to the surrounding community from such studies, whereas Boston would be distinguished if research at the NEIDL leads to new therapies for these dangerous organisms, for which there exists a pressing need for better diagnosis and treatments." Worcester Square Area Neighborhood Association president George Stergios, whose jurisdiction is in close proximity to the NEIDL, was not so sanguine.

Stergios wrote, "We at WSANA, and many other neighborhood organizations, have always worried about the possibility of some of these pathogens escaping the facility, no matter how careful those managing the facility are. It really belongs far, far away from densely populated areas like the South End and Roxbury." Last week, a neighbor posted an article on the approval of BSL 4 at the NEIDL and expressing his dismay on Facebook's South End Community Board, sparking heated comments in favor and opposed.

The BSL 4 component of the lab in particular was met with opposition in the planning stages, its leadership criticized for failing to engage with the community and sharing its plans, the potential benefits and risks with community groups. Roxbury resident Klare X.

Allen and other concerned residents approached former NEIDL chief Mark Klempner with their concerns, and when Klempner allegedly said he "would not speak with anyone who was not qualified", Allen and others were galvanized by the arrogance and lack of accountability perceived in Klempner's statements and waged a campaign to prevent the world's deadliest microbes from being transported into and studied in the heart of a densely populated, urban neighborhood.

Allen amassed a coalition comprising scientists from government and academia, leadership of the Massachusetts Nurses Association as well as rank and file nurses, peace activists from groups including Pax Christi and Peace Pagoda, and a faculty member of BU's School of Public Health to hold community information meetings, testify at city council hearings, lobby legislators and file lawsuits to keep BSL 4 research out of the South End. Attorney Laura Maslow-Armond, director of the Health Disparities Project for the Lawyers Committee and counsel to Allen's coalition for approximately 15 years, observed that while the lawsuits filed against the NEIDL did not prevent approval of BSL 4 research, they paved the way for a more rigorous review of the facility.

"They forced a better scientific look at the risk the lab would post to the community," she said in a telephone interview. The coalition garnered support from several city council members over the years, including former city councilor Chuck Turner and current city councilors Ayanna Pressley, Tito Jackson and Matt O'Malley. Jackson, a former pharmaceutical sales representative, pointed out that Cambridge's ban on BSL 4 research has not prevented it from hosting the highest concentration of biomedical research and industry in the world. NEIDL opponents Marc Pelletier, biochemist and cell biologist at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research and Dr. Lynn Klotz, senior science fellow at The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, suggested an alternative plan for the BSL 4 facility that would study diseases that are prevalent in the community, including hypertension and drug-resistant tuberculosis.

Klare X. Allen did not comment, but Klotz and Maslow-Armand expressed a desire to continue to follow the lab in some sort of accountability capacity, and other members of the coalition plan to protest and to speak out on their public safety concerns, including safety of transport through local traffic, human error and intentional release or removal of BSL 4 pathogens by unstable or disgruntled staff.

Editor's Disclosure: the author belonged to the coalition opposing BSL 4 research for several years prior to reporting for this newspaper.