News

Peace vigil at the NEIDL

by Michele D.  Maniscalco
Thursday Mar 24, 2016

A small group of activists from across the Bay State gathered in the Blackstone Square for an interfaith peace vigil and walk to Boston University's National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory (NEIDL) on Albany Street, also known as the Biolab, to pray for an end to violence, the proliferation of biological weapons and threats to humanity and the environment.

The vigil encompassed activists from the local group Roxbury SafetyNet and other organizations opposing level 3 and 4 research at the NEIDL as well as members of the New England Peace Pagoda, who included the vigil as a stop on their 15th annual "Walk for a New Spring", which began in western Massachusetts on March 4 and will culminate in Washington, DC on April 27.

Buddhist monks chanted and drummed while other participants, including Klare X. Allen, leader of Roxbury SafetyNet and Cornelia Sullivan of Pax Christi offered personal commentary and prayers. Sullivan, a Fenway resident and longtime member of the SafetyNet Coalition, recited excerpts from the Psalm 33 of the Old Testament. Safety Net and its allies have sought to prevent level 3 and 4 research on some of the world's deadliest pathogens, including those for which there is neither a vaccine or a cure, for over 12 years.

The group has filed an environmental injustice lawsuit against the research in federal court, citing the South End/Lower Roxbury area's already-high concentration of highly polluting sites and businesses and the elevated rates of asthma and other environmentally-linked diseases in the area. The coalition consists of research scientists, health care professionals, educators, lawyers and others concerned that level 3 and 4 research and the transport of such dangerous pathogens into a densely populated area of the city will pose an elevated risk to neighbors of accidental or malicious release, targeting by terrorists or internal mishandling of potentially deadly microorganisms.

According to Valeda Britton, executive director of community relations at Boston University Medical Campus, Level 3 research on tuberculosis is already underway at the NEIDL, but level 4 research, which would involve diseases on the level of Ebola and the 1918 influenza virus, is still awaiting approval from the Centers for Disease Control and the Boston Public Health Commission. The coalition has reached out to Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Joseph Kennedy, III of the 4th congressional district in Massachusetts for support on a moratorium on approval of level 4 research.

After the vigil, Sullivan commented, "Standing facing the NEIDL Lab on Albany Street, which is waiting for a permit to do research on the most lethal pathogens and toxins known to humanity, referred to by our government as "select agents", and have the potential to be used as bioweapons, can be very intimidating. However, I found myself being energized as I listened to the chanting and drumming by the Buddhist monks and their associates."

Tim Bullock of New England Peace Pagoda said, "We have made it a yearly ritual on our walk to pray at the Albany Street location of the Level 4 lab, for its non-start as well as the safety of its workers and the community that surrounds this center. The goal was to bring the prayer to this location, to let people who have been working against the startup of this dangerous laboratory know that we at the New England Peace Pagoda continue to stand in solidarity with them and to practice the concept of shared security as we understand that unless we are all secure, no one is secure."