A week after the National Institutes of Health released a report stating Boston University's Level-4 Biosafety laboratory poses no threat to its future home in the South End, angry community members renewed complaints of "environmental racism."
A dispute over construction of the lab reached Supreme Judicial Court yesterday, where Boston citizens who sued the Boston Redevelopment Authority claim the biolab poses a danger to poor residents near the site.
"Any escape of a pathogen would have the most devastating impact on this community as opposed to a neighborhood where everyone has health insurance," said Sandy Eaton, a Massachusetts Nurses Association board member.
Eaton said the lab would create yet another threat for a neighborhood that already suffers from the presence of trash transfer stations and toxic waste.
"We don't want it in any community," she said. "If it's going to be built, and it's inevitable that it's going to be built, there need to be regulations in place that do not exist at the state level."
BRA representatives and BU officials argued for the lab's construction, explaining that the South End is safe for a lab dealing with the world's deadliest pathogens.
"The NIH report affirmed and clearly stated that the South End location is the best of all the possible locations for the lab," said Ellen Berlin, BU Medical Center Director of Corporate Communications.
In 2003, after intense competition with other U.S. universities, BU received a $128 million grant from NIH to build the lab. Currently, five BSL-4 labs operate in the United States.
Berlin said BU's lab will continue trend of cutting-edge research and groundbreaking discovery for the public good.
"The lab will attract exceptional researchers and will be a world-leading research center for infectious diseases because it will be enhancing the public health," she said.
BRA attorney Saul Shapiro said construction of the lab is imperative to public safety because it will enable researchers to understand and defend against threatening agents.
"This is a bio-defense program dealing with agents that have capabilities to be used as weapons," Shapiro said.
BU attorney John Stevens said there is simply no other option for the lab's location. "The laboratory will be in the South End of Boston or it will not operate," Stevens said. "There is no feasible alternative."
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