Terrorism labs pose safety concerns - DANGEROUS WORK UNSETTLES SOME
By Greg Kocher
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
Proposals to build new high-security "hot labs" -- such as the one sought for Pulaski County that would study highly contagious animal and human diseases -- have unsettled residents around the country.
Residents in Boston filed a still-pending lawsuit alleging that officials underestimated the potential effect of a germ release from a proposed research lab at Boston University.
Citizens groups in Hamilton, Mont., filed a suit -- now settled -- alleging that the government had not answered specific questions during the environmental review process for a new lab.
And concerns about health and safety issues prompted the city council in Davis, Calif., to unanimously oppose a lab at the University of California campus. UC-Davis did not get the project.
It's too early to tell what the reaction of Kentuckians, particularly residents of Pulaski County, might be to building a bioterrorism lab in their midst. The $451 million federal project would have labs with Biosafety Levels of 3 and 4, where the most dangerous diseases are studied and which require the highest level of security. But residents who live near proposed labs elsewhere have had time to question their security, the possible release of pathogens, and whether the labs would become targets for terrorists.
Mary Wulff is not comforted by official assurances that there has never been a release of deadly pathogens into the environment from a Biosafety Level 4 lab.
"The potential still exists, whether it's happened or not," said Wulff, a former police officer who heads a citizens group that opposes a new lab under construction in Hamilton, Mont.
In the post-9/11 days of heightened security concerns, supporters say these new labs are necessary to develop vaccines and treatments for emerging diseases and bioterror threats. There are only a handful of labs in the country equipped with high-tech safety measures allowing them to study the deadliest pathogens. They are in Galveston and San Antonio, Texas, Frederick, Md., and Atlanta.
Kentucky, in partnership with Tennessee, would like to join that list, officials said Monday. The Department of Homeland Security is looking for a site for a new lab because there isn't enough research space to study the introduction of foreign animal diseases -- accidental or intentional -- into the country's food supply. The aging Plum Island, N.Y., facility where this is currently done may be closed or its research reduced, creating a need for a newer lab.
The proposed lab would also likely study zoonotic diseases that can be transferred from animals to humans, such as avian flu.
"If you want to learn how to take these viruses apart and put them back together ... and develop a vaccine against them, it really requires this kind of spacesuit laboratory," said Tom Curtis, director of research communications at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
A list of pathogens
While the research may be necessary, it's often difficult for community groups to get straight answers to their questions about the labs.
"The transparency issue is a big one because we wanted them to be forthcoming and tell us what they were working on," said Wulff, director of Coalition for a Safe Lab in Hamilton.
In the Montana settlement, the government agreed that it would distribute a list of all the pathogens studied there; that the lab would not turn any disease into a weapon; and that the lab will immediately report any incidents to safety officers inside and outside the facility.
Klare X. Allen, who lives in a South End neighborhood of Boston where a new research lab is planned, expresses frustration in getting Boston University and Boston Medical Center to answer questions about the facility that will work with some of the world's deadliest viruses and bacteria, such as Ebola, anthrax and plague.
"When you ask them direct questions, they won't answer them," said Allen, who heads a community group called Safety Net. "They'll say, 'We don't really know that information.' Or, 'We can't really talk about that.'"
But Ellen Berlin, director of corporate communications for Boston Medical Center, said officials have answered questions at more than 200 public meetings and forums about the lab. One question that has repeatedly come up is whether the lab would conduct any classified research, or study how to turn germs into weapons. The answer has repeatedly been no.
"I don't know why the question keeps being asked when the answer has been given," Berlin said. "And I think that sometimes opponents use opportunities to scare people to misrepresent the facts."
Terrorist targets?
Another question that's often asked about such labs is whether any of the material they're studying has ever gotten out. The standard answer is no.
"There's no evidence that there's ever been a release of one of these infectious agents" in any community, said Marshall Bloom, associate director of Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana. "However, there have been literally thousands of lives saved as a consequence of the research that's been done."
But lab opponents say that while there is no public record of accidents or security breaches at such facilities, the Council for Responsible Genetics has compiled a list of more than two dozen mistakes -- such as environmental releases, containment and security failures, missing samples, and exposures and infections of personnel -- at labs since 1985.
Bloom, the Montana lab associate director, acknowledges that there are risks to researchers. However, "the amount of scrutiny to which these facilities is subjected is phenomenal," he said. "It is unfair to compare what was done 20 years ago with what's being done in these facilities coming on-line today."
As for the potential for a terrorist incident at a lab, that hasn't been a serious concern for Robert Mihovil, who lives just blocks away from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. One small Level 4 lab is already there, and another larger lab is under construction.
Mihovil, president of a neighborhood association, said the more likely targets are the oil refineries 15 to 35 miles northwest of Galveston.
"I think it would be a whole lot more dangerous to be living next to (refineries in) Texas City or Pasadena than it would be to live next to a BSL-4 facility in the heart of UTMB," Mihovil said.
The microbes studied at UTMB "are fairly wimpy little bugs" that cannot survive in sunlight, said Curtis, the research spokesman there.
"Everybody is horrified at what they can do, but the truth is the research quantities we're studying are quite modest," Curtis said. "And if the building they're in got hit by a bomb or an airplane or a tornado or something like that," they're easily killed.
Frankness and delivery
While openness has been an issue at some lab locations, Mihovil gives UTMB good marks for its forthrightness in dealing with the public.
For one thing, the university told the public about its intentions to seek funding for its two labs years before it applied.
"They answered any questions and all questions we had well before there was a piece of concrete poured," Mihovil said. "They brought in their six top experts, the doctors that were actually going to design and run the labs, and they came to our meetings at our neighborhood association."
Still, there are aspects about the labs that unnerve residents. One is that the vials of microbes are delivered by FedEx and other couriers. Allen said the winning sports teams in Boston had more police escorts than will the germs delivered to the new lab to be built there.
"When the Patriots won, when the Celtics won, when the Red Sox won, they shut down the whole damn highway," Allen said. "They had 20 cops in front of them, 20 cops behind them and they brought them in. The plague and anthrax? They come through FedEx. You know how many overturned FedEx trucks we've had in a year?"
"Where's the evidence that this has ever been an issue?" counters Bloom. "To say that these express companies don't have security systems in place is laughable."
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
Proposals to build new high-security "hot labs" -- such as the one sought for Pulaski County that would study highly contagious animal and human diseases -- have unsettled residents around the country.
Residents in Boston filed a still-pending lawsuit alleging that officials underestimated the potential effect of a germ release from a proposed research lab at Boston University.
Citizens groups in Hamilton, Mont., filed a suit -- now settled -- alleging that the government had not answered specific questions during the environmental review process for a new lab.
And concerns about health and safety issues prompted the city council in Davis, Calif., to unanimously oppose a lab at the University of California campus. UC-Davis did not get the project.
It's too early to tell what the reaction of Kentuckians, particularly residents of Pulaski County, might be to building a bioterrorism lab in their midst. The $451 million federal project would have labs with Biosafety Levels of 3 and 4, where the most dangerous diseases are studied and which require the highest level of security. But residents who live near proposed labs elsewhere have had time to question their security, the possible release of pathogens, and whether the labs would become targets for terrorists.
Mary Wulff is not comforted by official assurances that there has never been a release of deadly pathogens into the environment from a Biosafety Level 4 lab.
"The potential still exists, whether it's happened or not," said Wulff, a former police officer who heads a citizens group that opposes a new lab under construction in Hamilton, Mont.
In the post-9/11 days of heightened security concerns, supporters say these new labs are necessary to develop vaccines and treatments for emerging diseases and bioterror threats. There are only a handful of labs in the country equipped with high-tech safety measures allowing them to study the deadliest pathogens. They are in Galveston and San Antonio, Texas, Frederick, Md., and Atlanta.
Kentucky, in partnership with Tennessee, would like to join that list, officials said Monday. The Department of Homeland Security is looking for a site for a new lab because there isn't enough research space to study the introduction of foreign animal diseases -- accidental or intentional -- into the country's food supply. The aging Plum Island, N.Y., facility where this is currently done may be closed or its research reduced, creating a need for a newer lab.
The proposed lab would also likely study zoonotic diseases that can be transferred from animals to humans, such as avian flu.
"If you want to learn how to take these viruses apart and put them back together ... and develop a vaccine against them, it really requires this kind of spacesuit laboratory," said Tom Curtis, director of research communications at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
A list of pathogens
While the research may be necessary, it's often difficult for community groups to get straight answers to their questions about the labs.
"The transparency issue is a big one because we wanted them to be forthcoming and tell us what they were working on," said Wulff, director of Coalition for a Safe Lab in Hamilton.
In the Montana settlement, the government agreed that it would distribute a list of all the pathogens studied there; that the lab would not turn any disease into a weapon; and that the lab will immediately report any incidents to safety officers inside and outside the facility.
Klare X. Allen, who lives in a South End neighborhood of Boston where a new research lab is planned, expresses frustration in getting Boston University and Boston Medical Center to answer questions about the facility that will work with some of the world's deadliest viruses and bacteria, such as Ebola, anthrax and plague.
"When you ask them direct questions, they won't answer them," said Allen, who heads a community group called Safety Net. "They'll say, 'We don't really know that information.' Or, 'We can't really talk about that.'"
But Ellen Berlin, director of corporate communications for Boston Medical Center, said officials have answered questions at more than 200 public meetings and forums about the lab. One question that has repeatedly come up is whether the lab would conduct any classified research, or study how to turn germs into weapons. The answer has repeatedly been no.
"I don't know why the question keeps being asked when the answer has been given," Berlin said. "And I think that sometimes opponents use opportunities to scare people to misrepresent the facts."
Terrorist targets?
Another question that's often asked about such labs is whether any of the material they're studying has ever gotten out. The standard answer is no.
"There's no evidence that there's ever been a release of one of these infectious agents" in any community, said Marshall Bloom, associate director of Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana. "However, there have been literally thousands of lives saved as a consequence of the research that's been done."
But lab opponents say that while there is no public record of accidents or security breaches at such facilities, the Council for Responsible Genetics has compiled a list of more than two dozen mistakes -- such as environmental releases, containment and security failures, missing samples, and exposures and infections of personnel -- at labs since 1985.
Bloom, the Montana lab associate director, acknowledges that there are risks to researchers. However, "the amount of scrutiny to which these facilities is subjected is phenomenal," he said. "It is unfair to compare what was done 20 years ago with what's being done in these facilities coming on-line today."
As for the potential for a terrorist incident at a lab, that hasn't been a serious concern for Robert Mihovil, who lives just blocks away from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. One small Level 4 lab is already there, and another larger lab is under construction.
Mihovil, president of a neighborhood association, said the more likely targets are the oil refineries 15 to 35 miles northwest of Galveston.
"I think it would be a whole lot more dangerous to be living next to (refineries in) Texas City or Pasadena than it would be to live next to a BSL-4 facility in the heart of UTMB," Mihovil said.
The microbes studied at UTMB "are fairly wimpy little bugs" that cannot survive in sunlight, said Curtis, the research spokesman there.
"Everybody is horrified at what they can do, but the truth is the research quantities we're studying are quite modest," Curtis said. "And if the building they're in got hit by a bomb or an airplane or a tornado or something like that," they're easily killed.
Frankness and delivery
While openness has been an issue at some lab locations, Mihovil gives UTMB good marks for its forthrightness in dealing with the public.
For one thing, the university told the public about its intentions to seek funding for its two labs years before it applied.
"They answered any questions and all questions we had well before there was a piece of concrete poured," Mihovil said. "They brought in their six top experts, the doctors that were actually going to design and run the labs, and they came to our meetings at our neighborhood association."
Still, there are aspects about the labs that unnerve residents. One is that the vials of microbes are delivered by FedEx and other couriers. Allen said the winning sports teams in Boston had more police escorts than will the germs delivered to the new lab to be built there.
"When the Patriots won, when the Celtics won, when the Red Sox won, they shut down the whole damn highway," Allen said. "They had 20 cops in front of them, 20 cops behind them and they brought them in. The plague and anthrax? They come through FedEx. You know how many overturned FedEx trucks we've had in a year?"
"Where's the evidence that this has ever been an issue?" counters Bloom. "To say that these express companies don't have security systems in place is laughable."
