Public hearing set for BU lab
Comment sought on safety report
A long-awaited hearing for the public to comment on the latest safety report for Boston University’s controversial high-security research laboratory has been scheduled for April 19, federal officials said yesterday.
Those officials also released a 23-page reader’s guide to the 1,756-page safety document, saying they hoped it would make the massive report more accessible to the public. The guide is a synopsis of the potential risks to the public if a potentially lethal germ studied by scientists at the lab were to accidentally escape.
The public hearing in April will be at Roxbury Community College from 6:30 until 9:30 p.m., according to yesterday’s Web post by the National Institutes of Health, which is conducting the hearing.
For years, the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory, the official name for the 192,000-square-foot high-security biolab, has been tied up by legal challenges and regulatory reviews. Some neighbors and environmental groups have argued that the densely populated neighborhood where the lab building was built – in the South End near Boston Medical Center – is not an appropriate or safe place for scientists to work with lethal germs.
The newly released safety report uses hypothetical scenarios to measure the potential risks to the public by comparing the current South End site with two other locations that were considered, the BU Corporate Education Center in Tyngsborough and the BU Sargent Center for Outdoor Education in Hancock, N.H.
The report also examines whether locating the biolab in the South End would have a disproportionately adverse impact on low-income and minority populations.
Massachusetts environmental officials granted preliminary approval in December to allow the lab to open for biomedical research on substances less hazardous than those that sparked opposition to the project.
The university plans to eventually use about 16 percent of the building as a Biosafety Level-4 lab for work on the deadliest germs. Those plans are still undergoing an environmental safety review by the NIH.
Federal health officials said in their Web posting that written comments will be accepted on the 1,756-page draft report through May 1. Written comments, as well as those offered during April’s public meeting, will be considered in developing a final safety assessment that must be completed before the sections of the lab that will house the most lethal germs can be opened. Written comments may be mailed to the National Institutes of Health, attention NEIDL Risk Assessment, 6705 Rockledge Drive, Suite 750, Bethesda, MD 20892-7985.
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