A “blue ribbon” NIH panel will hold a public meeting tomorrow, October 5, “…to inform the community about about the status and proposed approach of the risk assessment for the lab.”
The $200 million NIH-funded laboratory, which has been built but has not yet opened, would include a Biosafety Level 4 facility lab for the study of highly infectious pathogens. Environmentalists and South End residents say the neighborhood is too densly populated for the lab.
In 2007, National Research Council, a independent research organitzation, concluded that NIH’s draft risk assesment was not “not sound and credible.”
“The NIH draft report has serious weaknesses, in particular regarding selection of pathogens and lack of transparency of the modeling, leading the committee to conclude that the draft is not sound and credible,” said committee chair John Ahearne, emeritus director of the ethics program, Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, Research Triangle Park, N.C.
For BU’s take see:
From ACE, Alternatives for Community and Environment, the lab opponents.