Posted on 05/07/2007 8:58:24 AM PDT by pabianice
BOSTON, MA - South End residents have sued in both state and federal courts to try to stop the construction of BU’s infectious disease lab, which will include a biosafety level 4 facility working with dangerous pathogens. So far, they haven’t been successful, although the state judge did order an additional environmental review. BU appealed that case.
Yesterday, the Supreme Judicial Court, Massachusetts’s highest court, said it would hear the case, essentially expediting the matter in allowing the case to skip the appeals court. So hopefully, both sides will soon get some final answers in this four-year battle between BU and residents/activists.
This nervousness surrounding labs on BU’s medical campus was probably the reason why a story about some smoke in a BU BSL-3 lab (working with bacteria that causes rabbit fever) made it to the front page of the Globe Wednesday. It had a big picture of firefighters in grey biohazard suits.
Even though the fire department said no contamination occurred, all the proper precautions were taken and that the smoke probably was due to an electrical issue, the specter this incident conjured up of disease-causing bacteria being unleashed on the community and the image of men in protective suits are enough to make front-page news in this town. Doesn’t exactly help BU’s image. Doesn’t really help science’s image either, I think. This incident (not to mention the big splash of a story about it), will no doubt fuel fears about the new lab under construction.
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