|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
NIAID Director Endorses Boston Hot Lab
The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases yesterday backed Boston University’s plan to construct a Biosafety Level 4 laboratory, indicating the Bush administration’s commitment to building the facility, the Boston Globe reported (see GSN, Feb. 4). Anthony Fauci said the project should continue despite recent disclosures that three university researchers last year contracted tularemia while working with the pathogen. The infectious disease institute is the only government agency whose approval is still necessary for the continuation of the project, though state environmental regulators have indicated they might reopen their review of the planned facility, according to the Globe. The laboratory would handle research on dangerous pathogens, such as anthrax, that could be used in a bioterror attack. The tularemia exposures occurred last May and September in a Biosafety Level 2 laboratory, where safety rules are not as tight. “Things like that happen when people are not trained well,” Fauci said. He disputed criticism alleging that the tularemia exposures indicate the university’s inability to work with dangerous agents. “I think that they’re being unfair by saying ‘they’ can’t handle this at BU,” Fauci said. “‘They’ in this case is an investigator who did not follow protocol, who did not go under the training, who was not working in a BSL-4” (Stephen Smith, Boston Globe, Feb. 24).
| ||||||||||
Back to top
