BioLab in South End/Roxbury

Boston University has been awarded a $150 million grant by the National Institutes of Health to construct the highest safety-level (level 4) bio-defense laboratory in the Roxbury/South End section of Boston. In this bio-defense lab, researchers will conduct experiments on dangerous and exotic agents that have a high risk of a life-threatening disease for which there is no available therapy, such as Ebola, SARS and Anthrax.

CLF, with the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, on behalf of residents of Roxbury and the South End sued National Insitute of Health (NIH) for violating the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to perform any risk analysis on contagious pathogens and examine any alternative locations. The violations of the federal requirements are especially egregious considering the potentially catastrophic impact the lab could have on the surrounding communities, and that the residents in closest proximity to the lab are poor and persons of color. The federal judge (Patti Saris) has required that NIH and Boston University conduct a new risk analysis that includes a variety of the contagious diseases that might be studied at the lab as well as different exposure pathways such as during transport of these pathogens to the lab. Also, NIH and BU must examine if these risks would be mitigated if the lab were located in alternative locations in less densely populated areas.

In addition to the federal case, community activists filed a case in state court alleging violations of the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA). CLF filed an amicus brief with Judge Gants who ultimately ruled in favor of the community by declaring that the Secretary of EOEA’s certificate approving the environmental impact report was arbitrary and capricious. Boston University has appealed the decision and it will be heard by the Supreme Judicial Court in September. CLF will file an additional amicus brief with the SJC requesting that it uphold the lower court’s ruling.

Despite the fact that a state and federal judge have required new environmental reviews, BU continues to construct this bio-defense lab. BU has expressly assumed the risk that biosafety-level 4 research may never occur at this facility. Government decision-makers have an obligation to decide anew based on the supplemental environmental review whether or not this location in one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the New England is appropriate for BSL-4 research.

News:

Contacts:

Melissa Hoffer
Director, Healthy Communities & Environmental Justice

Advocacy Documents: