US agency fines BU $8,100 in safety offenses

Federal safety regulators announced yesterday that Boston University was guilty of serious safety violations relating to the exposure of three laboratory workers to tularemia bacteria last year.

The university and its affiliated hospital, Boston Medical Center, face fines totaling $8,100. It is the first time the university or hospital has faced financial sanctions over the tularemia cases.

A serious violation is defined as a lapse that could cause death or serious injury and that the employer knew about or should have known about.

The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration launched an investigation after the Globe reported in January that the researchers fell ill while working on a vaccine against tularemia, a bacterial illness commonly known as rabbit fever. All three lab workers recovered, although one spent a week in the hospital.

The OSHA review verified earlier reports of sloppy safety habits inside the lab where the workers were exposed during the spring and fall of 2004. The federal investigation concluded that the researchers had failed to routinely wear required gloves and eye protection while working with the bacterium.

The review also found that necessary warnings about the hazards posed by tularemia research had not been put in writing at the time of the exposures. And the OSHA report faults BU for failing to recognize that the workers were not using the appropriate safety equipment.

In a statement, Brenda Gordon, director of OSHA's Boston branch, said that she was recommending additional measures to eliminate or reduce safety hazards in the lab where tularemia research was conducted and that she was requiring BU to submit updates on its efforts to assure safety. ''Employers who hire researchers to work with potentially infectious biological materials have a significant duty under the law to make every effort to ensure that their employees are protected at all times from exposure to such materials," she said. ''Proper training in the precautionary procedures to be followed, the use of personal protective equipment, and the use of safety equipment in the lab can help assure such protection."

A spokesman for the federal safety agency said yesterday that details of Gordon's recommendations were not immediately available and that they could be obtained only by filing a request through the Freedom of Information Act, a process that typically takes days or weeks.

BU has previously acknowledged safety lapses in the lab, and in a statement yesterday, administrators said they agreed with some aspects of the OSHA review but not with all of the findings.

Ellen Berlin, a spokeswoman for BU, declined to detail the university's objections to the OSHA report, saying a meeting between BU and the federal agency is pending and the issues would be addressed in that forum.

The violations were also documented in an earlier probe by the Boston Public Health Commission. A spokeswoman for that agency said it would review OSHA's report.

The BU researchers believed that they were working with a harmless version of tularemia that was genetically engineered for research purposes. Instead, the material had been contaminated with a highly virulent form of the bacteria. It remains a mystery to investigators how the dangerous germs were introduced.

The precautions covered in the OSHA report were required even if the researchers were working only with the research strain of tularemia.

The exposures intensified opposition to BU's plan to build a high-security lab in Boston's South End where researchers would study the world's deadliest pathogens, including Ebola, plague, and anthrax. The facility, known as a Biosafety Level-4 lab, is a cornerstone in the Bush administration's campaign to prepare for potential acts of bioterrorism.

''We regard this as a further warning sign that before siting a Level-4 lab in New England's most densely settled neighborhoods, there needs to be a very rigorous examination of what level of safety Boston University can provide," said Philip Warburg, president of the Conservation Law Foundation, which is leading the fight against the lab. The lab has received necessary city and state approvals and needs only a final federal blessing.

The university and medical center faced a maximum of $42,000 in fines for the violations, said John M. Chavez, an OSHA spokesman. The $8,100 penalty, he said, was determined through a formula that takes into account such factors as the employer's history of workplace violations and its efforts to correct safety violations. Chavez said he has seen a broad range of fines levied against employers, from a few thousand dollars to more than $1 million.

After BU conducts its informal conference with the OSHA Boston director, it has the option of appealing the case to an independent commission.