For bioterror lab, a long road seen
NIH chief expects no quick review of BU facility plan
The director of the National Institutes of Health offered yesterday the clearest sign so far that a controversial laboratory being built by Boston University won't open anytime soon.
Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, the NIH chief, told a panel of scientists convened to review the project that he has no expectation they will rubber-stamp his agency's earlier finding that the lab does not pose a safety or environmental threat to the surrounding South End neighborhood. The centerpiece of the nearly $200 million project is a Biosafety Level-4 lab intended to allow scientists to work with the world's deadliest germs, including Ebola, plague, and anthrax.
"We are not here because we want you to rubber-stamp what we have done," Zerhouni told the scientists at the start of a six-hour public session at NIH headquarters in Bethesda, Md. "We need to do this right, even if it takes a long time.
"Basically, you should be tough," the NIH director said. "I can't say it in any other way. There are no foregone conclusions here."
The BU project, known as the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, is one of the cornerstones of the Bush administration's campaign to prepare for potential acts of bioterrorism. The federal government is underwriting most of the cost of building the Albany Street facility, which is 77 percent complete. BU had originally intended to open the lab by this fall.
Conservation Law Foundation attorney Eloise P. Lawrence, whose organization sued to block the facility, said the exhaustive review that Zerhouni now promises should have happened before the first shovel of dirt was turned.
"They should have taken the time before they spent a dime of the taxpayers' money," Lawrence said.
Residents from the South End and Roxbury took to the streets and the courts in an attempt to stymie the project, winning partial victories before state and federal judges. While those courts allowed construction to proceed, they also mandated further environmental reviews.
In November, an independent agency issued a sharply critical analysis of NIH's latest environmental review, branding it "not sound and credible." In response, the federal agency established the panel of scientists, which includes prominent researchers from Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia universities, as well as the former president of Ohio State University.
The panel is charged with addressing safety concerns about the project, a process certain to delay the opening of the facility until at least 2009 or longer.
It remains unclear whether lower-security labs and other parts of the project might open before the Biosafety Level-4 lab gets final clearance. In an interview yesterday, Ellen Berlin, a BU spokeswoman, said that such a scenario is possible, but that the university is committed to opening the project as designed, with the Level-4 lab fully functional.
Stephen Smith can be reached at stsmith@globe.com.
