Proposal is Aired to Tighten Rules for Research Labs

By Stephen Smith, The Boston Globe

Nov. 16–Boston’s major research universities and their affiliated hospitals had a measured response yesterday to the city’s proposal to tighten oversight of biological research in laboratories across the city.

The plan was presented publicly to members of the Boston Public Health Commission yesterday. A final vote by the commission on the rules is expected in February, following a public hearing.

The new regulations would break ground by requiring labs studying biological agents to secure safety permits from the city, and by mandating that neighborhood representatives sit on internal safety boards.

The proposed rules were drafted by a panel of safety specialists formed after public disclosure that three Boston University scientists had fallen ill with tularemia while researching vaccines targeted at the bacterial illness.

That panel was established amid concerns about gaps in the city’s knowledge of what was going on in labs and its ability to guarantee that labs are operating safely.

Authorities from BU and its affiliated hospital, Boston Medical Center, issued a written statement yesterday. “We look forward to continuing to work closely with the [Boston Public Health] Commission to ensure that the safest environment possible exists in our laboratories,” BU said in the statement.

Boston health authorities estimate that more than 1,000 labs would be covered by the plan, mainly at the city’s landmark universities and hospitals.

Dr. Andrew Onderdonk, a top lab safety specialist at Harvard University, said he believes that internal measures at the school and its related hospitals already mirror many of the provisions in the proposed city rules.

“Safety is very important and I take it seriously, so anything the city does that helps us to do our job better, I’m all in favor of,” said Onderdonk, chairman of the Committee on Microbiologic Safety at Harvard and its affiliated hospitals.

Onderdonk said the rules are “a good incentive for institutions that don’t have a strong biosafety program in place to do that.”

A Rutgers University chemistry professor, long critical of what he called a lack of government oversight of researchers working with the most dangerous class of germs, hailed the Boston proposal.

Richard Ebright, lab director of a microbiology institute at Rutgers in New Jersey, said the federal government should exercise greater control over labs handling especially potent pathogens. Now, there is no ongoing oversight of such research by federal agencies.

“These matters should be addressed at the federal level, but they’re not,” Ebright said. “Therefore it’s necessary for state and local governments to take matters into their own hands.”

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