[CPEO-MEF] "Biodefense" communities speak out

[Lenny Siegel <lennysiegel@gmail.com>]

[Activists from several states with existing or proposed "biodefense" 
laboratories have joined together for the first time to express their 
concern over the growth and spread of such labs. The attachment may be 
easier to read than the text below. -LS]

Statement on the U.S. Biodefense Program
from Communities Living in its Shadow

We, the undersigned, face the reality or prospect of federally-funded 
high containment "biodefense" labs being built and operated in our 
communities.  We all have specific, local health, safety and 
environmental concerns about these labs existing in our midst.  We 
represent citizen groups from around the U.S., united in our belief that 
the massive proliferation of "biodefense" laboratories creates a 
significant threat not just to our communities, but also to our nation, 
and to our world.  We join Biological Weapons Convention 
non-proliferation experts in concluding that we risk creating a 
biowarfare arms race with those who do not trust and cannot verify our 
intentions.  The proliferation of these labs makes us all less safe.

Since the August 2008 revelations about the 2001 anthrax letters 
originating from within the premier U.S. "biodefense" lab, it has become 
tragically clear that Congress must move quickly to investigate the 
nation's "biodefense" programs.

We have many concerns about the proliferation of bio-safety level 3 and 
4 laboratories in federal complexes, and in the hundreds of poorly 
regulated academic and private sector laboratories around the country.

* In each of our communities, we have found that environmental impacts 
and hazards associated with these labs have not been analyzed with 
thoroughness, clarity and scientific rigor.  It is not possible to 
mitigate unacknowledged risks.

* Our experience is that State and local governments have not been well 
integrated into lab planning and operations.

* We are concerned about the threats associated with genetically 
modified pathogens and dual-use research.

* We are most concerned about supposedly "low-probability" but 
"high-consequence" accidents that could result in a public health disaster.

* Now we also know that the possibility of internal sabotage is quite 
real.  We have been told officially that both the "weaponized" anthrax 
and the perpetrator of the only bio-terror attack in our history came 
from within the U.S. "biodefense" program.

* We are sobered by the fact that since the anthrax letter attacks, the 
number of workers in these labs has grown from a small number to over 
16,000;  laboratory space has grown tenfold.

* Numerous laboratory accidents have been reported.  It is plain that 
many others go unreported, as demonstrated by the unreported accidents 
discovered by non-governmental watchdog groups.

* It has become clear that laboratory regulation and oversight are poor.

* Transparency has been lacking.

* The GAO and others, such as the Sunshine Project, report that safety 
programs and protocols are inadequate and have not been followed with 
consistency and rigor.

Since 2001, "biodefense" funding has provided a $57 billion economic 
boon, much of it for the private sector.  "Biodefense" programs are 
spread among many federal departments, but are frequently duplicative 
and poorly coordinated.  We have seen no evidence of an integrated 
federal policy, still less one openly debated by Congress.

Congress must investigate current research and development priorities, 
funding levels and research requirements in relation to verifiable 
threats to human and livestock health.   Our country needs a fact-based 
assessment of biological threats, both natural and man-made.

In 2005, more than 750 scientists, including Nobel Prize-winners, 
decried the diversion of funds to "biodefense" programs away from vital 
and pressing human health research of broad applicability.

We are aware that intense debate is taking place within the scientific 
community about whether or not much of the new "biodefense" research is 
relevant to or would be effective in protecting the population against a 
biological attack.  At the same time, funding has been cut for local 
preparedness against potential natural or lab-generated outbreaks. 
These issues are equally present in the debates taking place about the 
enormous high-containment agricultural research laboratory complexes 
proposed for some of our communities.

The size and research agenda of the U.S. "biodefense" program has become 
out of control in the wake of the 2001 anthrax letters.  Who decided it 
was an acceptable risk to genetically re-create and work with the 
formerly extinct 1918 flu virus, no matter how interesting that research 
may be?  There are far too many comparable examples.

We need a national moratorium on "biodefense" research and, 
simultaneously, a serious and transparent reevaluation of the big 
picture.  We need a great many more answers before our government pours 
yet more money into these programs and creates new public health risks 
and international strain.

Consistent with standard procedures for other federal science programs 
that pose potential threats to health and safety, we call upon our 
elected representatives to:

* Conduct a thorough independent investigation of the executive policies 
that have driven the unprecedented expansion of "biodefense" research 
and development since 2001; and

* Call  an immediate halt to development of new "biodefense" facilities 
and an operational stand-down of existing programs until the many 
serious questions have been resolved,  including those related to:

- public safety,
- biosafety and biosurety compliance,
- laboratory regulation,
- research focus,
- select agent use and control,
- dual-use research,
- a right-sized program and
- appropriate locations for high containment laboratories.

Signed September 17, 2008:

Organization
Contact
LAB
Boston Coalition to Stop the BioTerror Lab
Klare Allen, Lead Organizer
Safety Net, Roxbury MA
safetynetrox@yahoo.com
617-442-3009

Dr. Vicky Steinitz, Co-coordinator of the Greater Boston Committee of the
Coalition to Stop the BioTerror Lab,
vicky.steinitz@umb.edu / www.Stopthebiolab.org
617-864-5211

Angela Kelly
Massachusetts Peace Action, Cambridge, MA
members@masspeaceaction.org
www.masspeaceaction.org
 617-354-2169

Claire Gosselin, Co-Chair, Women's International League for Peace & 
Freedom, Greater Boston Branch
clagos@verizon.net
 http://boston.wilpf.org
617-512-5136

Mike Prokosch
Dorchester People for Peace
mikeprokosch@verizon.net
617-282-3783

Tony Palomba, President
Ernesta Kraczkiewicz, Planning Committee Member
Watertown Citizens for Environmental Safety
Watertown, Massachusetts
wces@rcn.com
http://www.watertowncitizens.org
617-924-6453

Duncan McFarland
United for Justice with Peace
UJPCoalition@gmail.com/  www.justicewithpeace.org
617-491-4857

Boston University, NEIDL;  BSL-4 and BSL-3 Labs (NIH)
Boston, MA

Ellen Browne
eebrowne@rcn.com
Grafton, MA
Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, Tufts University, Grafton, MA
BSL-3 labs, BSL-4 ready
(NIH)
Frederick Citizens for Bio-lab Safety
Beth Willis
mcbeth@mac.cm
301-694-9410
National Interagency Biodefense Campus, Fort Detrick;  BSL-4 and BSL-3 
labs (USAMRIID, DHS, NIH)  Frederick, MD

Granville Non-Violent Action Team (GNAT)

Kathryn Spann
admin@nobio.org
www.nobio.org
919-477-5653 or 919-575-4283 (Bill McKellar)

NBAF, proposed site at Butner, North Carolina; BSL-4 and BSL-3 labs (DHS)
No NBAF in Kansas
Dr. Thomas R. Manney, Chair of No NBAF, and Professor Emeritus, 
Department of Physics and Division of Biology, Kansas State University
tomandmonta@mac.com
www.nonbaf.wordpress.com
785-537-0624

NBAF, proposed site at Manhattan, Kansas, at Kansas State University; 
BSL-4 and BSL-3 labs (DHS)
Mid-Missouri Branch of WILPF,  (No NABAF in Columbia, MO)
Therese Folsom
Columbia, MO  65203
theresefolsom@yahoo.com
573-268-4353

University of MO, BSL-3 lab;  and formerly proposed site for NBAF, 
Columbia, MO  (NIH)
Tri-Valley Cares
Marylia Kelley, Executive Director
Robert Schwartz, Staff Attorney
marylia@earthlink.net
www.trivalleycares.org
(925) 443-7148

BSL-3 facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 
(DHS)
Labwatch - Seattle, WA

Mike McCormick
nobioterrorlab@yahoo.com - www.labwatch.org
206-371-4646

WWAMI Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging 
Infectious Disease, Seattle, Washington, BSL-3 labs (NIH)

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

Attachment: Biodefense coalition FNL.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

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