Public Health Deception
Testimony to the Boston City Council on Boston University's Proposed Biodefense Lab
by David Ozonoff

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today, although I do so reluctantly. I had hoped once that this laboratory would meet an important public health need for a facility that could address dangerous biological agents in a way that maximizes worker and community safety and I once spoke in its favor. Now that I know more about the project and have spent considerable time discussing it with colleagues and members of the community, it is clear to me that the proposed laboratory is not likely to meet a public health need and, moreover, may make us less safe from the very agents it purports to protect us against.

Let me explain briefly why I now believe each of these things. First, the question of whether the laboratory meets a public health need. It is undeniable that such a need exists. In a highly interconnected world, the threat from emerging infectious diseases is real. An infectious agent can get from the rainforest to Logan airport within the incubation period of any known infectious disease, and it is only a matter of time before this happens. It is also true that some common agents mentioned in a biowarfare context occur naturally and kill civilians, usually in developing countries. Scientific research, with a public health agenda and orientation, performed by and under the control of civilian authority, with a commitment to timely and open publication and dissemination of results to the worldwide scientific community, is a public health priority.

Why, then, does this facility not meet the need?

I speak here as an experienced public health scientist for almost four decades, a department chair for twenty-five years, the first Director of public health preparedness at the School of Public Health, and a Director of the New England Collaborative for Public Health Preparedness. In other words, my views are based on real knowledge of the problem and the needs. But it is clear to me, based on that experience, that the explicit priorities, sponsorship, and actual working of the NBL lab, whether here or in another location, is neither guaranteed nor even likely to have a public health orientation or agenda.

A non-public health agenda is clearly displayed in at least four ways: Funds from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) budget are specified for use to protect against bioterrorist attacks, not for naturally occurring outbreaks which have a very different epidemiology; the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was specifically given a counter-terrorism mandate for these funds, not a public health mandate; the stated emphasis is on agents and routes of exposure in bioterrorist attacks, not the kinds of agents and routes of exposures typical of natural or community acquired infections; and NIH’s policy is to work with public and private sector partners to combat bioterrorism. Among their primary partners in this is the U.S. Army. In performing work with and for these partners, NIH and DHS will manage the research agenda. There is no prohibition against classified or secret research nor is there any university policy against it. This simple fact is not contradicted by the misleading statement of the lab’s proponents that no such research is planned. They do not control the agenda, nor do they control the constraints under which it is carried out. It is likely, in fact, that federal law will not permit them to disclose the details of their work fully in many cases. They give these assurances without the authority to do so.

This is not a public health agenda. It ignores the most pressing agents, routes of exposure, usual forms of disease spread and epidemics and much else in favor of highly unusual, unnatural, low probability settings. Its value to combat bioterrorism is a question I will address in a moment. While some results could conceivably have a public health application, this is like establishing the space program so we can have Tang. If the goal is public health, this is a wasteful, inefficient and potentially risky way to go about it. However, it was not designed with public health in mind. Hence whatever risks it entails are without substantial public health benefit to balance them.

Let me address one of those risks now. Others will discuss the more usual health and safety concerns that are of course paramount in any facility of this type. I will confine myself to the question of whether on grounds of combating bioterrorism this laboratory will make our world safer or more dangerous.

If the enterprise of trying to protect us against the kinds of new, novel, and frightening agents that are being used as arguments to stampede us into accepting this facility is taken seriously, it is obvious how it will have to be conducted. Consider, for example, the idea that some terrorist might construct a truly fearsome combination of highly infectious influenza and HIV. How would we protect ourselves? Clearly to do the science properly, the first step must be to construct the agent — hence the need for a BSL4 facility.

This is not the kind of thing you do in your basement or a garage or an apartment in Hamburg. It is extremely difficult and years can be expended trying to make it work. Any terrorist with an agenda, however, can think of a hundred easier ways to create death and destruction by using everyday materials from the local construction supply warehouse, hardware store, or gun shop. Spending several years being trained in molecular biology and then more years doing the required experiments is not a likely or even plausible use of their time and effort.
The equation changes drastically, however, if someone else does the work for them. This is not a theoretical speculation. The anthrax attacks didn’t use regular anthrax, which is easily obtainable from natural sources, but instead used a specially weaponized version whose origin is now known to be one of a handful of high-security U.S. weapons laboratories. In other words, no terrorist can use agents that have yet to be created, but the very act of protecting ourselves from these non-existent organisms will likely bring them into existence. That is when the danger moves from theoretical to real.

There are many other issues here, and you have heard, or will hear about them, today. For me, the bottom line is that the public health benefits of this laboratory are likely to be small and the dangers potentially very large. This is not a bargain you should strike as public officials.

I have thought a great deal about this facility. I am aware it has short term practical benefits to my institution and to the construction trades. But we are faced here with a prime example of distorted and misshapen priorities. They always come back to haunt us. In this case the haunting could be of the most fearsome kind. I very much wish I could support this facility. But in all conscience, I can not. I hope that you, too, will consult your consciences in this truly important matter.

David Ozonoff, MD, MPH is Professor of Environmental Health at Boston University School of Public Health. He spoke to the Boston City Council at a public hearing on April 20, 2004.