Three researchers exposed at BU Lab: CLF renews questions on biosquare proposal.

• Position: Massachusetts

SPURRED ON BY REPORTS of the exposure of three researchers to a potentially lethal bacterium in a Boston University (BU) medical laboratory, CLF has renewed its call for a thorough review of alternative sites for the proposed level 4 National Biocontainment Laboratory in BU's BioSquare medical research facility. More than 25,000 people live within one mile of BioSquare in Boston's densely populated South End neighborhood and thousands more work in the area. The proposed level 4 lab would research potentially deadly agents for which there are currently no remedies, such as Ebola, SARS, anthrax and smallpox.

CLF has repeatedly expressed concern about siting this lab in urban Boston. The latest news of exposures in another BU lab sparked a widespread reaction. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has launched an investigation into the cause of these infections.

The researchers became ill last year when they were exposed to a bacterium called tularemia, but the news only became public in mid-January. In state environmental review documents submitted last summer, BU said that there...