Press Release: Dr. Lawson to Explain Concerns with Locating Homeland Security’s Biodisease Laboratory in Granville County
By: BJ Lawson
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
APRIL 17, 2008
CONTACT
Linda Williams
919-481-1177
Durham - Congressional candidate William Lawson, M.D. will be holding a press conference at the Durham Earth Day Festival in Durham Central Park at 2pm on Saturday, April 19th to announce his opposition to the Department of Homeland Security’s proposed siting of a Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) biodisease laboratory (NBAF) in Butner, North Carolina. The conference will be at the Lawson for Congress table, and the setting has been chosen to emphasize the importance of local control and accountability in environmental protection.
The proposed facility will study a range of diseases affecting humans and animals, including the economically devastating Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD). It is impossible to predict which diseases will be studied, however, as the Department of Homeland Security reserves the ability to study organisms at their discretion based upon perceived risk.
Recent news reports highlight the history of accidents at existing facilities both in the United States and abroad, and the most recent severe outbreaks of Foot and Mouth Disease have paradoxically been caused by research facilities themselves. No facility can be completely safe, and Dr. Lawson believes it is common sense to avoid locating such laboratories in areas that put local human and livestock populations at risk. This position is shared by Dr. Roger Breeze, who previously directed Homeland Security’s existing biodisease laboratory in Plum Island, New York.
The second concern with such a facility is lack of local control. While we already have several BSL-2 and BSL-3 laboratories in our area, these labs are associated with industry, our universities, and our state’s Division of Public Health. As such, there are certain levels of transparency and accountability associated with their activities. The Department of Homeland Security is a completely different animal, and over the course of the past five years has proven itself to be highly politicized, corrupt, wasteful, and secretive. The transparency and accountability that we can demand of our existing facilities would be completely absent at NBAF.
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