Lawson for Congress

I was pleased to receive the following endorsement today from Dr. Larry Burk, a radiologist with whom I worked at Duke:

Friends and former colleagues,

I went on the Triangle Farm Tour this weekend and visited the Piedmont Biofuels Coop, a sustainable farm in Moncure, NC, linked to the local biodiesel pioneers at biofuels.coop.  Then today by happy synchronicity, I got an email from BJ Lawson, one of my former Duke med students who is running for Congress in the 4th District, featuring an interview he did with Lyle Estill, VP of Stuff at Piedmont Biofuels and author of Small is Possible: Life in a Local Economy.

Both Lyle and BJ emphasize the need for a vital and sustainable local economy that will provide “Hometown Security” for all of us during these times of turmoil on the national level.  That would be the opposite of the National Bio and Agro Defense Facility that his opponent David Price is advocating bringing to Butner as Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee for the Department of Homeland Security.

So, progressives wake up and vote your conscience, not your party this November.  Yes, it is possible to split your ticket and vote for both Obama and Lawson.  I made the radical move of switching my registration from Democratic to Republican to vote for him in the NC Primary where he won 70% of the vote against a hardcore neocon opponent.  BJ bases his platform strictly on the Constitution, and he is more of a peace candidate than most Democrats in Congress now.

Liberty is Priceless,
Larry

Those attempting to bring the National Bio Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) to our backyard earned some press coverage two weeks ago when they received an unprecedented grant of $262,248 from the Golden LEAF Foundation, which is tasked with disbursing North Carolina’s tobacco settlement money for public benefit:

In the few months before the Department of Homeland Security announces where it will build a controversial, $450 million federal disease research lab, proponents in the five contending states, including North Carolina, are trying to outspend, outbid and out-promise the others in hopes of landing the project.

The financial stakes got higher Tuesday, when the N.C. Consortium, an influential group of biotech companies, agribusiness interests, universities and government agencies, received more than a quarter-million dollars in public funds to pay for an “educational” campaign touting their views about siting the National Agro and Bio Defense Facility in Butner.

The Golden LEAF Foundation board awarded the $262,248 grant to the consortium, the first time in the foundation’s nine-year history that its funds have been allocated to a public relations campaign, according to a review of grantees listed on the foundation Web site.

Although the board awarded the grant with the stipulation that the disseminated information be “impartial and factual,” by their nature, PR campaigns are neither. It is also unclear who would judge the impartiality and veracity of the campaign.

I have outlined my objections to NBAF on the mainland U.S. under the control of Homeland Security in previous posts, as well as on our campaign Web site. These objections — including transparency, accountability, overstated economic benefits, and concentration of risk — continue to be substantiated by recent events.

We live in an imperfect world. Mistakes, and sabotage, happen. Accidental or deliberate release of Foot and Mouth Disease at Butner-based NBAF would decimate our livestock industry:

A simulated outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease - part of an earlier U.S. government exercise called “Crimson Sky” - ended with fictional riots in the streets after the simulation’s National Guardsmen were ordered to kill tens of millions of farm animals, so many that troops ran out of bullets. In the exercise, the government said it would have been forced to dig a ditch in Kansas 25 miles long to bury carcasses.

The new study said U.S. economic losses from an outbreak could ultimately be higher than the $5 billion suffered by Britain in 2001, when an epidemic forced the government to slaughter 6 million sheep, cows and pigs.

Why take an unnecessary risk?

It defies common sense for Golden LEAF to spend over a quarter million dollars of public funds to mount a propaganda campaign attempting to convince us that a secretive and unaccountable biodefense laboratory in our backyard is a good idea.

The good news is that while the consortium is just now hiring their PR firms and consultants to spend this largess, there are citizen activists and journalists who are also investigating and spreading the word. A friend forwarded a link to the following three-part video:

Finally, I attended the Department of Homeland Security’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) Hearing on Tuesday night. Folks are definitely speaking out, and hundreds of citizens showed up to ask the tough questions that DHS does not, or cannot, answer.

For example, the DEIS Executive Summary claims to estimate the impact of this facility on air quality in the different candidate sites — yet this same document states it is not known if the facility will incinerate (and/or bury) carcasses and other hazardous waste.

How can one reasonably predict the impact on air and water quality without knowing how waste will be disposed?

We’ll see how the PR campaign mounted at public expense turns out. The quarter million dollars received by the Consortium from Golden LEAF is not just inappropriate, but a complete waste. The Consortium cannot speak for Homeland Security, nor can it make promises or commitments for Homeland Security. As such, no amount of money will overcome concerned citizens’ lack of trust regarding this proposed facility.

As the above videos indicate, you can learn a lot more and spend a lot less just by reading, asking questions, listening, and walking around with a video camera.

To follow up on my latest post discussing Former Democratic Senator and Presidential Nominee George McGovern’s newly-discovered love of liberty, I paid a visit to a blog that I frequent a lot and where I sometimes post called Freedom Democrats, a group of Democrats who, like Senator McGovern, are very freedom-minded. The main poster at the site, Freedom Democrats, also contributes to my main blog, Liberty Republicans. A few weeks ago, he made a post endorsing the election of B.J. in this district instead of David Price, the incumbent and a member of his own party. I’d like to share this post with all of you here. Make sure you share the view of this Democrat with all of your Democratic friends in the 4th District! Away we go:

Stand up to George Bush: Elect a Republican to Congress!

What in the world could bring me, a self-identified libertarian Democrat, to the point of advocating electing a Republican to Congress?

Two things.

First, a Republican like North Carolina’s BJ Lawson.

For those who don’t know Lawson already, he is arguably one of the most dynamic and exciting libertarian Republican candidates this year. With Jim Forsythe out of the race in New Hampshire, the list of Republican congressional candidates representing a new generation of libertarian politics is lead by BJ Lawson and Virginia’s Amit Singh.

Second, there needs to be a Democratic incumbent who is failing to stand up for the district he is elected to represent. In North Carolina’s 4th District, we have such a problem.

Ironically, a front page story at the liberal blog Daily Kos helps make the case.

The great minds in Bush’s Homeland Security department came up with a doozie this year: let’s move the facility where we study the most infectious and dangerous disease among livestock from the isolated island it’s now on (accessible only by ferry or helicopter) and put it where there are lots of livestock operations. Brilliant!

The Associated Press has the details on a plan to move the nation’s leading center for research into animal diseases from Plum Island to the heartland of America:

The only U.S. facility allowed to research the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease experienced several accidents with the feared virus, the Bush administration acknowledged Friday.

A 1978 release of the virus into cattle holding pens on Plum Island, N.Y., triggered new safety procedures. While that incident was previously known, the Homeland Security Department told a House committee there were other accidents inside the government’s laboratory.

The accidents are significant because the administration is likely to move foot-and-mouth research from the remote island to one of five sites on the U.S. mainland near livestock herds. This has raised concerns about the risks of a catastrophic outbreak of the disease, which does not sicken humans but can devastate the livestock industry.

One of the five likely sites of the research facility is the town of Butner in Granville County, just outside of the 4th District and the Durham metropolitan area.

Here is where the incumbent in the race stands:

My current assessment is that the Granville County site would be a good location for the NBAF, and that our region of North Carolina would reap many economic and agricultural benefits from such a facility.

Here is BJ Lawson’s view:

As a citizen, physician, and father, I strongly oppose NBAF in our backyard. Join me in opposing David Price, and opposing NBAF. As your Congressman, I will work for the people of the Fourth District by seeking to make our federal government smaller, not larger. I will work to preserve private property rights, and not encourage unaccountable environmental hazards in our backyards.

The AP article outlines a government simulations of a simulated foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Kansas:

A simulated outbreak of the disease in 2002 — part of an earlier U.S. government exercise called “Crimson Sky” — ended with fictional riots in the streets after the simulation’s National Guardsmen were ordered to kill tens of millions of farm animals, so many that troops ran out of bullets. In the exercise, the government said it would have been forced to dig a ditch in Kansas 25 miles long to bury carcasses. In the simulation, protests broke out in some cities amid food shortages.

Stand up to George Bush and his Department of Homeland Security, elect Republican BJ Lawson.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

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.

###

The fight against the National Bio & Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) continues to march forward and gather steam. In the last few weeks I have had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know members of the Granville Non-Violent Action Team (G.N.A.T.) and they, along with B.J., have inspired and encouraged me to speak out about NBAF.

So, in the last couple of weeks, I have composed two Letters to the Editor: one for the Durham Herald-Sun, and one to the Raleigh News & Observer.

Below is my letter to the Durham Herald-Sun, which addresses the attempts by the NC Consortium for NBAF to speak about the security and transparency factors of the proposed facility even though they are unqualified to speak about either:

NBAF risks public health
March 6, 2008

Regarding the Feb. 27th article “Official Supports Bio-Agro Defense Facility”, Dr. Warwick Arden, Dean of the NCSU College of Veterinary Medicine, like many members of the N.C. Consortium for the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF), is unqualified to discuss the security and transparency aspects of the facility. He is not a member of Homeland Security and, as such, his assurances of how the Department will behave are meaningless.

Further, there are several facts that Arden cannot deny. For instance, the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, which will be stored at NBAF, in England in 2007 is believed to have been caused by an accidental release from a facility there. Accidents, after all, do happen.

In September, New York Congressman Tim Bishop, whose district includes Plum Island, encouraged his constituents to reject locating NBAF on Plum Island. This was despite that the facility on Plum Island has been in place for over 50 years.

At the Creedmoor town hall meeting last week, Dr. William (B.J.) Lawson, a physician who’s running for Congress against NBAF-supporter David Price, argued that we should collaborate with laboratories around the world already studying these diseases instead of building a “Taj Mahal” for these diseases in our backyard.

The reality remains unchanged. NBAF presents undeniable and unnecessary public safety and health risks to our area that any potential benefits from the facility do not outweigh. Unqualified assurances from Arden and other members of the Consortium will not change that.

While my letter to the Herald-Sun tackled a recent article they published, my letter to the News and Observer tackled what hasn’t been in any articles yet: the fact that David Price supports NBAF and has lobbied Homeland Security to bring it here. Here it is, as published (except for the bold part):

What Price supports

I have yet to see a single article that points out that U.S. Rep. David Price supports the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility and as chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security has been lobbying the Department of Homeland Security to bring it to the area.

He has done so while ignoring the dangers of the NBAF, a facility that will store animal-to-animal and animal-to-human diseases that will pose health and safety risks to local livestock and residents.

Thankfully, at least one candidate has stepped up to retire professional politician Price and give the people of the forth district a voice in Washington once again — B.J. Lawson, a Duke Medical School graduate from Cary who filed his candidacy last month.

It seems that after serving in Congress for over 20 years, Price has lost touch with the people he’s supposed to represent. I say “supposed to” because a glance at Price’s campaign donors shows whom he now truly represents: a laundry list of corporate and special interests, including some interests who might benefit from NBAF being located in the area.

It’s time for long-overdue change. Someone in Congress actually looking out for the best interests of the people would be Price-less.

The part in bold was actually removed by the newspaper, but as people wake up to what David Price is doing, they’ll begin to look for alternatives. B.J. Lawson is that alternative.

Watch our local newspapers, as many other local residents are speaking out about the proposed facility and making solid points about its dangers. I encourage everyone to do the same, and don’t stop at NBAF. Letters to the Editor are a great way to speak your mind about whatever issue is important to you. To write the Durham Herald-Sun click here. To write the Raleigh News and Observer click here.

Rep. Tim Bishop is a Democrat who represents New York’s 1st District, including Long Island and Plum Island. Here’s what he had to say about NBAF in September of 2007:

“I encourage Long Islanders to join me in voicing strong opposition to placing a Bio-Safety Level 4 facility on Plum Island,” said Congressman Tim Bishop, who represents the Congressional district which includes Plum Island. “From the moment DHS became involved at the Plum Island Animal Disease Facility, I have received repeated assurances from the highest levels of the Department—including Secretaries Ridge and Chertoff—that it would not be a suitable location for BSL-4 research.”

The article on his Congressional Web site continues further:

Plum Island’s proximity to major metropolitan areas on Long Island and Connecticut make it an unsuitable location for BSL-4 research, which investigates highly infectious diseases that affect both animals and humans, such as the Ebola virus. Placing a prime terrorist target in such a highly populated area could have disastrous consequences.

Why is Rep. Tim Bishop encouraging his constituents to reject NBAF on Plum Island, while Rep. David Price is encouraging NBAF to locate in our backyard?

Unfamiliar with NBAF? Read this post.

Last night’s gathering at South Granville High School in Creedmoor was a poignant illustration of the crisis of confidence between our federal government and its citizens. I had the opportunity to speak with people on both sides of the issue — local citizens opposed to NBAF, as well as representatives from Homeland Security, the USDA, government contractors, and our local consortium desiring to bring the laboratory to the area.

At the end of the evening, what stood out was the profound lack of trust in our federal government. Person after person approached the microphone to ask the panel to essentially predict the future. Almost every question asked for long-term assurance regarding safety, transparency, governance, and accountability. Many questions couldn’t be answered until the Environmental Impact Statement is prepared. When answers were offered, however, they were received with palpable skepticism among the lab’s opponents.

Unfortunately, no members of last night’s panel can predict the future. Despite their best intentions, the lab’s representatives from Homeland Security, USDA, and various government contractors are incapable of delivering on any verbal promises made last night. At the end of the evening, we’re still left with the nagging question of whether our region wants the largest BSL-4 laboratory to study the most dangerous organisms in our backyard, when that laboratory’s use will be dictated by ongoing threat assessments by our Department of Homeland Security and the USDA.

My question to the panel was a slightly different one — why do we need this boondoggle at all? We’re looking to spend $450 million on this laboratory, which is money that we don’t have, to study diseases that are not yet endemic to our country. Does it really make sense to spend money we don’t have to concentrate the risk of studying and housing all these exotic diseases in a single large facility?

Make no mistake, each of these diseases is a cause for alarm. We absolutely should contribute to the global body of knowledge to diagnose, treat, and ultimately prevent these diseases from causing a public health disaster. But let’s consider an alternative: since each of these diseases is endemic somewhere, there is already research being done right now in laboratories around the world.

Why can’t we embrace a collaborative approach, and encourage our scientists to work at the best existing laboratories for these diseases around the world? Such studies are being done where the diseases are already endemic. If we believe we have the best safety and containment protocols, why not share those with other countries where they are already studying the diseases, and reduce the risks inherent in existing laboratories? Why not encourage laboratories that have already specialized in a few of these diseases, and thus reduce the “risk concentration” of a single large repository for dangerous pathogens?

I asked this question, and was told that we need this laboratory since we will not be able to rely on international cooperation in the event of a widespread outbreak. For example, in a global Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak, the UK would meet its own needs before it would share assays or treatments with us.

That answer still falls short for me. In a collaborative environment, as our scientists help create diagnostic assays, treatments, or vaccines for each disease, we can begin commercializing the resulting technology domestically so that we are assured of our own defense.

Is this really the best way to spend $450 million, plus ongoing operating expenses?

Regrettably, our incumbent representative David Price is lobbying our Department of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to locate the proposed National Bio- & Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in Butner, North Carolina. The proposed facility would bring a Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) laboratory to our backyard to study diseases including:

• Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD)
• Classical Swine Fever (CSF)
• African Swine Fever (ASF)
• Rift Valley Fever (RVF)
• Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia (CBPP)
• Japanese Encephalitis (JE) virus
• Nipah Virus
• Hendra Virus

This list is not inclusive, and may change based upon Homeland Security’s “continued threat assessments and risk assessment”.

Rep. Price has a twenty-two year history of bringing home the bacon to North Carolina, but this is one federal gravy train that we should avoid at all costs. The proposed facility will replace the current Plum Island Animal Disease Center, located off the northeastern tip of Long Island. Plum Island is on an island for a reason: by current law, Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) cannot be studied on the mainland United States. While we in the United States have been free of FMD since 1929 (other than an accidental outbreak on Plum Island in 1978), it has devastated the livestock industry overseas, especially in the U.K.

There are a number of special interests who are joining Rep. Price is supporting this effort. This Consortium includes representatives from our local academic communities and industry. While they are clearly well-meaning and interested in economic growth, they have differing opinions concerning what is in the best interest of our region. The Consortium’s Web site has a FAQ page supporting the laboratory, but their support falls short on several counts.

The first concerns are transparency and accountability. While we already have several BSL-2 and BSL-3 laboratories in our District, 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, pardon the pun, 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.

The next concern is simply common sense. Why change the law to allow FMD to be studied on the mainland United States? Why locate such a facility, with no transparency and little accountability, within fifty miles of two million people? Why allow “pretreated and decontaminated” waste from this facility to flow into Falls Lake, Raleigh’s already precious water supply? Are jobs and prestige from this federal gravy train really worth the risk to our citizens and environment?

Fortunately, there is growing grassroots awareness that the answer is no. Not in our backyard, certainly. A growing grassroots organization has been spreading the word through its Web site www.nobio.org and letting citizens know how to push back. There are a number of events this week, but the most important is Thursday evening’s DHS/NBAF Hearing at South Granville High School, Creedmoor, from 7 - 10pm. Concerned citizens should attend — this laboratory’s proposed location is on the border of Granville and Durham counties, and waste disposal or accidents will affect all of us.

Finally, I had the opportunity to meet with local activists from the Granville Nonviolent Action Team (GNAT) this past weekend. I was interviewed by John Monroe, who received this form letter (quoted below) in response to his concerns from David Price:

“NBAF, which will be managed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in cooperation with U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), will conduct research focused on zoonotic and foreign animal diseases.”

“Much of the federal research on these kinds of diseases is currently conducted by DHS and USDA at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York.”

“I understand that there are concerns about the security of NBAF, in terms of the potential for dangerous pathogens to spread beyond the facility, and that these concerns are based in part on questions on the security of the Plum Island facility in the past.”

“Through my subcommittee post, I intent to exercise such oversight in order to achieve a safe and sustainable outcome for both our national security interests and the welfare of the community where the facility is eventually sited, hopefully in North Carolina.”

Here is a YouTube video of our discussion:

As a citizen, physician, and father, I strongly oppose NBAF in our backyard. Join me in opposing David Price, and opposing NBAF. As your Congressman, I will work for the people of the Fourth District by seeking to make our federal government smaller, not larger. I will work to preserve private property rights, and not encourage unaccountable environmental hazards in our backyards.