The Good, the Bad, and the NBAF

originally published January 30, 2008

It’s still only January and already there’s been a lot happening this year at UGA and in Athens-town. But when has that not been true? This is my 36th year at the University, and the excitement has never stopped, seldom even taken a pause. The school and the town have just gotten better and better - and the students are smarter than ever, bright as bright can be. Like so many others, I love this vibrant city and the University, with its endless opportunities to teach, learn and engage in research.

In his recent State of the University address, President Adams reported on much of the good news from last year and looked ahead to promising developments for 2008. Best of all is the prospect, ever more likely to become a reality, of locating a satellite of the Medical College of Georgia on the venerable old Normal School (and Navy School) campus. UGA’s collaboration in this effort will address the state’s shortage of physicians and improve the quality of medical training, healing and saving lives.

Not everyone agrees, or needs to, with all of UGA’s objectives, and one that is nearing fruition gave me cause for concern when I first heard of it a decade ago: the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Animal Health Research Center (AHRC). The AHRC is designed to be a Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) facility, with labs that involve work with highly infectious, potentially deadly biological pathogens. My chief concern initially was the decision to site the lab in the heart of campus, adjacent to the Vet School, rather than in a remote location. The building was first proposed in the late 1970s, construction began in 1996, costs originally projected at $21 million ultimately tripled to over $60 million, and work was stalled on several occasions because of “serious construction and design flaws,” as reported by the Athens Banner-Herald. The facility is still not fully functional, and its BSL-3 labs still await final government approval. The good news about AHRC is that among its purposes, analogous to those of the new medical school, is improving veterinary medicine and better preventing and curing animal diseases, including diseases that can spread from animals to humans; the bad news was the decision to locate this 75,000-square-foot facility in the center of campus, where a hazardous materials breach could have devastating consequences.

Looking at the Labs

Now we face the prospect of a potentially far more deadly facility being situated here, the 500,000-square-foot BSL-4 National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF), which the Department of Homeland Security (the same DHS that brought us the disastrous Katrina relief effort) proposes to locate at some mainland U.S. site, rather than retooling the current Plum Island, NY, BSL-3 animal disease facility. BSL-4 labs represent the highest level bio-security risk and involve research on some of the planet’s deadliest pathogens, including agents that pose a danger of air-transmitted infection with incurable diseases fatal to humans; among the diseases identified by DHS for possible NBAF research are Foot and Mouth Disease, Classical Swine Fever, Japanese Encephalitis virus, and many others, and DHS reports the list “may change based upon continued threat assessments.”

Congressman John D. Dingell, chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, issued last fall a report for an investigative hearing, titled “Germs, Viruses, and Secrets: The Silent Proliferation of Bio-Research Laboratories in the United States,” in which he remarked: “The DHS proposal to close Plum Island and move foot-and-mouth virus to the mainland U.S. is utterly baffling. Foot-and-mouth is one of the most contagious diseases in the world. We know from recent incidents in the U.K. that it can escape from even a high-level biosafety lab. And we know that any release of the foot-and-mouth virus could have a devastating effect on the U.S. livestock industry, just as it did in the U.K. in 2001.” Accidents have been uncovered at similar facilities, including the University of Texas, where workers became infected with shigellosis and tularemia and were exposed to anthrax, and Texas A&M, where workers were infected  with  brucella and Q fever. U.S. Representative Bart Stupak, chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, asked recently, “Is there a point at which there are so many labs doing this research that you actually increase the chances of a catastrophic release of a deadly disease?

When DHS announced it was considering re-engineering Plum Island to BSL-4 status, U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton and Congressman Tim Bishop responded: “We continue to stand firmly opposed to placing a Bio-Safety Level 4 facility on Plum Island due to its close proximity to major metropolitan areas.” If Clinton and Bishop do not want a BSL-4 within 95 miles of Manhattan, do we want one within five miles of downtown Athens, situated near the Oconee River and adjacent to our pristine State Botanical Garden?

Costs and Benefits

The University’s reasons for courting NBAF are clear enough: all of us - humanists and scientists alike - are dedicated to the advance of knowledge and the pursuit of research aimed at improving the human condition. Though others might interpret UGA’s motives less generously, I’ll concede this is a reasonable objective for UGA’s initiative. But if we are to host such a potentially deadly facility, let us situate it on one of the University’s most remote properties, distant from metropolitan areas; researchers might find this less convenient, but consciences would be clearer and our students safer.

ACC officials who support siting NBAF here can also be credited with laudable motivations: DHS and others promoting the facility tout the project’s supposed benefits, including estimates of increased employment opportunities and other such incentives, especially tempting with unemployment high and recession looming. But analyses of the financial benefits have been scaled back by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, and too little attention has been given to associated risks and costs. The huge NBAF will occupy 60+ acres of UGA land, use 100,000 gallons of water a day (essential to dealing with the deadly bio-wastes, but a further strain in our extreme drought), and tax other resources, including finances that could be directed to better purposes (how likely is it that cost overages for this $450-million-dollar NBAF will equal the threefold overruns of the AHRC, diverting millions from UGA’s existing programs?).

Let us hope UGA and ACC leaders, as they continue to assess the facts, will revise their thinking and reverse their support for siting this lab in the heart of our campus and community. Officials in the North Carolina Research Triangle area, who initially welcomed NBAF, recently changed course and withdrew their support. One consideration was the poignant statement issued by a group of 40 local physicians, which concluded (italics mine):

“The Department of Homeland Security will run NBAF and is interested in studying biological weapons viruses there, in part, because even a tiny amount can result in massive devastation. Infections are most likely to occur in people who are nearest the source of the leak, but viruses can travel in the air for up to 40 miles.

”If you or a family member become infected with any of the BSL-4 diseases that the government may bring to Butner, there will be nothing that any of us can do to cure you, and it is highly likely that you will be quarantined.“

Doubtless many Athens physicians would agree. How many of the prospective physicians and physicians-in-training at the proposed new medical facility will be eager to locate to an Athens that is home to one of the world’s largest, deadliest BSL-4 bio-defense facilities? How many parents of future UGA undergraduates, knowing the facts, will be so hopeful of sending their children to our care?

Rick LaFleur

Rick LaFleur is Franklin Professor of Classics at UGA and served for 21 years as head of the Department of Classics.