George Mason University in Virginia is a good school. Slightly on the conservative side, politically, but with astute thinkers in economics, political science and many other fields, including molecular biology. It also has a National Center for Biodefense and Infectious Diseases. It has just announced it will be building a high containment research lab "aimed at thrusting the university into the forefront of the nation's counter-bioterrorism efforts" (Examiner.com).
The lab, which is being built adjacent to George Mason's Prince William campus in Manassas, will house laboratories that are designated Biosafety Level 3, allowing scientists to work with virulent strains of infectious diseases such as avian flu and SARS.The lab received a $25 million grant from the National Institutes of Health in 2005 as part of a federal effort to establish 13 such facilities throughout the nation to aid in public health efforts in the event of a bioterrorism emergency. (GMU, News)
Fine language, but this is really just another university pulling the lever on the bioterrorism ATM. BSL3 labs are sprouting like mushrooms after a rainstorm and they are not making us more safe. On the contrary, they are being populated by relatively inexperienced workers and operate with startlingly little oversight, as the string of laboratory accidents in BSL3 facilities illustrates. There has been a lot of attention to BSL4 labs -- the relatively few high containment facilities where the most dangerous organisms are handled -- but not enough attention to the level 3 counterparts. Workers in BSL4 labs are usually quite experienced -- many have worked for years at the BSL3 level -- and the conditions of their work (heavy and cumbersome suits, for example) -- continually remind them of the danger. And even at this level accidents happen, some of them fatal. But the BSL3 labs also handle very dangerous organisms, many of no particular public health importance when the objective is, as it will be in the George Mason facility, not a public health mission but a biodefense research and development mission.
And they are in a big hurry. The sooner those tax dollars start flowing the better:
A temporary, prefabricated Level 3 lab will arrive at the site in seven to eight months, Bailey said, and must undergo a commissioning process to certify its intensive safeguard features are intact before the scientists can work with infectious diseases. The lab must also gain government approval, certifying its training methods and operating procedures meet strict federal standards. (Examiner.com)
Yes, those strict federal standards and training methods.
George Mason University is home to some of the more conservative and libertarian economists and political scientists we have. They are smart and principled (even if I sometimes disagree with the principles). I wonder what they think about their scientific colleagues falling all over themselves to suck at the federal biodefense money teat.
However they feel, I can tell you one thing I don't feel. Safer.
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I worked at a medical school that did research. I worked in video and photography.
I was taken through an airlock by a researcher and shown a bunch of containers that had growing cultures in them. I was told to take close up pictures of them all.
I had no safety instructions whatever.
I could not get any good shots through the glass tops. So I took all the tops off. I was just finishing up getting my last shots when the chief researcher came in and saw what I was doing. He ran out and threw some switch and an alarm started going off. Then ultra violet lights came on.
I was locked in until I had stripped and was sprayed with some awful stuff. I got Legionnaires' disease 10 days later and almost died. They said it was just a coincidence but I think I got it from one of those glass containers.
I think most of these places where research is done have very little training for anyone and are very casual about access.
I got real careful about the research facilities after that. I was sent back all the time for more pictures but with no training or even admonitions about messing with anything accept not to take any lids off again.
I only had a coworker once who told me that eating my lunch inside the air lock was forbidden. That was the sum total of my training.
Revere-As you likely know there are 5 bio labs here in Memphis. But I have noted a disconnect and I wanted you to define the differences.
Ours are noted as RBL, NBL regional and national bio-containment labs. There are three that have "bio-safety" labs in them. A short trip to Nashville has UT and Vandy and you know what and how long they have been doing their stuff.
Whats the difference in the designations?
Randy: The question here is the level of biological containment (level 2, 3 or 4. The various designations you list are government programs and funding mechanisms. NBL is National Biocontainment Lab (two funded but none completed as far as I know); and Regional Biocontainment Labs. A bunch funded, not sure how many built. You can read the details here.
This is one of the aspects of academia that I always hated. When researchers feel compelled to follow the dollar to decide what areas to research, we end up with some very misguided priorities based on politics and contextual popularity. Aside from all of the problems that you cited above, I have a problem with this method of funding.
A few years ago the NIH, the main source of funding for psychological research, decided that it was only going to fund research that could show clinical applications. In other words, psychotherapy and clinical research was suddenly pushed to the top of the pile and everything else - from personality/social psychology to neuroscience - was pushed way down to the bottom of the pile. This type of thinking may sit well with voters, but it is not an academic way to prioritize funding and is not the best way to do intelligent research. Clinical interventions and applied science can't be pursued without the building blocks of pure science. Anyone with any academic background knows this. Why are we letting non-academics decide our priorities?
Cancer research is another area that has been stricken by this. Every researcher from here to timbuktu is focusing on the most risky types of interventions - metastasized cancers. Everybody wants to show that they've had the biggest effect, they've saved the most people and therefore are worth the most money. But we're talking about a very difficult problem to tackle. If researchers would focus more on prevention and intervention at earlier stages of the disease we might see better results and might actually save more lives in the real world.
Ok, so I realize that I've suddenly gone waaay off topic. Point is, researchers, and the universities that house them, need to focus on the intellectual aspects of their research, not where to get the most money.
GMU Biology? Conservative? Since when? I got my BS in Environmental Science there in 1994. We studied Peter Singer in our Environmental Ethics class. For example. Too bad the unemployment rate for biologists is 30 something percent, so yea Patriots! Go get some jobs for biologists! Woo-hoo! Or something.
Tree, not a conservative economist, but still really good at cost/benefit modeling (which is appreciated in healthcare, if not in the micro lab)
tree: apologies if you thought I was saying GMU Biology was conservative. But the economics/poly sci and soome other depts. are pretty conservative. But I also said thy had good thinkers there, which I believe. Some schools are more conservative and some are more liberal and overall I'd but GMU lon the more conservative side, which doesn't mean there are a lot of people from the entire political spectrum (the liberal ones I know are in environmental studies).
I have difficulty seeing GMU being overall on the conservative side when this month's alum mag cover story is 'It's Easy Being Green' and hey! the new Volgenau School of Information Technology and Engineering is seeking LEED silver status for their new building. We also seem to have an energy and sustainability planning manager. Cool. Not to mention that Roger Wilkins, the current Robinson Professor of History and American Culture is praised for his 'tireless work for civil rights' and his Pulitzer Prize. I don't think that the alumni mag would be so cheerfully liberal-affirming if the overall academic culture leaned conservative.
This is not to say that I feel especially safe having another Level 3 lab popping up. We already had that Hot Zone in Reston.
Tree: OK. You win. I'll never call GMU conservative again.
I worked at a medical school that did research. I worked in video and photography.
I was taken through an airlock by a researcher and shown a bunch of containers that had growing cultures in them. I was told to take close up pictures of them all.
I had no safety instructions whatever.
I could not get any good shots through the glass tops. So I took all the tops off. I was just finishing up getting my last shots when the chief researcher came in and saw what I was doing. He ran out and threw some switch and an alarm started going off. Then ultra violet lights came on.
I was locked in until I had stripped and was sprayed with some awful stuff. I got Legionnaires' disease 10 days later and almost died. They said it was just a coincidence but I think I got it from one of those glass containers.
I think most of these places where research is done have very little training for anyone and are very casual about access.
I got real careful about the research facilities after that. I was sent back all the time for more pictures but with no training or even admonitions about messing with anything accept not to take any lids off again.
I only had a coworker once who told me that eating my lunch inside the air lock was forbidden. That was the sum total of my training.