Close to two dozen people gathered today in South Boston to show their opposition to the Level-3 and Level-4 infectious-disease research labs at Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL). The walk comes just one week before time will run out for courts to stop halt the opening of the higher level labs, which were approved by the National Institute of Health earlier this year.
“We seem to be at the 11th hour, or maybe a little after 11,” said Claire Carter of the New England Peace Pagoda. “But it’s not 12 yet.”
Community organizers from Safety Net, the Coalition to Stop the Biolab, Veterans for Peace, and well as members of the Peace Pagoda in Leverett, Mass., came together in continued resistance against a decade-long effort to introduce what they believe will be a “bioterror lab.” The Level-3 and Level-4 labs would house highly contagious and incurable pathogens such as SARS, Ebola and anthrax. Critics of the lab cite the danger of its operation in an area so densely populated.
Today’s walk coincided with the 12th annual Walk for a New Spring, when Buddhists from the Pagoda for Peace community walk from Leverett to Washington D.C. Accompanying the Pagoda was Charmaine Whiteface of the Ogala Sioux in South Dakota, who are currently suffering the effects contaminated water sources from uranium mining.
“Do not quit. Do not stop. Keep on. We must stop this abomination to humanity,” said Whiteface.
The organizers were also joined by Lynette Frazier, a representative from the office of Coucillor Yancey, who opposes the higher level labs being established in a low-income, working class neighborhood.
Opponents of the BU biolab have until midnight tonight to voice their concerns to Boston University.
To learn more about opposition to the biolab, click here.
