Mary Crotty, RN, Massachusetts Nurses Association, August 18, 2011

On Saturday, August 6, 2011, I was contacted concerning the sighting by several nurses and other Boston Medical Center staff of a large number of police cars (an estimated 8 cars) accompanying a very large unusual, covered truck entering the biolab facility site early in the morning (staff coming on the day shift saw a cavalcade of vehicles, lights flashing, etc).

The truck had a canvas covering with a small triangle on it and was there throughout the day. When the day shift staff left they noticed the vehicle still parked by the Security Booth at the lab site.

The Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) is very concerned about what is going on at the site. According to the Boston Globe, Boston University has recently announced its intention to use the facility for biosafety-level 2 research, which can be quite dangerous because level 2 agents tend to be ones causing very contagious diseases. Boston University’s legal ability to use the laboratory facility has been constrained by the courts given its inability to date to conduct a risk analysis which shows that the facility is safe for past proposed uses.

MNA represents nurses who work at the facility. Please feel free to share this communication as the coalition of community opponents of the biolab and attorneys see fit. We strongly encourage investigation of the activity that quite obviously has been taking place at the lab.