Smedley Butler Chapter -Veterans For Peace endorses (and has become part of )the Stop The BU Bio Terror Lab Coalition

Click on headline to link to the Stop The BioTerror Lab Coalition website.

Smedley Butler Chapter -Veterans For Peace endorses (and has become part of )the Stop The BU Bio Terror Lab Coalition(motion passed at May 14, 2012). Mor einforamtion/actions to follow as this issue progresses. Posted by Al Johnson

The following is background FYI:

Pat and the Executive Council,

I tend to get carried away when I am preparing a message. I am sending this as background for your consideration as to asking Smedley to work in solidarity with Klare.

Klare Allen, of Stop the BU Bio Terror Lab Coalition and Roxbury Safety Net fame, would like to invite VFP presence at an as yet unscheduled organizers meeting to organize a rally of people opposed to the lab. The demand will be to ask Deval/State and the Mayor what they are waiting for before simply banning Level 3 and Level 4 labs in the City of Boston. It is amazing that it has been ten years already that this charade has been going on. In Klare's words: "The government thought someone was making weapons of Mass destruction. We sent hundreds of thousand of our children to fight for their country who came back in coffins, dismantled, unemployed and homeless for weapons of mass destruction? Now the US, in our face, want to create possible weapons of mass destruction!! Then our kids died for WHAT!!!!.
People should be making the connection between the BU biolab and the "war" both mentally and visually. I can't do it but the Vets can. Have the vets think about how they want to talk about the connection and what they've faced already due to weapons of mass destruction. This is my reason for asking our vets to get involved. We'd like to know if they will join us in solidarity in GETTING OUR MESSAGES ACROSS!!!!"

A "simple" summary for background collected by Alice: For almost ten years, the Safety Net (a Roxbury-based community group) and the Stop the BU Bio terror Lab Coalition have successfully fought to prevent this dangerous high containment biological laboratory from being opened in the densely populated Roxbury/South End neighborhood. High-level containment laboratories do research on pathogens that can cause severe illness and death. The highest level (BSL-4) labs study lethal diseases that can be transmitted by air and for which there are no vaccines or treatments. The lab is located in an Environmental Justice neighborhood which already faces significant health and environmental hazards.

Three previous risk assessments have been severely criticized by the courts and by a National Research Council panel of experts.

The short answer to why it has taken ten years is that the Mayor told us "it is a done deal." Politics is politics, or you can't fight City Hall?
One of Ted Kennedy's last gifts to Massachusetts was this "defense" plum. A contract from the Defense Department and Homeland Security. BU had kept silent a lab outbreak until Menino had designated that institution as winner. In fact if it had not been for a whistleblower, we would never have known something had gone wrong in BU's lab. When an official from DC spoke over a tele-connection to a federal courtroom, the judge asked about the heavily redacted-blacked out parts of the proposal. An arrogant voice said in essence-it is national security and none of your business. The judge, to her eternal credit, said well, I do not put my OK to any court case unless I feel I am doing the right thing. You will have to provide a risk assessment that will prove to me that this lab is safe for Boston or you will have simply built an expensive Level 1 and 2 lab. So far we are wining in the courts.

The current political reality is not on the side of the people. When Chuck Turner asked this high powered Blue Ribbon panel where the statistics that related to Boston were for this assessment, he received the incredulous reply that the Blue Ribbon Panel of Experts, were not convened to address risks for Boston but to sell you people on the safety of Level 4 research. That is public record. Unless it was edited, of course. A short list of the happenings that still shadow the proceedings include:
transfer of land before a mandated risk assessment was done

BU whistleblower pointed out BU's sloppy work and unreported accident

highly redacted Defense Dept paid for proposal

court cases

NIH and Blue Ribbon non-communication

Menino -done deal don't talk to me

media lies and distortions

hamstrung City Council afraid of Mayor

this area is an Environmental Justice neighborhood and never qualified for
consideration

the issue of racial injustice

no attempt was made to find a different location risks transporting the pathogens.

UJP members were talking about direct action,

support for a move to confront Menino with an Occupy City Hall action.

VFP represents the voice of integrity and trust to many people. Klare Allen personally asked me to approach the Smedley Brigade of VFP and is looking forward to hearing from you. All this message is "according to the understanding of Alice" and I am no expert so don't hold her to anything I have said.

And thank you for considering this sincerely, Alice K.