Public discussion continued this week about the university’s proposal to build a high-security biocontainment laboratory, with the Davis City Council, its Natural Resources Commission and the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors each taking up the issue.
The Davis City Council was expected to vote Wednesday night (after Dateline’s deadline) on the university’s request for its "support of, and participation in, ongoing communications efforts." The city’s Natural Resources Commission voted 6-1 Monday night to advise the council to oppose the project.
The Sacramento County Board of Super-visors voted unanimously Tuesday to endorse the application. The Yolo County Board of Supervisors and the public health directors of California’s 58 counties also have offered their their support for the proposal. Sacramento City Council was to have considered the issue yesterday. And the editorial boards of the Davis Enterprise, The Sacramento Bee, the Woodland Daily Democrat and Sacramento Business Journal have endorsed the public health lab.
A hundred or so campus and community members attended two different forums on Jan. 29 to learn more about the details of the Western National Center for Biodefense and Emerging Diseases. The back-to-back public workshops were held on campus and in Davis City Council Chambers.
"The need for such a laboratory in California has long been recognized and now the opportunity to meet that need exists," said Virginia S. Hinshaw, provost and executive vice chancellor. "I firmly believe that UC Davis has the capability and the civic responsibility to pursue this opportunity. Our world is getting smaller and that increases our vulnerability to these infectious diseases."
More informaton about the proposed Western National Center for Biodefense and Emerging Diseases is located at www.news. ucdavis.edu/biodefense/wncbed.lasso.
UC Davis does not need permission from the city to build the lab, but desires community support in planning for the facility. Those who spoke against the project at the recent workshops indicated concern that the biosafety lab would become a terrorist target or that pathogens might accidentally escape into the surrounding community.
Campus officials acknowledged that safety and security are paramount. Plans call for the lab to be constructed with concrete and steel as a box-within-a-box-within-a-box. Video cameras would monitor activity both inside and outside the structure, and access would be restricted. Background checks, psychological evaluation and rigorous training of researchers would be among the safety precautions taken.
Davis mayor Susie Boyd said the laboratory would make the Davis community and the West Coast safer by providing scientists quicker access to diagnostic tools. Under current conditions, California has to send its specimens to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, thus losing valuable time in the event of a possible catastrophic outbreak.
"It seems to me it’s a great risk to live in a world that doesn’t have this kind of facility," Boyd said.
The proposed lab would be the first of its kind on the West Coast. It would enable scientists to study such diseases as hantavirus, Lyme disease, plague, various strains of influenza, anthrax and foot and mouth disease, and to develop new vaccines, diagnostic techniques and therapeutic treatments for reducing and eliminating the health consequences of the most-serious emerging and re-emerging diseases.
The facility would also serve as a national and regional resource for diagnosing and characterizing samples of potentially infectious materials that may arise from public health threats due to either natural causes or bioterrorism.
UC Davis is responding to a request for proposals from the National Institutes of Health to build the Biosafety Level 4 facility. Proposals are due Feb. 10, and by fall 2003 the NIH is expected to award the $150 million grant. The facility is expected to cost $200 million in total. The $50 million difference is anticipated to be made up with state and university resources.
Encouraging dialogue
To promote continued discussions, the campus will hold additional public workshops, provide regular updates on its Web site, respond to listserv questions, continue briefings of business, civic and community organizations, and establish a community liaison council that would keep the dialogue open about the project both before and after it would be built.
"UC Davis has a strong record of listening and accommodating public input," Hinshaw said this week. "Our new university neighborhood and hotel/conference center are recent examples where public dialogue has aided our planning. We expect no less as we continue public discussion of this important issue."
Boyd traveled last month with Hinshaw and Yolo County Health Director Bette Hinton on a fact-finding trip to North America’s newest Biosafety Level 4 facility located in Winnipeg, Canada. UC Davis participants on the trip included Steve Tharratt, a professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine; Fire Chief Mike Chandler; Police Capt. Rita Spaur; and Environmental Health and Safety Director Carl Foreman.
Foreman noted, "We learned in Winnipeg that the staff training program is very extensive" and that the receiving and shipping of materials is "highly controlled and monitored."
Frederick Murphy, dean emeritus of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and former director of the Center for Infectious Diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, said the West Coast needs such a facility.
He added that UC Davis has the unique blend of "scientific horsepower" required for such a facility. "We can do more to meet many needs than anyone elsewhere," he said.