Orange alerts, duct tape and plastic sheeting, a seemingly
inevitable war with Iraq—these are the tools and potential
events that have millions of Americans worried about their
safety, particularly if U.S. enemies use microscopic biological
agents as weapons.
The Bush Administration has heard these fears and has
responded in kind. President Bush's proposed fiscal year 2004
budget includes an 8.2% increase for the National Institutes of
Health's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
(NIAID), raising NIAID's budget by $360 million to $4.34
billion. The largest among all NIH institutes and centers, this
increase stems from public concerns about bioterrorism and the
need to learn more about biodefense issues.
"Clearly, human safety and the pursuit of knowledge in this
area has become increasingly important due to recent events,"
says Martin L. Stephens, Vice President of The HSUS's Animal
Research Issues section. "However, it's important to note that
among the first victims of bioterrorism will be a very large
number of animals who will be used in these research projects.
We encourage research institutions to minimize the number of
animals used and to apply all conceivable methods in order to
decrease pain and suffering that the animals will be forced to
endure."
NIAID, the NIH institute at the heart of federally funded
biodefense research, expects to fund more than $1.7 billion in
contracts and grants for biodefense and bioterrorism research
in fiscal year 2004, with the number of grants soaring from 338
in the last fiscal year to 661 in 2004. It is likely that tens
of thousands of animals (such as guinea pigs, rabbits,
non-human primates, and mice) will be used in these research
projects, which will focus heavily on what NIAID has labeled
"Category A" pathogens such as anthrax, botulism, tularemia,
smallpox, plague and four types of viral hemorrhagic
fevers.
"This will be the largest single increase of any discipline,
in any institute, for any disease in the history of NIH,
including the escalation of HIV resources and the war on
cancer," noted NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci at a December
2002 conference on federal bioterrorism research.
Among the NIAID's goals will be the development and testing
of new-generation vaccines for smallpox and anthrax; animal
testing will be involved in the standardization and validation
for licensing any new vaccine.
The animal-protection community is obviously concerned about
the pain, suffering, severe illness, and high mortality that
these projects will undoubtedly cause animals, says Kathleen
Conlee, Program Officer in The HSUS's Animal Research Issues
section. "These types of research projects cause serious animal
welfare concerns," Conlee notes. "We urge researchers to use
the latest methods in pain and distress relief or that they
perform euthanasia as early in the studies as possible."
As part of the bioterrorism research plan, the NIAID has
proposed to construct one or two high-level National
Biocontainment Laboratories (NBL), which will be worth
approximately $150 million to $200 million each. Each center
will be characterized as a Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) facility,
which by NIH definition, "works with dangerous and exotic
agents that pose a high individual risk of aerosol-transmitted
laboratory infections and life-threatening disease."
The five existing BSL-4 facilities are located in Galveston
and San Antonio, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; Frederick, Maryland;
and Winnepeg, Canada. A BSL-4 facility in Hamilton, Montana is
currently under construction. In the Maryland facility, for
example, researchers have conducted anthrax research on
hamsters, rabbits, guinea pigs, and monkeys. They have also
used mice to study the plague.
More specifically, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute
of Infectious Diseases reported using approximately 2,500
animals (including rodents, rabbits, horses, goats, burros, and
non-human primates) at the Maryland facility for research into,
among other pathogens, the Ebola virus and anthrax in 1998,
three years prior to the terrorist attacks in New York and
Washington D.C. It was further reported that 34% of the animals
were used in research projects that involved pain and/or
distress, unrelieved by anesthetics or analgesics.
According the NIAID's own web site, these BSL-4 facilities
"are designed and constructed by experts so that nothing gets
in or out that isn't supposed to, not even something as tiny as
a bacterium or virus." According to a story in The
Sacramento Bee, "An NIH fact sheet on BSL-4 laboratories
states, 'There are no recorded incidents involving community
contamination from any of the extant BSL 4 facilities.'"
At least six institutions have applied to the NIH for
funding to construct the proposed NBL on their campuses,
including Oregon Health Sciences University, University of
Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, the University of Maryland
School of Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago, Boston
University Medical Center, The New York State Department of
Health, and University of California at Davis (UCD).
Recent news reports have documented the numerous concerns of
Davis, California residents, including citizens in an
NBL-opposition group called Stop the UCD Biolab Now, who are
worried about security should the facility be built in their
community. Davis mayor, Susie Boyd, recently stated that, "…I
have not seen an issue that was so overwhelmingly opposed in my
13 years on the council."
If the NBL is built at UC-Davis, the California National
Primate Research Center (CNPRC) at UCD will supply the primates
for research. In an event last month, a two-year old rhesus
monkey, who was considered to be disease-free, escaped from her
cage at CNPRC and has not been found. Officials at the primate
center initially speculated that the monkey may have been
stolen, but now believe that she likely perished in the sewer
system. The Davis community has used the monkey's unfortunate
disappearance to question UCD's security abilities—an important
consideration given that some of the viruses studied at BSL-4
facilities can be transmitted between animal and human.
Community support is one factor that NIAID will take into
consideration when making the decision about a future
facility.
