Panel endorses need for NBAF, but questions size
Kansas City Business Journal by David Twiddy, Reporter
Date: Friday, July 13, 2012, 12:05pm CDT
Related:Health Care, Manhattan, Agriculture
David Twiddy
Reporter- Kansas City Business Journal
Email | Twitter | Health care coverage | Transportation coverage Proponents of building a National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Manhattan, Kan., got good — but not great — news from a scientific panel.
A federal panel of scientific experts agrees that the United States needs a new top-level biocontainment laboratory to protect the public while researching some of the most dangerous threats facing animal safety.
However, the National Research Council National Research Council Latest from The Business Journals Scientists’ report is clear: Start NBAF construction nowReport urges holistic approach to offshore safety practicesNBAF supporters forging ahead after report cites flaws Follow this company says that those goals could be met with a smaller, less expensive version of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, or NBAF, currently planned for construction in Manhattan.
“A partnership of a central national laboratory of reduced scope and size and a distributed laboratory network can effectively protect the United States from (foreign animal) and zoonotic diseases, potentially realize cost savings, reduce redundancies while increasing efficiencies, and enhance the cohesiveness of a national system of biocontainment laboratories,” the panel wrote in a report released Friday.
The report was done after the Obama Administration did not include additional construction dollars of the NBAF in the proposed 2013 federal budget. Instead, the administration requested the Department of Homeland Security to perform a comprehensive assessment of the project, including “whether and for what purpose a ... facility should be stood up.”
The NBAF, currently estimated to cost $1.14 billion and be built at Kansas State University Kansas State University Latest from The Business Journals University of Kansas Cancer Center timeline: The path to NCI designationMike King brings experience to bear as new head of KDOTRockhurst, UMKC create joint program for engineering students in Kansas City Follow this company , would conduct research on such high-risk diseases as foot-and-mouth disease. It would replace an aging research facility on Plum Island, off the coast of New York.
While the panel didn’t specifically recommend whether planners should stick with the current NBAF plan or move to a scaled-down model, members agreed that the Plum Island facility has outlived its usefulness.
New York lawmakers have lobbied against the NBAF, requesting that Plum Island be renovated to meet current standards dealing with the most dangerous substances.
But the U.S. Department of Homeland Security U.S. Department of Homeland Security Latest from The Business Journals Follow this company told the panel that such a facility, called a Biosafety Level 4-Large Animal lab, couldn’t be built on Plum Island and that the only labs of that type exist overseas.
“Given the uncertainty over priorities of a foreign laboratory and logistical difficulties in an emergency, it would not be desirable for the United States to rely on international laboratories to meet (Level 4) large-animal needs in the long term,” the panel wrote.
The report is the second one this year to come from the National Research Council dealing with NBAF.
A separate panel of experts last month determined that designs for the NBAF were a “substantial improvement” and met most safety requirements. However, the group faulted Homeland Securities’ process for estimating the danger of dangerous substances escaping from the facility.
