A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

BBC1 ITV Channel 4 Camden "Supper Virus" Lab - work has started

Most people are aware of the plans to build a "super virus" lab in Camden, alongside St Pancras International behind the British Library. The lab is likely to be level 3 facility meaning that it could contain anthrax and bird flu. I have just been told today by Helia Evens the secretary for Somers Town tenants association that work has indeed started to "explore risk assessment". A news item was also shown very late on TV two days ago...so late that most people would have missed it.

Sir Paul Nurse was interviewed in New York about the lab and said that the lab "....has the backing of America".
America doesn't have to live alongside it, but I wonder will US citizens be happy entering the UK from Europe via St Pancras International?
Foot and Mouth disease was leaked from govt facility Pirbright in Surrey, such a leak in Kings Cross would be a disaster of epic proportions.

Local people [plants aside] are against the lab and want council homes and community facilities on the land. We ask that Camden Council denies planning permission. I am aware that a Hare Krishna internet cafe was denied planning permission by Camden Council "because one person complained so we had to have it in Islington instead". Well, there are hundreds of people who have signed and continue to sign a govt petition against the lab and there are now thousands of people supporting the campaign via Facebook and myspace etc. Campaigners are disconcerted that letters from local people who do not support the lab plans are not having their letters printed at this stage...at the beginning there were many and the number of people who do not support the lab has increased.
Paper petitions have also been handed in and lealfletting [which we are doing on a very, very limited budget] has proved postive. Frighteningly there are still a very large number of people who do not know about the lab and thereare attempts to cover up what is going on...late night news items for example...a lack of proper information from the consortium [that which has been distributed was only given out in Somers Town and nowhere else].

It seems that many local people feel that our views are not / will not be taken into consideration....we have to make our voices heard.

The site of the proposed lab is at Brill Place, [the sign post for this street was removed...] which is on the corner of Ossulston Street and Phoenix Road. You can see ot from St Pancras International Station.

You can oppose the lab by contacting Camden Council
Camden Town Hall
Judd Street
Camden
London
WC1

There is an online govt petition at

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/BLISS-Lab

If you want to hold or attend a public meeting about this please email us. Address above.

Stop Camden Animal Lab
e-mail: stopcamdenanimallab@yahoo.co.uk
Homepage: http://www.myspace.com/stopcamdenanimallab

Comments

Hide 1 hidden comment or hide all comments

.....Has the backing of America

27.02.2009 08:29

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00hvgdh/HARDtalk_Sir_Paul_Nurse_Nobel_Prize_winning_Biologist/

This is the main interview. There is no quotation that the project in London has the backing of America but the interview is on the basis of Research in America under President Obama and how public research is shared globally to advance understanding and innovation.

Graham

Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

Supper viruses

27.02.2009 12:42

Are supper viruses scarier than those dreaded tea or brunch viruses?

Seriously, though - the campaign has had to back down slightly on the animal claims after it emerged that, erm... no monkeys, cats, dogs etcetera would be there.

So the campaign focuses on the "super viruses". Only the "super viruses", such as ebola and so on, are level 4 pathogens. And it's a level 3 facility, so it won't have any of those.

How rare is a level 3 facility? Erm, well there are more than 800 of the things in England, including some in the Bloomsbury area - where a great deal of medical research goes on - which is just across the Euston Road from the British library. This also messes up the "they'd never do this in central London" or the "they'd never do this in a posh area" argument, unless you know something different about comparative flat prices in Bloomsbury and Camden.

Ah, yes, but MI5 spooks are concerned about it, so it must be a risk. Really? MI5 sources told the Evening Standard that they were deeply worried about moving a level 4 facility to the site (which there had been at Mill Hill). But if it's now been downgraded to level 3, then those concerns aren't valid any more

And you'll hate me for citing this, but it's worth noting science writer Mark Henderson's comments about the lab:

"The hazard posed by a terrorist attack or accident is also lower than it might appear. The most dangerous pathogens to be studied at the UKCMRI will be influenza, tuberculosis and malaria. All are killed at temperatures of between 50C and 120C - a bomb or fire would incinerate most of the germs."

Norville B

Thanks for this link etc Graham...[I was going on what local people told me]

27.02.2009 14:31

Thanks for this link and the correction....we were re-quoting what local people have told us which also shows a need for better communication between the consortium and the people. A parliamentary document has stated [I read this one] that they have no clear vision as yet to the work that is going to be done in the lab which is scary for local people as no one really knows what is going on with this thing. Unfortunately this leads to a lot of "reliably misinformed" members of the public who are so through no fault of their own.

Mandy in Camden

Please see Safer Medicines campaign for true innovation and modern research

27.02.2009 15:17

Please see this : Safer Medicines campaign is an independent patient safety organisation of doctors and scientists.
Safer Medicines Trust is a registered charity (number 1039411). they recently hosted an international conference at the Royal Society : Speed and Safety in Drug Discovery

Mandy in Camden
Homepage: http://www.myspace.com/stopcamdenanimallab@yahoo.co.uk

Will Obama be innovative enough to support black communities ????

27.02.2009 15:25

We need homes and help for young people here.We need proper innovative projects for the youth etc not a dangerous greed and vanity project known as the "BLISS" lab or ukcmri.

There is nothing innovative about a global greed giant. Can anyone be innovative enough to help the community? The only thing that is being shared around here right now is poverty and do not tell me the lab will "provide skills training and opportunities for work for local people" because that is lies.

Does Obama even know anything about Camden? Has he even heard of it? Has he ever been here? It seems that this all about greed and power and nothing is innovative about that.

This lab will be dangerous and no-one wants it around here.

Camden Resident

Virus leaks "that didn't happen" and "virus sent through post"

27.02.2009 15:54

http://www.sunshine-project.org/ibc/bb21.htm

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7065/full/438134a.html

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/immunisations/news/article.cfm?c_id=461&objectid=10456341

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/damning-report-calls-for-a-biosecure-zone-at-leak-lab-794476.html

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-07/02/content_344755.htm

If this is all scary enough...then be aware that toxic waste is transported through Kings Cross and is also held on train containers that sometimes sit in Kings Cross. If someone wanted to create the ultimate dirty bomb...then a virus lab next to toxic waste would be the perfect place. Some people, such as the Times Online can claim that "an explosion would disperse the germs so it wouldn't be as dangerous as people think" [or words to that effect...] are off their heads, paid by the consortium in the form of advertisements and write biased articles in their favour.

Virus

Silkwood and Chernobyl

27.02.2009 17:47

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Silkwood

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenobyl_disaster

Den

What I'd like to see happen.....

28.02.2009 17:22

As far as I'm aware that one of the proposed lab sites on Hampstead Road is owned by or partly owned by the UCL. I think that a much needed project here that wopuld be more beneficial to the community would be a community based project to help dissaffected young people who are either in gangs, have been thrown out of school etc and who need an alternative run by people that they can trust...i.e. older, former gang members, to help them move forward into a healthy happy life.

There is a successful project in South London, the From Boyhood To Manhood Foundation at Trinity College in Peckham and I think that something simialr is needed in Camden....the site is also perfectly positioned for this.

As for Brill Place...I think that something better serves the whole area is needed rather than lab. As tourists from Europe alight here and this is their first impression of Camden, London and the UK that a new town, a new Somers Town with shops, bars, restaraunts etc directly next to St Pancrs Intenational and housing alongside this would be better. This would alkso provide employment in the form of construction catering and retail which is a much more realistic expectation for giving employment to local people than this ridiculous lab idea. This will also provide some of the much needed homes for Camden....this would make Somers Town sustainable, self sufficent and a nicer place to be. This would also be preferable to a dangerous ill thought out lab that could spell disater in the form of a terror target or an acccident waiting to happen. The lab people have claimed that they will provide skills and employment opportunities fpor local people but in the same breath say that all personnel will be carefully vetted staff for a level 3 / 4 lab which isn't feasible or realistic.

Mandy Ford in Camden
mail e-mail: stopcamdenanimallab@yahoo.co.uk
Homepage: http://www.myspace.com/stopcamdenanimallab