Berkeley Residents Want Biolabs to Address Public Health and Safety

For Berkeley residents concerned by whether the City’s biolab boom adequately attends to public health and safety, two developments bring encouragement:

The first is the work of the non-profit Berkeley Public Eye (BPE) which seeks to improve the transparency of local government proceedings by videotaping Berkeley Planning Commission meetings. About a recent meeting, BPE reported that “…the Commission endorsed eliminating a current zoning restriction – the lab requirement of 500 feet distance from residences and retail – on the assumption that the labs are sufficiently regulated to be safe.” Continuing, BPE related that, “anyone familiar with the inadequate inspections of biomedical labs should be shocked by this decision. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are mandated to inspect biomedical labs, but due to lack of staff, inspections are usually pre-announced and often occur after an accident has happened.”

To learn more about BPE and to assist them in urging the City Council to commit to your health and safety contact them at bpeorg2024@gmail.com.

Also: Biosafety Now, an NGO started by molecular biologists with a conscience, is circulating a petition that you may want to sign: Bring the Risky Research Review Act to the Floor for a Vote. Your signature will support the non-partisan bill that,“…seeks to establish an independent advisory panel within the Executive Branch to perform risk-benefit review of federally funded research that has the potential to enhance the transmissibility or virulence of potential pandemic pathogens.”

This is particularly important to Berkeleyans. Why? UC Berkeley, a major force propelling Berkeley’s biolab boom has not disavowed conducting risky “Gain of Function” research in Berkeley ( pp. 34 ff.) Gain of Function research includes research on pandemic pathogens, something that in the wake of the Covid pandemic, growing numbers of people feel should not take place in densely populated urban regions, if at all.

For more information on this and other developments about Berkeley’s major biolab developments, visit Biolab Watch.