Lawson for Congress

Our incumbent representative David Price is lobbying to locate the proposed National Bio- & Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in Butner, North Carolina. The proposed facility would bring a Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) laboratory to our backyard to study diseases including Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD).

Rep. Price has a twenty-two year history of bringing home the bacon to North Carolina, but this is one federal gravy train that we should avoid at all costs. The proposed facility will replace the current Plum Island Animal Disease Center, located off the northeastern tip of Long Island. Plum Island is on an island for a reason: by law, FMD cannot be studied on the mainland United States. While we in the United States have been free of FMD since 1929 (other than an accidental outbreak on Plum Island in 1978), it has devastated the livestock industry overseas, especially in the U.K.

There are a number of special interests joining Rep. Price in this effort. While they are clearly well-meaning and interested in economic growth, they have a different opinion concerning what is best for our region. The Consortium's Web site has a FAQ page supporting the laboratory, but their support falls short on several counts.

The first concerns are transparency and accountability. While we already have several BSL-2 and BSL-3 laboratories in our District, these labs are associated with industry, our universities, and our state's Division of Public Health. As such, there are certain levels of transparency and accountability associated with their activities. The Department of Homeland Security is a completely different animal, pardon the pun, and over the course of the past five years has proven itself to be highly politicized, corrupt, wasteful, and secretive. The transparency and accountability that we can demand of our existing facilities would be completely absent at NBAF.

The next concern is simply common sense. Why change the law to allow FMD to be studied on the mainland United States? Why locate such a facility, with no transparency and little accountability, within fifty miles of two million people? Why allow "pretreated and decontaminated" waste from this facility to flow into Falls Lake, Raleigh's precious water supply? Are jobs and prestige from this federal gravy train really worth the risk to our citizens, agriculture, and environment?

Finally, those who are qualified to discuss the safety of the facility have come to a much different conclusion than the Department of Homeland Security and other financially-interested parties. For example, Dr. Nancy Kingsbury, research director for the Government Accounting Office (GAO), testified before Congress that no studies have been conducted to determine whether foot-and-mouth disease can be safely located to the mainland.

While local academics attempt to compare NBAF to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) laboratory in Atlanta, Dr. Sushil Sharma, GAO Assistant Director the Technology and Engineering, has stated that CDC's Atlanta facility is not comparable to NBAF because the CDC does not study large animals. The GAO's report title says it all: "DHS Lacks Evidence to Conclude That Foot-and-Mouth Disease Research Can Be Done Safely on the U.S. Mainland."

As a citizen, physician, and father, I strongly oppose NBAF in our backyard. Join me in opposing David Price, and opposing NBAF. As your Congressman, I will work to preserve private property rights, recognize pollution as a form of trespass, and not encourage unaccountable environmental hazards in our backyards. Read more here.