Where is one of the most dangerous places in the United States? No I am not talking about one of our many nuclear power plants or those chemical plants that dot the New Jersey countryside, I am talking about the laboratory at Plum Island. Plum Island is a facility that is off the cost of Long Island, a densely populated area which is a suburb of New York City. The Plum Island lab is a place where diseases are studied. They state a noble cause for their existence, which is the development of vaccines. In order to accomplish this development they must first import diseases.

The question is, while the cause may be a noble one, how safe is the public? Is there a chance that a disease could escape the lab and if so why is the lab situated so close to one of the biggest urban centers in the country. Another factor we have to consider is how safe is the lab from terrorists.

Lets look at some lab accidents:

In Beijing China a lab accident was the cause of a spread of the SARS virus. What would have happened if the SARS virus had infected Long Island? Some say that SARS had escaped twice from the same lab.

The University of California had a monkey escape. The monkey was never found and the community wasn't notified until 10 days after it escaped.

Anthrax escaped from an Army Lab at Fort Detrick, Md. Apparently this was not their first accident.

PLUM ISLAND had a three hour power failure that may have affected containment. Some reports say that workers had to seal windows and doors with duct tape.

Texas Tech University - several plague slides disappeared.

I could go on and on but what would be the point. No one really knows how many lab accidents there are in the U.S. let alone in the whole world. It seems to me the very least precaution that could be taken would be to build the labs in a remote area where accidents that involve containment could be better controlled but don't erect a lab near a major city. This is not rocket science.

Now don't get me wrong, research must be done. We must be prepared for a biological outbreak or attack. We should have labs in the dessert somewhere far away from civilization. The famed area 51 might make a good site, after all no one is allowed to get very near to it. But they have troubles of their own. It seems that many workers fell ill and died and an investigation into the cause couldn't be completed because everything was top secret. Maybe they already have a bio lab there?

The facility at Plum Island is now under the control of the Department of Homeland Security. Many people think that the experiments at the facility will become more dangerous. Because of this take over it will be a crime for employees of the lab to divulge what goes on there. Having said this, the new director of the facility said there will be more openness. This seems very unlikely however. The two senators from New York sent a letter to Mr. Tom Ridge, director of Homeland Security asking him not to designate the Plum Island facility as Biosafety Level 4. The reason they were so concerned is that this designation would allow the study of diseases that can be passed from animals to humans. The letter also alluded to the fact that they didn't want the lab upgraded because of the lab's nearness to the surrounding community. The lab's classification is now Biosafety Level 3. This classification allows the study of foreign animal diseases.

A no fly zone over Plum Island was requested by one community group, but this has not been granted. When there was a strike of maintaince workers in 2002, the company that had the contract for this work brought in replacement workers. A series of accidents followed. A union worker stated that these replacement workers were not qualified.

On top of accidents there have security breaches at Plum Island and these were also referred to in the letter sent to Mr. Ridge by the New York senators. They called for a security overhaul. Emergency forces in the area have complained that they have never been briefed on what to do if an emergency should arise.

Some doctors are stating that they think that West Nile Virus may have come from the Plum Island Lab. This is just another reason to move the lab. Maybe its time that the safety of people was considered and put ahead of the convenience of the government.