Our scientists have an exemplary safety record

Published: 16 September, 2010

• THE world-leading medical research centre planned for St Pancras and Somers Town will tackle diseases that affect us all. 

It is an unprecedented opportunity to enhance Camden’s place at the heart of a global effort to improve health and lives. 

One in four people dies of cancer. One in three dies of heart or circulatory disease. Many other diseases, including infections and conditions, associated with aging, also reduce quality of life and cause premature deaths. 

The UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation (UKCMRI) aims to fight these diseases. 

It will house 1,250 scientists whose goal will be to understand better what causes diseases and to speed up ways to prevent and treat them. A planning application for the building was submitted to Camden Council on September 1. 

Last week, an anonymous letter writer speculated in the New Journal on the safety of the proposed institute. The author selected quotes from an article in The Guardian (April 22 2008) but chose not to mention the strenuous regulations that govern the workings of laboratories. 

They also chose not to mention that The Guardian article had made clear that a major incident involving human disease had not happened in the UK for nearly 40 years when regulations were not as stringent. 

We disagree strongly with the conclusions of the letter. 

The UKCMRI laboratories will be state-of-the-art. Our scientists are extremely experienced in ensuring that research is carried out safely.  

Their work, which helps to protect many vulnerable people and helps to prevent the spread of disease each year, is strictly regulated and we have an exemplary safety record. 

UKCMRI is founded by four of the world’s leading medical research institutions with extraordinary records of success – the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK, the Wellcome Trust and UCL (University College London). 

They proved the link between smoking and cancer, sequenced one third of the human genome, developed penicillin to prevent infection, pioneered anaesthetics, developed new tests for bowel cancer and tuberculosis to name a few of their achievements. Through this research, countless lives have been saved and improved. 

Camden is home to an impressive array of medical research institutions and hospitals including University College Hospital, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, the Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery,  and in UCL – a world-leading university. Camden residents reap substantial benefits from the research excellence in the area.  

With a critical mass of scientists and access to experts from many different disciplines UKCMRI will bring significant investment and expertise to the borough and help to cement Camden’s extraordinary place in the global effort to improve lives through healthcare.

More details can be seen at our on-site exhibition at Brill Place, to the north of the British Library. 

Visit www.ukcmri.ac.uk for details.  
John Cooper
Interim Chief Executive,
UKCMRI

Superlab is a risky investment

• THE “superlab” proposed for Brill Place would cost at least £600million at a time when public funding and community services are to be cut right back.  

This is a risky investment, because an escape of dangerous material in such a built-up area would result in much greater costs and dangers to public health.

Many residents of Somers Town are unhappy about the scale and dangers of the superlab. 

Many others have not yet heard about it. 

The first danger is that the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation may be rushed through the planning stage in only 21 days.  

This does not give the community – and the nation – enough time to understand how it would affect them. 

We are told UKCMRI will make Somers Town a healthier place because it will do research on killer diseases. 

But Somers Town is over-crowded and with lower life expectancy than many other parts of Camden. 

There is little open space, and the superlab would take the remaining space which had been set aside for housing and other community benefits. The superlab will be higher than all the surrounding buildings except the tower on top of St Pancras station, and cast a shadow over nearby estates.  

Day and night deliveries will raise the noise and pollution levels of the area.

UKCMRI say it will employ 1,500 scientists and other staff on a­ space of only 3.6 acres.  We hear that it will replace the Medical Research Centre at Mill Hill, which is on 35 acres. 

Is this correct? If so it seems a strange decision. 

If any infection escapes into the air, or into the earth – for the centre will have very deep foundations – it could spread into the atmosphere or into the railway systems at King’s Cross St Pancras.  

The planners of UKCMRI think being near the terminus will be convenient for the scientists from London, UK and international centres to visit and to share discoveries.  

We believe such sharing could be done much more safely where there is open space.

We implore Camden Council, the government and science and business bodies to think carefully before taking the risky step of placing UKCMRI at Brill Place.
Abdiwali Mohamud
Manager, Somali Education and Development Agency,
WC1

A waste…

• A “SUPERLAB” is not needed anywhere. 

London’s labland is already rotten with vivisection. 

The proposed lab would be a monstrous waste of money: £600million inevitably rising to £800million. Vivisection is scientific fraud.

I quote Rene Dubo, the Pulitzer prizewinner and professor of microbiology: “We [doctors] are sorcerers’ apprentices especially in the scientific area. We boast of discoveries that are poisoning us. I believe that the future generation will need much time and courage in order to cope with the catastrophic consequences of our research”.
Terence MacManus
Priory Road, NW6