The National Research Council (NRC) reconvened its Committee on Technical Input on Any Additional Studies to Assess Risk Associated with Operation of the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory (NEIDL), Boston University to provide further technical input on the scope and design of any additional studies that may be needed to assess the risks associated with the siting and operation of the NEIDL.

To this end, the NRC committee met in open session with the NIH Blue Ribbon Panel on September 22, 2010 to hear presentations by NIH's contractors on the approaches they are taking to conduct the risk assessment. Following the open meeting, the NRC committee met in closed session to begin preparing this brief letter report, focusing on whether the analyses presented at that meeting are scientifically and technically sound in general and whether they address the concerns raised by the NRC in its first three letter reports.

The committee reviewed the material presented by the NIH contractors on September 22 and concluded that it cannot endorse as scientifically and technically sound the illustrative analyses presented. These analyses do not, so far, represent a thorough assessment of the public health concerns raised by the committee in its previous reports. The committee understands that the analytical results discussed were incomplete and that work on additional analyses is still ongoing. Therefore, the comments provided in this letter report will be helpful to the Blue Ribbon Panel as they consider how the remainder of the work is carried out.

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