Gerry Fink, ex-director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and general asshole thinks that people in Boston should "welcome" the biosafety level 4 Boston University Medical Center bioterrorism lab in densely-populated metropolitan Boston. I'd like to see him live close to the proposed lab site and see if he still supports it.

I can't say I'm surprised. This is the guy who is proud to be close personal friends with John Deutch (ex-director of the CIA and general asshole). He thought it was a cool idea to invite John Deutch to a Whitehead retreat forum discussing how new bioterrorism laws affect science in the U.S.. Deutch proceeded to lecture us on our duty as Americans (1/3 of the scientists there weren't Americans) to comply with everything the government demanded. Then he proceeded to flippantly ignore attempts at discussion. A graduate student on the panel asked why the list of countries with whom we are not allowed to collaborate was not at all based on which states engaged in terrorism or not, but on being allies with the U.S... for example Saudi Arabia was not on the list of "do not collaborate" countries. Deutch brushed off the question and didn't even try to answer it. Probably because he couldn't.

Then an Asian-American student asked what protections from our school/ institute we could expect if we were accused of spying, etcetera as in the case of Wen Ho Lee. Deutch was again flippant, merely responding "tell them to talk to me."

What a waste of time.

Shame on you, Gerry Fink.