The Emergency Response Planning Core (ERP), along with the Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) and Occupational Medicine Cores are integrated with campus-wide services under the direction of the Office of Research Compliance (ORC) and as part of that office are supported by leadership, administrative and technical resources well beyond those identified in the budget and program submission. The organizational chart for the Office of Research Compliance is available at www.bu.edu/orc/files/2010/12/ORC-Org- Chart.pdf. The primary goal of the Emergency Response Planning Core is to develop and maintain a NEIDL Emergency Response program which both incorporates the NEIDL into ongoing campus-wide planning efforts and allows for a well organized interface to all first responders at the local, state, and national level. The core will develop and continually update the NEIDL risk assessment by working with Environmental Health &Safety, Public Safety and Facilities to identify problems. The core will also develop emergency response plans to prepare for, mitigate, respond to and recover from those identified hazards and risks. The Emergency Response Planning Core, working in collaboration with the Environmental Health and Safety Core, will conduct facility-specific training exercises for external public safety organizations, such as police, fire and emergency medical services. The Executive Director, Research Compliance and NEIDL Leadership will continue to work collaboratively to ensure coordination between institutional and NEIDL programs.
Boston University has adopted the National Incident Management System and operates under the Incident Command System (ICS) as outlined in Homeland Security Presidential Directive # 5. This not only allows us to effectively communicate and operate with our local, state and federal off-site responders in unified command, but also meets the incident response requirements of the Select Agent Program. The ERP, EHS and Public Safety Core leaders will continue to work closely with the community through the Boston Public Health Commission. Monthly meetings addressing local permitting requirements have recently been divided into two meetings with the first focused on permitting and the second focused on emergency planning and exercise coordination. The appropriate Core leader attends along with the Executive Director, Research Compliance. The Core directors or representatives have presented to the NEIDL Community Liaison Committee in the past and expect to do so again in the future. Core leaders coordinate closely with the Community Relations Core and the Executive Director, Research Compliance continues to represent BU on the Community Liaison Committee.
| LeDuc, James W; Anderson, Kevin; Bloom, Marshall E et al. (2009) Potential impact of a 2-person security rule on BioSafety Level 4 laboratory workers. Emerg Infect Dis 15:e1 |
