Harvard Business Review on Fixing Healthcare from Inside & Out

Community Relations 2.0

by Gerald C. Kane, Robert G. Fichman,John Gallaugher, and John Glaser

IN 2003, BOSTON UNIVERSITY Medical Campus (BUMC) announced plans to build an advanced high-security laboratory to study virulent biological agents. Stakeholders expected the lab to conduct groundbreaking research leading to public health and counterterrorism advances that would combat weaponized versions of Ebola, tularemia, anthrax, and other lethal diseases. At first, the project was widely hailed as a boon to national security, to the region’s standing as a biotech leader, and to Boston’s economy.

And then suddenly the tide turned. Known officially as the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, the facility was sited near BUMC at the junction ...