Foes of a high-security laboratory at Boston University where researchers will study a host of deadly microbes took a new tack on Thursday in their efforts to kill the project, which is already under construction, The Boston Globe reported today. The critics sued the National Institutes of Health in a bid to cut off the federal grants that are paying for the $128-million lab, one of only two such high-level labs in the country.

The lawsuit accuses the NIH of failing to take account of the lab’s potential for environmental and health hazards when the federal agency approved the grants.

The lab, known as a Biosafety Level 4 facility for its high degree of security, has drawn repeated protests from local residents but support from local and state political leaders (The Chronicle, June 25, 2004). The NIH’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, issued a final environmental-impact statement in February that gave the project a green light (The Chronicle, February 3). The lab had already received approval from other federal, state, and local officials.