Board of Health 10/13/26

AI-generated summary. Written by gemini-3.8-flash from the transcript below, which is the record. It may be incomplete or wrong; it does not report votes. Every item links to the moment it began.

The Board of Health approved a grease trap pumping variance for a food manufacturer and reviewed a biosafety permit application for a biotech facility relocating to Boston Avenue. The board also discussed tobacco permit suspension guidelines and received a regional infectious disease report.

0:08 Approval of Minutes — The board approved the minutes of the previous meeting.
1:03 Grease Trap Variance: 101 Mystic Avenue — Approved a variance extending grease trap pumping frequency from every four months to six months for Just Us Foods Inc., provided facility operations do not add oily foods.
3:55 Hearing Postponement: 543 Riverside Avenue — Postponed consideration of 543 Riverside Avenue because the owner was not in attendance.
4:14 Biosafety Permit: Wiser Biosciences — Reviewed a Biosafety Level 2 permit application from Wiser Biosciences for their relocation to 200 Boston Avenue, with staff planning to issue the permit after completing final documentation review.
21:10 Tobacco Regulation Suspension Language — Discussed whether local tobacco violation rules should mirror state language regarding discretionary versus mandatory suspensions and consecutive days, with members favoring prospective alignment.
27:06 Quarterly Infectious Disease Report — Received a quarterly infectious disease report from regional epidemiologist Guha Patel and noted upcoming schedules for the mobile health clinic van.

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: Okay. I think we're all here. Do you want to open the meeting?

[David Pladziewicz]: Okay. Meetings officially opened versus our review of the minutes from last meeting. I don't think we had anything important important there, right?

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: Well, hear me cause you're all frozen on my end. And I had these issues this morning on a team's meeting. which meant I missed half the meeting. I couldn't hear half the thing, so can you hear me? And I just, okay, I just can't hear you. All right, but it's being transcribed. My connection is unstable. There you go. All right, Dr. Plowits, you were saying you wanted to review the minutes?

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: Jenny Vitale? Yes. Minutes accepted. Thank you. Okay. We have with us today, Colin Daly from. Well, the founder of just us foods Inc, but in Medford, it's just hummus, right? It's the name of the.

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: Okay, so Colin is requesting a grease trap variance right now. Our grease trap regulation requires pumping every 4 months. Colin's asking for a variance to allow for every six months at the facility located on 101 Mystic Ave. They do not use any oil and have a light pump out with our hauler. Colin, you want to explain a little bit more?

[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, sure. So we're a hummus manufacturer, hummus falafel tahini. We have a grease trap in the facility that's always been there. And our hauler has said that, you know, every time they do it, it's really light and that we don't need it, you know, done every four months, that every six months is, you know, still totally fine. We do oil, but that's out of our space in Boston. So out of this facility, there's no oil. So we're asking for a variance from 4 months to 6 months just to save us a couple hundred dollars a year on unnecessary grease trap. Obviously, we always keep up to date and get feedback from our hauler. So if things change, we're more than happy to do it more often. I just don't want to have to do it if it's not needed.

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: That makes sense. Yeah, and your hall is pretty good. We do get your reports sent to us on a quarterly basis so we can see the amounts. So if anything changes, we'll be able to see that.

[David Pladziewicz]: All right. I would put in a motion to accept the variance, mindful that it implies only to the hummus, and that if things do change at some other point in the future, i.e. addition of other things, then this variance wouldn't automatically carry in the future to cover other things. So, as long as it's just the hummus, that's fine. I don't have a problem with it. But if you do add oilery, more oily food in the future, then we'll have to revisit. That's all.

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: Okay, so we have a motion to accept the variance request, grant a variance to Just Us Foods, Inc. Dr. Plattowitz?

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: Jenny Vitale? Yes. Thank you. Motion passed. Thank you. Colin, I'll be sending it to you in writing.

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: All right. Take care. All right. And we do not have the owner of 543 Riverside Ave with us today. See them anywhere? So we'll postpone that and see if they still want to move forward for the next time. OK, so with us today, we have Wiser Biosciences. They have an application in for BSL 2 permit. It's kind of a 1-2 permit, I guess, that will explain to us. And we have Ryan and Tony. You can both introduce yourselves.

Do you have a presentation of PowerPoint or anything that you want to share? I just want to do you have a PowerPoint?

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: Yeah. Oh, should I make you want to make you a host so you can share your screen?

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: Just remind me before you log off to not make you the host because the last time I did this, the meeting ended pretty abruptly. Um, okay. To be able to do that.

[SPEAKER_10]: No, I think she already made you the host. Yes, and try again. Yeah. Send the request. Send the request. Okay.

[SPEAKER_04]: My name is Tony Lee. I'm the CEO of Weiser Biosciences and sitting nearby is Ryan. He's an operation manager. So, Weiser Biosciences, we funded by Dr. Kadachawa and myself in June 2011. And currently we have a a 11 full-time employee, and Dr. Karachow retired 60 years ago. So now I'm the only owner of the company. So the management is, you know, we have, I'm the CEO, and also Lev Kotler is the manager of our DNA sequencing, and Chris Mueller is the manager of our DNA prep.

So this here is our vision, mission, and values. At Weiser Biosciences, we strive for scientific excellence by empowering great people to deliver innovative, reliable, and high-quality and timely solutions that accelerates our partners' research and development. Currently, we have the Tseng sequencing services, DNA preparation services, and also NGS sequences. We're working on the variable plasmid, but there's non-infectious vectors provided by our collaborators. And we use Ecoline lab strands to do DNA preparation. And also, we use the very common platform of the NGS is next-generation sequencing platforms and in-house.

So currently, we are going to move to 200 Boston Avenue, Medford. next month. So currently we are located in 85 Bolton Street, Cambridge, and we have about 6,700 of square footage sporadically in the buildings. And we have a Tseng sequencing room, we have DNA preparation sequencing rooms, and also we have next generation sequencing. They're all separated. And we have a main autoclave and due to sterilization and also these buildings previously built by Weiser Pharmaceuticals. So this is why they are being well constructed for lab uses. Throughout the lab, we have a BL1, and it's the only authorized access only, and we have a BL2 only in the run room. There's always a locked, of course, authorized access only. And we have a building control of the locked building entrance, and the locked lab entrance, and the lab space, and the office space also separated. We have alarm systems, sprinkler systems, and a surveillance camera in the hallway entrance and the key lab spaces.

The following, I'm going to show you more about what, I'm going to go through the pictures of our lab setup. This is our Tseng sequencing rooms, and this is the automations with a robotic setup.

[Councilor Matt Leming]: And Tony, if I could just interject for a minute, all of those controls and set up that you saw before we would plan on carrying those forward to the new site, which is the security section of our application.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yes. Yes. Yes. Thanks Ryan to add those on. Okay. So this is the, our sequencing rooms. Center sequencing, this is the BL21, so normally it's locked, and we have a biosafety hood, we also have a negative pressure. This is our NGS room, it's the QC rooms, and this is another room of our NGS, next generation sequencing rooms. And this is our shakers for, I don't know, inoculate and cultivate the bacteria culture. And this is the centrifuge we use for separating the DNA with the rest of the stuff.

And here is our storage rooms. And this one, this shows you about the fresh medias we're using. This is the autoclave we're using to sanitize or distill our lab wells or our medias. And also we have, besides the building have this autoclave, we also have a portable autoclave in our house in case something not useful or not working, we can still have some portable autoclave.

[Councilor Matt Leming]: We have a similar set up to the in the new building to where there's a smaller scale auto wave and then the portable ones.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I know we have a portables all going to move to the, uh, method site and we also have a building to have. Relative larger auto creep inside the facilities. So biosafety measure, of course, and that's the most important things for running the biosafety lab. You know, we have mandatory trainings for all new employees, and we have a BL-1, and we have all the PPE, lab coat, gloves, goggles, and we have bio-waste containers and shop containers, chemical storage, and we have restrictive rules for the BL-1 lab. Besides the BL-1, in the BL-2, we also have a biosafety hold that's certified and also contains a bio-waste, you know, outdoor door lock and also negative pressures, also certified.

This set up is going to, we're going to do the same thing in the 200 Boston Avenue method lab. So this is just some of the things that shows you how we're working, where the PPE is, and the separated the office to the lab space. This is in a low lab cost, You cannot bring anything working with the lab and then going to the office. It was totally separate place. And here is a show you see what it is. One left side is the, the, the, the, the fresh media. This is the, the middle one is the, we already grow the, the bacteria, then they're not, then we centrifuge them and separate the, bacteria and media. The waste media is going to be dumped into the bio-waste container using 5 to 10% of bleach to inoculate at least four hours.

And after bleach, then we put in the pH neutralization systems before they can release to the public sewage. So this is some of the chemicals and waste. You cannot dispose of this through public sewage. Now we have a contract commercial waste management like Veolia to contain our solid waste. And this is a solid waste that is double bagged and sealed. And also this is the chemicals, if they have some potential harmful or some chemicals to be put inside and then let a professional a management company to take away to dispose of.

And this is the storage of the bio-waste, and they have to separate it from the main HVAC, the main folks, they have to have it as well ventilated. And so we normally collect about a few boxes in less than 10, and we are just then called the professional a waste management company like Beolia to dispose them. So, we have also assigned to everyone about the responsibilities for what and 24-7. So, here is just briefly through our company and our biosafety measurement, and this measurement is going to be the same in the, in the new location in the matter. So, I stop here and taking some questions.

[Councilor Matt Leming]: No, we also have an institutional biosafety committee set up made up of. Me, Tony, Christy Miller, and 2 to 3 community representatives, people that live locally. We may yearly take take notes. I don't know if the, the city has. A system that requires us to submit those. Annually Cambridge, Cambridge does that currently.

[SPEAKER_04]: Right, that's the mandate, a requirement for the public health in city of Cambridge. So every year we have to renew that. We have to go through that. We have to, you know, talking to with the resident communities to show them the improvement or anything. We have some changes or something just like that. I don't know, a CDF method, do they require every year review?

[David Pladziewicz]: Not that I'm aware of as a requirement, but if you want to submit it and give it to us, we'll take it. Got it. I think for the big things for us are one, you're not a level three lab. No. And two, that the E. coli that you use isn't infectious if it were to get out. And it doesn't sound like you're using any infectious agents other than the E. coli itself, introducing additional virulence into the E. coli. You're not doing any of that stuff. So, you know, from what you presented, I have no problem with any of it.

[David Pladziewicz]: Right, exactly. So is 200 Boston Ave, is that the hotspot now for biotech?

[Councilor Matt Leming]: There's a few in there as, you know, frankly, as rent goes up in. Kendall and Cambridge Parkway when you're life. There's some other spots water town is getting more expensive. You don't want to move all the way out to Uber. I personally know the area. I used to live down the street from there. It's a good fit for us.

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: Yes. Agreed. Terrific. And then when it's going to be. All of your hazardous waste removal. Yes, did they do shops as well?

[Councilor Matt Leming]: We don't have any sharps they would for whatever reason we started having it.

[Councilor Matt Leming]: We're doing it in 2 stages. The 1st stage is on the 28th of October where we're using moving any equipment that doesn't see. Regular day to day use the 2nd stage movement. It really depends on how the construction and the 1st. Move goes, we're aiming to be there by. November 11, it also sort of depends on our current lab volume. We don't want a huge interruption in business. So. But we'll update you when that happens.

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: Thank you. I'm still reviewing all the application. There's a couple of spots to go through, but it looks good. First class, it looks like everything's there. So I'll be emailing you going forward, and we'll send the permit along when it's ready. So, thank you. Thank you.

[David Pladziewicz]: And don't forget to do it. Don't forget to get just hummus sandwiches.

[Councilor Matt Leming]: Yeah, well, it's too bad Danish pastry looks like they closed. It's down the street from us. All right. Sounds like we're all set. OK.

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: I'm frozen. Yeah. I have really bad connections. I'm sorry. Again, as long as you can hear me, I'm missing a lot of the talk. But OK. So thank you very much. And we'll be in touch, Ryan and Tony. And I'm going to make myself back the host again so that when you leave, you don't shut down the meeting.

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: Great. Okay. Next up. Okay, so as on again, as you can hear me, that's good, because you're all frozen as far as I can see. So bear with me. I'm doing this kind of blind. Last meeting we had, we talked about the tobacco violations and the suspensions around that were associated with the fines that they have for 1st and 2nd offenses. And you had mentioned that you want to kind of review the language. in the regulation.

And last time we talked about the seven-day suspension not having to be consecutive so we could split it up for them to make it a little bit less painful. But when I reviewed the language, the second violation basically says that along with the fine, the tobacco product sales permit shall be suspended For 7 consecutive days, so it does say shall be suspended not may like the state. And it does say 7 consecutive business days. What is the same with the 3 more violations, which is the 3000 dollar fine. No, I think it's 5,000 open. I'm sorry. It says the permit shall be suspended for 30 consecutive days. Again, shall be suspended for 30 consecutive days. So, I don't know if you want to take this up today and discuss or if... Well, I have one question. You're ready to or... I have a question.

[David Pladziewicz]: Oh, okay. In and out. How does our regs differ from the state with the word shall and consecutive for the second offense?

[David Pladziewicz]: Yeah, and does it say consecutive days too, the state? Or they say they're vague on it?

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: See, I think it does. I could actually verify that with.

[David Pladziewicz]: Yeah, because I think it's important to see what the state says. I wouldn't mind. I know we can be more restrictive and everything, but I wouldn't mind for simplicity's sake that we mirror the state. So there's one regulations. The state says it and we're on board with what the state says. Yeah, we can be restrictive, but when you start getting different rules like this, it can muddy the waters. I would think it best for everyone if we just mirror the state.

And it sounds like they're a little less restrictive and it will give us a little leeway for special circumstances that always exist as everyone knows. So it's not a mandatory sentence of this secondary extenuating circumstances. So I'd like to maintain that latitude. It's small, but we should maintain it. if we can.

[David Pladziewicz]: Yeah, if the state says consecutive, then, you know, we'll keep it consecutive. But if the state is a little fuzzy on it and gives us a little agency to make our own decision, I think we should keep that agency. I wouldn't give it up.

[MCM00001745_SPEAKER_07]: Given how the rules are laid out, what we voted on then last month does not stand. Are we going back to these businesses and telling them it has to be seven consecutive, or are we allowing the leeway to break up the seven days?

[David Pladziewicz]: I would just go on the future when we do decide it would be proactive, not retroactive. I would think. OK. I don't know if Marianne can hear that.

[David Pladziewicz]: Well, we're just saying if we do change it. If we do change any wording, it should not be retroactive. Okay, it would should be going forward. Okay. 1, and if we do make some changes.

[MCM00001745_SPEAKER_07]: But, but I think our vote last week gives them the opportunity to break up the 7 days. And we're saying that we're, are we going to stick to what the rule is, which is supposed to be seven consecutive, or are we going with our vote from last month, which is they can break up the seven.

[David Pladziewicz]: Well, we're not a hundred percent sure if it is consecutive days to language in the state rec. Because we varied because we did vary already with our own from the state. we can't have a little leeway there. So whatever we already voted on, I would let that stand. Yeah. I'm just thinking in the future, if we could align so that we stay the same as the state, then even the owners of the businesses will maybe find that more appealing to us. One, the state and ours are the same.

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: All right. So with us today, we have our regional epidemiologist, Guha Patel. And she also, Guha has graciously volunteered to do our quarterly infectious disease report for, and so this is for the, she works for the Mystic Valley Public Health Coalition, regional one. So she's, I sent you the reports, I know I did, I got them over the weekend, I sent them to you this morning. So, I'm not sure if you had time to look at them, but I don't know. Do you want to share your screen and go through it or.

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: Sure, do you want to share screen? I know you don't have to. So you say.

[Unidentified]: Yeah, that's sort of. Then. It was just a lot of information, so.

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: We don't have to go through the whole report, but we can go through the method specific and kind of the comparisons with the region as well would be great.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. All right. Hello, everyone. Thank you for inviting me here today to speak on the Medford. So I pulled some of the data from MAVEN, which is our infectious disease portal where we report all the reportable condition. So in Medford for quarter one from June to September, We have 108 confirmed cases, which is like 25% of the region, and with the 26% of the population among all our region. The leading condition is COVID-19. But if you remove COVID, then the second leading cause is a camphylobacteriosis.

When you see from June to September, the cases are rising overall. Also, the flu cases, which is the influenza cases, even the regionally, the cases are increased. This time, it is earlier than the last couple of years. This year, the spike has started early in the season. When you see for the Medford, we have all pretty much overall, other than like for past couple of years, the cases overall is matched till now, so it's not very exceeding to the point which is something is notable. But we are also keeping eye on some of the enteric diseases. Enteric is the stomach infections and stuff like that. That's what we are keeping an eye on right now because that's the second highest in Medford.

Apart from that, when you see for the workflow, Medford is in pretty good shape. It's one of the best where the 84% of acknowledgement has been done for the cases in two days and the 97% of the case reports are completed. So yeah, that's all for the Medford as of now. But let me know if you have any questions or comments, I'm happy to answer.

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: How do we compare with some of the others? Was it looking like we were?

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, I can show the comparison with the other towns. So basically when you see in the region.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. So some of the cases where some of the reportable conditions, we have some rare diseases, but I have, because of the data privacy issue, I have compressed the data, which are like less than five in the number. So you might not be able to see that here. But apart from that, there is nothing which is like triggering or which is like we have to be like very cautious about for next season, like coming time or something like that. It's just overall, the diseases are increasing for the respiratory because it's also a season for respiratory diseases. So that's only the notable one. And the second is the enteric one, nothing else right now. Yep.

And when you see for the region comparison, so this is how it looks like for our region, which compared like six other communities. So that's how the caseload looks like for each town. For the antiriotic diseases, it is increasing than the past couple of years. For blood-borne illnesses, we are reducing. Then the past couple of years, for the tick-borne, it is slowly rising, but it's being steadily rising. For the respiratory tract, it's the season, so it might spike up in a few months.

And that's the different town comparison where we are at in Medford. Medford is the orange one. So you see in where we were in 2001 to 2006, the highest cases right now we have in our communities in Winchester than compared to rest all the towns.

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: Great. Thank you, Gruha. Appreciate you doing that report. We'll see you again in a few months.

[MCM00001812_SPEAKER_07]: Yes, thank you. Sorry, can I just add a quick request for Dr. Plotowicz? We're in the process of renewing our MCSR license, and we just need a copy of your MCSR license and your medical license to get our approval. If you could send that over to me. We have old copies, but they're expired. So they're requested.

[David Pladziewicz]: We call it something else. MCSR. All right. Drug and medical license. Thank you.

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: And Grua has also been very instrumental working with Jill in getting the mobile community van here.

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: Yeah. Unfortunately, they had the high trouble, truck troubles, mobile van trouble, and couldn't do it this past month, but we're hoping to have them back again at the end of next month or this month, right? In addition, who has also working with Jill has secured a mobile. That's going to start coming to Medford in the winter this winter, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, they are starting from the March. That's what they're giving me right now.

[Director MaryAnn O'Connor]: That's great. So that's exciting news. And we're really excited about the mobile community health van as well. And we hope we'll take advantage of it. And we'll be promoting that as much as we can, because they do offer a lot of great free services. So even if you don't have insurance, you're welcome to come and do diabetes checks and colon cancer tests and all kinds of services, so blood pressure check, whatever you need. So please take advantage of it.

Anything to add to that, Jill or Guha? Do you have the next date, Jill, off the top of your head for the VIN?

[MCM00001812_SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, so the next one, so it's going to be the fourth Tuesday of each month. So the next one will be the 27th, October 27th. And they are now offering flu and COVID vaccines as well.

Matt Leming total time: 2.18 minutes total words: 323