- The only laboratory in the U.S. capable of making crucial
anthrax vaccine hasn't been able to produce a single dose of the vitally
needed immunilogical substance in the face of a potential bioterror attack
using deadly anthrax agents.
-
- Meant to be the source of the vaccine to be used to immunize
the military from the deadly anthrax disease, Michigan's BioPort Corporation,
the sole supplier of anthrax vaccine to the military has not produced a
single dose since 1998, when it bought the plant from the state, according
to Saturday's New York Times.
-
- Writing in the Times, correspondent Stephen Kinzer reports
that BioPort has been plagued with problems from the very beginning, including
poor documentation and improper procedures in the room where the vaccine
was packaged, according to FDA inspectors.
-
- While the company says it hopes finally to begin producing
anthrax this year it still must pass another FDA inspection, which has
yet to be scheduled.
-
-
- BopPort's problems are well known by the government.
Last year, Arkansas GOP Senator Tim Hutchinson called the company's record
"an unmitigated disaster," noting that its failures were "costing
the American taxpayer millions and millions of dollars and jeopardizing
the safety of our troops who we're not able to provide that anthrax vaccination."
-
- The company is not without its sympathizers, however.
"There's a lot of criticism of BioPort," Tara O'Toole, deputy
director of the Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies at Johns Hopkins
University told the Times. "But to be fair, there's also a lot of
talk that the Defense Department significantly underfunded the whole effort
and didn't give it the priority it deserved."
-
- "In retrospect," O'Toole added "the whole
notion of turning this over to a new contractor instead of an established
pharmaceutical company looks questionable."
-
-
- While BioPort is working frantically to get into production,
the fact that there is at present no source in this country of a vaccine
that could mean life or death to Americans in the event of an anthrax attack
is a critical one, especially since many experts say that if terrorists
launch a biological attack using biological agents, they would most likely
use anthrax.
-
- The Times reveals that even though anthrax is reportedly
hard to produce and spread in large doses, any enemy that was able to do
so could inflict horrendous damage on their targets.
-
- "A 1993 government study found that spraying just
220 pounds of aerosol anthrax over Washington could kill up to three million
people," the Times reported, noting that Osama bin Laden has also
taken an interest in chemical and biological warfare.
-
- "It's a good bio-terror weapon and even better for
biological warfare, and it's lying on the ground in places like Afghanistan"
William Dietrich, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School told
the Times.
-
- Dietrich, who is researching the anthrax bacterium added.
"If you have a collection of soldiers you want to kill without infecting
your own population or soldiers anthrax has good properties with regard
to that. If you can produce it and disperse it on a battlefield, you can
kill a lot of people very quickly. It's a very terrible, high-fatality
kind of illness that we don't have enough tools in our arsenal to stop."
-
- The Times says that should the company finally pass its
next FDA inspection and can resume production, the first several million
doses will go solely to the military.
-
- The Defense Department is BioPort's sole customer, spending
$126 million in the plant over the last decade, according to the Times.
The military plans to immunize all 2.4 million active and reserve troops
against anthrax but have so far managed to begin immunizing only about
500,000, mostly those in the Persian Gulf.
-
- Anybody else will simply have to wait, scarce comfort
at a time when an anthrax attack by terrorists remains a real possibility.
-
-
-
- Posted by permission of NewsMax.com http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/10/6/01001.shtml
|
