Fwd: AIDS research cut to pay for anthrax vaccine

[Guest guest]

This seems to be a cash cow for the politically connected owners of the company.

 

The vacine company is owned by ex political and military bigwigs.

 

F.

 

DARocksMom wrote:

DARocksMom

Sat, 19 Jul 2003 13:32:59 EDT

AIDS research cut to pay for anthrax vaccine

undisclosed-recipients:;

 

http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/Gateway.taf?g=5 &

file=/drugdisc/news/articles/424241a.html & filetype= & _UserReference=

 

AIDS research cut to pay for anthrax vaccine

 

 

from Nature

 

Erika Check

 

The Bush administration is to proceed with plans to skim more than $200

million from research grant programmes to pay for the rapid production of an

anthrax vaccine, brushing off the protests of biologists.

 

As a result of the decision, 375 AIDS researchers and other grant-holders at

the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) will this

year lose the initial six months of funding on their awards.

 

The NIAID will spend $233 million on the research, development and purchase

of a 'next-generation' anthrax vaccine by 2004, the White House Office of

Management and Budget says.

 

The transfer of money from the NIAID's civilian research programmes for the

vaccine work is just 2% of its total research budget. But research

organizations say they are afraid that the decision is a harbinger of how the

NIAID's

swelling biodefence mission may compromise its research programmes.

 

" I don't think anyone opposes doing research to make a better anthrax vaccine

- but that work should be funded out of the bioterrorism budget, not by

raiding the AIDS budget, " says Daniel Kuritzkes, director of AIDS research at

the

Partners AIDS Research Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

 

Congress and the administration have been wrangling over the anthrax-vaccine

project since February last year, when President Bush's budget request asked

for $233 million for the NIAID to spend on a vaccine. Congress denied the

request and divided up the money between several parts of the National

Institutes

of Health. But the White House then demanded that the NIAID find a way to

fulfil its request anyway.

 

In a letter sent to legislators on 2 July, White House budget director Joshua

Bolten said that the NIAID would spend up to $117 million this year and $116

million next year on the " advanced development " of an anthrax vaccine,

including the purchase of up to 9 million doses of vaccine.

 

The decision disappointed the Infectious Diseases Society of America, which

says that the vaccine purchase could endanger the NIAID's larger research

mission. The group argues that another branch of government, such as the

Department

of Homeland Security, should be paying for the vaccine.

 

On 11 July, Congressman Henry Waxman (Democrat, California) and Senator Jeff

Bingaman (Democrat, New Mexico) wrote to the president protesting against the

decision, which they called a " serious mistake " .

 

But NIAID officials are putting on a brave face. " The Office of Management

and Budget's position is that there is a critical need for the nation to

rapidly

develop a vaccine and there's nothing else out there to support this now, "

says Ralph Tate, the NIAID's budget director.

 

Janet Shoemaker, public-affairs director at the American Society for

Microbiology, says NIAID officials are making the best of a difficult

situation. " The

anthrax issue has become less urgent in most people's minds, but in the minds

of the people making the decisions it is still a very high priority, " she

says.

 

 

 

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