X-Message-Number: 17710 Date: Sat, 06 Oct 2001 13:32:08 -0400 From: fair4us <> Subject: Anthrax --=====================_16262568==_.ALT Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Some list members have occasionally mentioned a well-deserved interest in the potential hazards of anthrax. A recent New York Times article presents some important information on this issue. Excerpts are below; the entire article is usually available free for a week at: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/06/health/06VACC.html?ex=1003379777&ei=1&en=7 be919bb0e48e932 Military's Sole Supplier of Anthrax Vaccine Still Can't Make It October 6, 2001 By STEPHEN KINZER LANSING, Mich., Oct. 5 - With concern growing over the possibility of biological weapons being used against Americans, anthrax vaccine should be pouring out the door of the only laboratory in the United States licensed to make it. But although the laboratory is working frantically to meet government standards so it can begin producing the vaccine, it has failed to do so. As a result, the government program aimed at vaccinating all American soldiers against anthrax is at a standstill. On Monday, National Guard sentries arrived to guard the plant, which is owned by BioPort Corporation, but 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. Problems have plagued BioPort from the beginning. It failed Food and Drug Administration inspections in 1999 and 2000; inspectors cited problems including poor documentation and improper procedures in the room where the vaccine was packaged. Corporate managers hope to begin producing anthrax this year, but that depends on the outcome of a third F.D.A. inspection, which has not yet been scheduled. Plant officials say that since the terror attacks last month on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, their 220 employees have been working with new fervor. "Our commitment has deepened measurably," said Kim Brennen Root, a BioPort spokeswoman. "People are getting up every morning thinking: `I know what my job is. I know what I have to do and I have a very clear purpose.' " The only other plant that produces anthrax vaccine, Ms. Root said, is in Britain. Many experts believe that if terrorists were to launch an attack using biological agents, anthrax would be among their most likely choices. Although anthrax is said to be difficult to produce and spread in large doses, an enemy that managed to do so could inflict considerable damage. A 1993 government study found that spraying just 220 pounds of aerosol anthrax over Washington could kill up to three million people. The Soviet Union was known to have experimented with military uses of anthrax, as have about 10 other countries, including North Korea and Iraq. Some reports say that Osama bin Laden, whom Bush administration officials describe as head of the world's principal terror network, 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" said William Dietrich, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School who is researching the anthrax bacterium. "If you have a collection of soldiers you want to kill without infecting your own population or soldiers," Professor Dietrich said, "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." Even if the company passes its next Food and Drug Administration inspection and is allowed to resume production, the first several million doses will be assigned for military use. In recent days more than 1,200 people, including many doctors, have called BioPort asking to buy anthrax vaccine. They are transferred to a recording that says, "All the stockpile that currently exists is owned by the Department of Defense. At this time there is no opportunity for any commercial sales." The government has said it has no plans to vaccinate civilians. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------- Nothing below this line: --=====================_16262568==_.ALT Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17710