X-Message-Number: 17710
Date: Sat, 06 Oct 2001 13:32:08 -0400
From: fair4us <>
Subject: Anthrax

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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.
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