Millions Wasted On Anthrax Vaccine Search?

Project BioShield Was Given Billions To Develop An Improved Anthrax Vaccine - That Was Three Years Ago

(CBS)  The California company VaxGen was the first to get a government BioShield contract in 2004 - a huge one worth $877 million dollars - to develop a better anthrax vaccine.

"They were given milestone to meet - production schedules," said Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Michigan, of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "They didn't meet one of them. Not one of them."

Things were so bad, that recently the government decided to pull the plug on the whole project. VaxGen ends up with only $1.5 million tax dollars. But CBS News discovered taxpayers are actually on the hook for a much larger bill than that.

It turns out VaxGen had already been awarded $100 million tax dollars for the anthrax project from another government agency: the National Institutes of Health.

Congressman Rogers, who represents the district of a VaxGen competitor, says he wonders why the government entrusted VaxGen with so much money to begin with.

VaxGen has never put a single dose of any vaccine on the market.

Before the anthrax vaccine flop, the company was best known for failing to develop an AIDS vaccine, using $8 million in taxpayer dollars.

And VaxGen got delisted from the stock exchange for failing to file proper papers in 2004.

"When you started peeling back the onion, it started to look pretty bad," said Rogers. "It did not pass the smell test. It was a company that had no proven track record, and here was the recipient of almost $100 million of U.S. taxpayer money and had nowhere to go with it."

"We remain confident that with the proper support, we could develop a modern anthrax vaccine," said Lance Ignon, a VaxGen vice president.

He insists they could have worked out the kinks if they'd just had more time, and it's the government that has wasted your tax dollars by pulling the contract midstream. He also adds that the company spent way more shareholder money than tax dollars on the vaccine research.

"There's been a modest investment on the part of the government in the research of this vaccine, and it is, to us, regrettable that that investment will now be squandered because the government decided to terminate this contract."

What's next for the government's Project BioShield quest for a new anthrax vaccine? It's back to the drawing board. What's next for VaxGen? They're working on a new vaccine for smallpox, without tax dollars.

[crater7]

877 MILLION DOLLORS, HMMMMMM, THAT WILL BUY A LOT OF DUCT TAPE AND PLASTIC, AND GAS MASK. WHO NEEDS ANTHRAX VACCINE?

[meritocrat]

Mass vaccination programs aimed at protecting most or all Americans against anthrax are impractical and would save fewer lives than a speedy, localized response in the event of an attack. This was the conclusion of analytical report led researcher Ron Brookmeyer, a professor of biostatistics at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Modeling a wide variety of hypothetical anthrax outbreak scenarios, they found that delivering antibiotics to affected individuals within a few days of exposure may be the best way of preventing death and disease linked to anthrax. "The research showed that if we could get antibiotics to people within six days of exposure, we could prevent 70 percent of cases," he said. Even quicker response times would raise that percentage, he added. Surprisingly, even the best immunization programs couldn't top that 70 percent rate, Brookmeyer said.

[meritocrat]

How much more must we spend on threat that has killed a whopping 5 people and that we already have reasonable solutions for? Please let me offer some perspective. 1,836 people died from Hurricane Katrina. Another big hurricane is certain to hit the US; perhaps we could invest some resources to deal with that eventuality, especially seeing as how we flunked the last test. In 2005, some 17,000 Americans died in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes. President Bush has personal experience with this pastime. In 2003, 2,827 children and teens died as a result of gun violence, including 56 preschoolers. Perhaps this administration%u2019s priorities are off when looking at what actually kills our people. Have they done anything to solve these real problems? Maybe if we had 150,000 more cops patrolling our streets instead of 150,000 GIs patrolling Iraq we could prevent some of these tragic deaths, possibly helping deal with an anthrax scenario. Which is more efficient from a cost vs benefit and risk vs reward standpoint? Hmmm?

[dallison7]

"The California company VaxGen was the first to get a government BioShield contract in 2004 %u2014 a huge one worth $877 million dollars %u2014 to develop a better anthrax vaccine."

We ear repeatedly from republicans and drug companies that th ig price of drugs is necessary to pay for research. HMMMMMM

[crater7]

MASS VACCINES, EVEN IF OUR GOVERNMENT HAD A VACCINE PROGRAM, IT WOULD NOT HELP MOST AMERICAN CITIZENS. ONCE THE VACCINE IS GIVING TO GOVERNMENT LEADERS, FIRST RESPONDERS, MILITARY, AND OF COURSE THE FAMILY MEMBERS OF GOVERNMENT LEADERS, THERE WILL NOT BE ANY LEFT FOR THE REGULAR JOE, JOAN. SO, BUY MORE DUCT TAPE.

[inventagod]

Added to the millions wasted trying to find the Bu$h 'anthrax terrorist' of 2001 - our 'taxed dollars' should just be burned in a huge pile in Washingtoon...

[cobaltnimo]

It's SIMPLE... in Call cases.. There is NO MONEY IN A CURE!!!!! only in Managment of what ever it is they are tyring to Develope.... that way the money keeps comming in over the years... CURE AIDS For instance.. and there are a lot of happy people but no money for the people that made the cure...

[rharrin1]

They used to call it ( the fleecing of America )

[rf35]

VaxGen's reasoning was, "if we don't deliver on the vaccine, we'll get piad more to keep trying." Their problem was they took it too far. They should have at least demonstrated some progress, then they could have carried the sham out for a few more years. This is how many government contractors work.

[nonewnews-2009]

What's wrong with existing anthrax vaccines? I have never heard they don't work.