Justice Department lawyers contradict FBI findings in anthrax case

[kpete]

Source: McClatchy

Now, however, Justice Department lawyers have acknowledged in court papers that the sealed area in Ivins' lab — the so-called hot suite — didn't contain the equipment needed to turn liquid anthrax into the refined powder that floated through congressional buildings and post offices in the fall of 2001.

The government said it continued to believe that Ivins was "more likely than not" the killer. But the filing in a Florida court didn't explain where or how Ivins could have made the powder, saying only that his secure lab "did not have the specialized equipment . . . that would be required to prepare the dried spore preparations that were used in the letters."

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/07/18/117806/justice-department-lawyers-contradict.html

[aquart]

1. What's in Dick Cheney's cellar?

[DJ13]

2. Cheney's Love Shack

[Devil_Fish]

6. K&R just for this post. DUzy nomination right here.

:rofl:

[mattvermont]

3. always takes about 4 years

for the truth to end up on page 33 of the paper

[OnyxCollie]

4. The dead guy did it.

Case closed.

Now, let's go bust some potheads.

[Supersedeas]

7. domestic terrorism....and not a sound but crickets from the almight American media

[AntiFascist]

5. If anyone wants to know why Democrats are so compromising....

it's because the MIC ultra right-wing usually gets away with their Nazi-like intimidation tactics, in this case where the "lone" killer Ivins received the blame. Now that the truth is finally coming out, everyone is too distracted by what's happening to SS/Medicare, and other news distractions.

[UpInArms]

8. 'minds me

The Only US Anthrax Vaccine Producer?

What is the BioPort Corporation, I hear you ask? Well, it's the only corporation in the United States with a license to make Anthrax Vaccine. Except that BioPOrt doesn't actually make the vaccine, BioPOrt simply bought the lab that does make the vaccine, Michigan Biologic Products Institute, from the State of Michigan in 1998, oddly enough at the same time John J. Maresca, Vice President of International Relations, UNOCAL Corporation, was telling congress that access to the oil reserves under the Caspian Sea required a new government in Afghanistan.

Along with the actual Anthrax Vaccine, BioPort acquired Michigan Biologic Products Institute's sole and exclusive customer for the vaccine, the U.S. Department of defense. And here is the kicker. Since acquiring Michigan Biologic Products Institute, BioPort has not delivered a drop of the stuff! Only 4% of the vaccine contracted for has been delivered. FDA audits have uncovered suspicious record keeping and contamination problems, causing the FDA to ban delivery of the product. Despite this ban, the U.S. Government has continued to front BioPort millions of dollars to kep the operation going. And, given the "State of Emergency", it is likely that FDA concerns for the product will soon be set aside and the vaccine delivered, not to the citizens whose taxes paid for it all, but to the military and to the government.

[OnyxCollie]

9. Anthrax vaccine

Emergent BioSolutions Signs Contract with BARDA/NIAID, Valued at Up to $29.7
Million, to Fund Development of AV7909 - A Next Generation Anthrax Vaccine
--AV7909 Contract is in Addition to Recently Announced $24 Million
Development Contract for Anthrax Monoclonal and Pending Proposal to Supply
HHS with Up to 25 Million Doses of a Recombinant Anthrax Vaccine
http://investors.emergentbiosolutions.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=202582&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1202589&highlight=

ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 12, 2008--Emergent BioSolutions Inc.
(NYSE:EBS) announced today that it has signed a contract with BARDA/NIAID, valued at
up to $29.7 million, to fund the further development of AV7909, a next generation
anthrax vaccine candidate within Emergent's portfolio of anthrax countermeasures. The
three-year contract provides up to $24.9 million of funding for manufacturing of clinical
lots, for non-clinical safety and efficacy studies, and for stability studies to further
demonstrate that the vaccine candidate does not need refrigeration during storage, a key
requirement of this vaccine development initiative. In addition, the contract provides up
to $4.8 million for a Phase I clinical trial, to be funded as an option that, if exercised,
would increase the value of the contract to $29.7 million.

Bushco was sure to toss some taxpayer dollars Emergent Biosolutions' way before he left. Would the new administration be as generous as the previous administration was?

Vaccines: Is the Boom Sustainable During the Obama Era?
http://www.windhover.com/ezine/html/ac0109-2lp.htm

The emerging Obama health team has experience in the field; they bring
preconceived approaches and tendencies to the field. Many trained in public
health roles during the initiation of the Vaccines for Children Program. Now is
the time to understand the background and to analyze how they will
approach the changes that have occurred in the vaccine industry in the
past eight years.

Take away key perspectives and guidance in the following areas:

How do vaccines fit into the developing overall health care reform effort that promises
to be a key part of the Obama economic revitalization?

What is the future for “push” incentives for vaccines: funding for research; funding for
new production capacity; support for regulatory approvals?

Is the government ready to continue and support “pull” programs: efforts to expand
vaccination populations for flu vaccines, for vaccines for adolescents, for vaccines for
the elderly?

How far will the government go to assure the public that safety fears are unfounded?

Who will be the key voices for vaccines in the new administration?
...and much more!

Join us for Vaccines: Is the Boom Sustainable during the Obama Era? on Thursday, Jan.
29, 2009 at 12 p.m. EST (9 a.m. Pacific). Listen as our experts help you understand the
future before it's begun. Grab your team, a phone and a computer with Web access (that last
one's optional). No travel required!

The answer is yes.

U.S. orders more anthrax vaccine
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2011/05/03/US-orders-more-anthrax-vaccine/UPI-53371304443716/print/

ROCKVILLE, Md., May 3 (UPI) -- The U.S. government has ordered more vaccine from Emergent BioSolutions Inc. of
Maryland to counter exposure to anthrax.

Emergent BioSolutions said the modification to its contract -- increasing the order of its BioThrax vaccine to 17.92 million
doses from 14.5 million, increases the value of its contract to as much as $101 million.

Potential Billion $ Contract for Emergent Biosolutions
http://www.wilx.com/localnews/headlines/Potential_Billion_Contract_for_Emergent_Biosolutions_122671924.html

LANSING - Emergent Biosolutions is close to securing five more years of work in Lansing. On Thursday Emergent Biosolutions
announced the U.S. government intends to purchase 44.75 million doses of biothrax, the anthrax vaccine. The contract is still being
negotiated, and a final price has not been set. A dose of biothrax costs about $30, so the contract could be worth in the
neighborhood of $1.3 billion. The new contract would last for 5 years. Approximately 400 people work at the Emergent Biosolutions
plant in Lansing.

Biothrax is the only vaccine licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to protect against anthrax infection. Emergent is the
sole provider of the vaccine to the U.S. Government. Biothrax is mainly used to vaccinate soldiers, and millions of doses are
stockpiled in case of national emergency.

The US bought an enormous amount of vaccine for a situation that it was unapproved for and which was unlikely to occur.

Project BioShield, signed into law by President Bush in July 2004, would replenish the Strategic National Stockpile of vaccines in the event of a terrorist attack. It would also allow BioThrax to be used for inhalation exposure, even though the FDA only approves it to be used for cutaneous exposure.47 However, without supplementary antibiotics BioThrax was found to be ineffective against inhalation exposure in animal testing.48

A strong advocate for Project BioShield II was Jerome Hauer, who gave his assessment of Project BioShield I in December 2004, “Bioshield I was a good start; there’s no question about it. It was intended to engage the industry {and} to stimulate the industry. …But it appears to have had just the opposite effect for many of the pharmaceutical companies.”49 At the time Mr. Hauer gave that statement, he was no longer acting assistant secretary for emergency preparedness at HHS; he was working as a lobbyist for BioPort Corporation.50 He is currently on the Board of Directors for Emergent Biosolutions (formerly BioPort) along with former FEMA director Joe Allbaugh.51

In May 2005, BioPort was awarded a $123 million dollar contract to produce 5 million doses of anthrax vaccine.52 The following November, the government decided to double the amount of vaccine they would purchase, citing the possibility of an airborne anthrax attack. Skeptical about the effectiveness of the vaccine in an airborne attack, David Ozonoff, a professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health, said, “The number of doses they are amassing is wildly out of proportion to any possible threat from anthrax. What the benefits are is very unclear and there are always the {health} risks … when you vaccinate a whole lot of people.”53

In agreement with Mr. Ozonoff is Hillel W. Cohen, an epidemiologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, who emphasizes the difficulty of executing such an attack, “The only possible benefit of a vaccine is if there’s a danger of exposure and that danger is small because of the technological hurdles of weaponizing anthrax … It’s not something you can do in your basement.”54

Indeed, the difficulty in producing high-quality anthrax puts it beyond the reach of amateurs. According to a 2002 GAO report, “…it would be very difficult for a terrorist to overcome major technical and operational challenges to effectively and successfully weaponize and deliver a biological warfare agent to cause mass casualties.”55 The report lists five steps to producing high-quality anthrax, the first being the acquisition of a virulent strain of anthrax by either isolating it in a dead animal, purchasing it from someone who already has it, or by stealing it from a lab.56


47 Maier, T. (2005, November 20). A shot in the dark? Newsday.com. Retrieved April 15, 2009 from http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-enanth024519241nov20,0,6116618.story
48 Ibid.
49 Strohm, C. (2004). Congress seeks to stimulate market for bioagent vaccines. Retrieved April 15, 2009 from http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?filepath=/dailyfed/1204/121604c1.htm
50 Ibid.
51 Emergent Biosolutions Inc. (2009). Board of Directors. Retrieved April 15, 2009 from http://investors.emergentbiosolutions.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=202582&p=irol-govboard_pf
52 Maier, T. (2005, November 20). A shot in the dark? Newsday.com. Retrieved April 15, 2009 from http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-enanth024519241nov20,0,6116618.story
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid.
55 Rhodes, K. (2002). Information on U.S. domestic anthrax attacks. General Accounting Office (GAO-03-323T). Washington, D.C. p. 3.
56 Ibid.

http://www.biothrax.com/prescribinginformation_biothrax_us.pdf

-------------------INDICATIONS AND USAGE-------------------
BioThrax is a vaccine indicated for the active immunization for the prevention of disease caused by Bacillus anthracis, in persons between 18 and 65 years of age at high risk of exposure. Since the risk of anthrax infection in the general population is low, routine immunization is not recommended. The safety and efficacy of BioThrax in a post-exposure setting have not been established.

[bemildred]

10. The government lies, the Justice Department lies, they all lie to protect the status quo

and their own asses.