The Next Pandemic by Ali Khan

Author:Ali Khan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781610395922
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2016-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

In February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell held up a vial of white powder in a speech before the United Nations saying that less than a teaspoonful of dry anthrax in an envelope had shut down the US Senate. He made the association with Iraq—the fact that in the 1990s the Iraqis had possessed eighty-five hundred liters of liquid-form anthrax.

And although smallpox was eradicated worldwide in 1980 and resided in only two repositories, Iraq had never certified that it had no residual smallpox virus. Iraq had also worked on camelpox (a local disease), had a freeze-drier labeled “Smallpox” in Arabic during a UN weapons inspection in 1984 (to make vaccine, according to Iraqis), and could have bought some smallpox (variola) virus on the black market from a rogue Russian scientist with access to samples in the declared smallpox repository, or the clandestine biowarfare program. Those accumulated flimsy facts and speculations were enough for the US Defense Department to reintroduce smallpox vaccination for the military. CDC also “assisted” in this war effort by establishing a national smallpox vaccine campaign for health care workers (for an illness that you can prevent by vaccinating people up to a week after exposure). But early reports of serious adverse reactions associated with the smallpox vaccine—in the form of serious rashes, fevers, and cardiac arrests—ended the campaign that must not be named.

But no stockpiles were ever found in Iraq, and Saddam Hussein’s mobile germ warfare labs turned out to be fictitious. Powell’s statements did not jibe with the findings of the engineers at Sandia National Laboratories, who said that the anthrax used in the attacks had not been chemically treated. It had been known as early as the fall of 2001 that the anthrax came from the Ames strain, indicating that its most likely source was Fort Detrick, or one of the other very few centers in the US biodefense network that used Ames anthrax.

In March 2003, the Defense Department awarded Ivins its highest honor for nonuniformed personnel, the Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service. The award was for his efforts to revive the long-troubled anthrax vaccine.

Five days later, on March 19, 2003, President Bush launched the war in Iraq.

On December 5, 2003, the Brentwood postal facility reopened and was renamed in honor of Thomas L. Morris Jr. and Joseph P. Curseen Jr.

In March 2004, with encouragement from Vice President Dick Cheney, officials decided to purchase 75 million doses of a next-generation anthrax vaccine. This would provide a three-dose treatment regimen for 25 million people. These doses would be held in a civilian strategic national stockpile. It was also a way of keeping the manufacturer of such a vaccine going so that it could be ramped up as needed. As part of this effort, a company called VaxGen was awarded a contract worth $877 million, payable as soon as it began to deliver the 75 million doses of rPA, the vaccine that Ivins had patented.

As a codeveloper of the patent, Ivins received checks totaling more than $12,000.

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