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Posted on 01/21/2003 6:44:52 PM PST by knak
BIOTERRORISM MONITORS TO BE PLACED THROUGHOUT USA... intended to tell within 24 hours whether anthrax, smallpox and other deadly germs have been released into the air, senior administration officials tell Wed NYT... MORE... system uses sophisticated data analysis which officials said had been quietly developed since the Sept. 11 attacks... MORE...
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Well fancy that!
RFP ANNOUNCEMENT: PRODUCTION AND ACQUISITION OF ANTHRAX VACCINE - NIH-NIAID- DMID-03-29 Release Date: April 18, 2002 NOTICE: NOT-AI-02-018 National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) (http://www.niaid.nih.gov) Receipt Date: July 1, 2003 DESCRIPTION The main objectives of this RFP are: (a) to develop a plan to manufacture, formulate, and fill as single doses up to 25 x 106 doses of rPA anthrax vaccine, and (b) to negotiate the sale of up to 25 million doses to constitute a stockpile for emergency use under IND and to maintain the stockpile. Recently, significant changes have occurred in both the nature and degree of the threat posed by the use of infectious agents as weapons of biological warfare. The risk of using such weapons once appeared to be restricted to international conflicts involving small numbers of industrialized nations and an increasing number of developing countries. However, with the recent deliberate exposure of postal workers, other government employees and the American public at large to anthrax spores, there is an urgent need to devise appropriate and effective measures to protect U.S. citizens from the harmful effects of Bacillus anthracis spores used as instruments of terror. Among the strategies that might be considered to protect the American public from deliberate environmental exposure to B. anthracis spores, two are based on elicitation of protective immunity with vaccines. The first involves prior immunization with minimal doses of a vaccine known to generate significant and long-term protective immunity against inhalation spore challenge (pre- exposure vaccination). The second involves immunization, soon after aerosol exposure to spores and initiation of antibiotic prophylaxis, with a vaccine known to generate protective immunity relatively quickly after only a few immunizing doses (post-exposure vaccination). The latter would enable one to immunize at the time antibiotic therapy is begun so that a significant degree of protective immunity is present when antibiotic therapy is either completed or discontinued. In view of the national tragedy of anthrax spread by mail in the fall of 2001, there is sufficient justification to warrant the rapid development, testing and licensure of a vaccine for both situations, ideally a single vaccine. Although a licensed anthrax vaccine is required for both pre-exposure prophylaxis and post-exposure immunization, the primary purpose of this procurement is production and procurement of a stockpile of anthrax vaccine that would be available to protect the general US population against inhalation anthrax when administered in an immunization series of not more than three doses. Abundant preclinical evidence is available to indicate that immunization with native protective antigen (PA) and the recombinant protective antigen (rPA) of B. anthracis adsorbed to alum generates long- lasting protective immunity against inhalation spore challenge in animal models of the disease. This immunity is mediated by antibody directed at PA, and preclinical experience in animal models provides the basis for consideration of testing rPA in human clinical trials. The urgent nature of the current threat requires an accelerated pace of procurement of an emergency stockpile of vaccine, and several rPA anthrax vaccines are under development. This solicitation is a request for proposals to develop a plan to manufacture rPA vaccine under cGMP conditions and to deliver to the government up to 25 million doses of rPA vaccine to constitute a stockpile of vaccine for emergency use under IND. It is anticipated that one cost-reimbursement, completion type contract will be awarded with incremental funding over a period of eighteen (18) months RFP-NIH-NIAID-DMID-03-29 will be available electronically on or about April 22, 2002, and may be accessed through the Internet on the Contract Management Branch Homepage, located at http://www.niaid.nih.gov/contract and will be posted on FedBizOpps at http://www.eps.gov/spg/HHS/NIH/NIAID/NIH-NIAID-DMID-03-29/SynopsisP.html. Please note that the RFP for this acquisition has been revised to include only the Work Statement, deliverable and reporting requirements, special requirements and mandatory qualification, the Technical Evaluation Criteria, and proposal preparation instructions. All information required for the submission of an offer will be contained in the electronic RFP package. Following proposal submission and the initial review process, Offerors comprising the competitive range will be requested to provide additional documentation to the Contracting Officer. Responses to this RFP will be due by 4:00 pm on Tuesday, July 1, 2003. Any responsible Offeror may submit a proposal, which will be considered by the Government. Contracting Office Address: National Institutes of Health National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Contract Management Branch 6700-B Rockledge Drive Room 2230, MSC 7612 Bethesda, MD, 20892-7612 Point of Contact: Phillip Hastings, Contracting Officer, Phone 301-496-0194, Fax 301-402-0972, E-Mail ph23k@nih.gov This announcement does not commit the Government to award a contract. No collect calls will be accepted.
CAN ANTHRAX REALLY BE USED AS A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION?
The answer is yes, though to date it has not been.
Fortunately, it's far more difficult to turn anthrax into a weapon of mass destruction than you may have been led to believe. First, only certain strains of bacteria are exceptionally deadly. A bioterrorist would have to have access to a particularly virulent strain and then brew a large batch of microbes. The bacteria would have to be dried and converted to spores, then refined into very, very small particles.
The recent distribution of anthrax through the mail system infected at least eighteen people and killed five. The mail system was paralyzed regionally. Congress was essentially shut down for four days, buildings were closed for months. The country was terrorized. But anthrax was not used, as it might have been, as a true weapon of mass destruction. The same amount of anthrax placed in the ventilation system of a building could have exposed thousands to a lethal dose.
For more than three decades, scientific, military, and health experts have tried to analyze the consequences of a large-scale anthrax attack. The worst-case scenario would be that some nation or group was able to spread anthrax from an airplane over a major metropolitan area. In an analysis that is over thirty years old and conducted long before we developed the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile and early-mobilization program, the World Health Organization estimated in 1970 that the release of aerosolized anthrax over a densely populated area with 5 million people could result in 250,000 casualties, 100,000 of whom could die unless treated.
In another analysis, the U.S. congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) estimated in 1993 that releasing aerosolized anthrax over Washington, D.C. could result in 130,000 to 3 million deaths--an attack as deadly as a hydrogen bomb.
Senator Bill Frist, When Every Moment Counts
Regardless of whether 10,000 or 500,000 died in a 100 kilo anthrax attack, our economy would crash utterly with all postal, UPS, FEDEX, airports, subways etc closed for months or longer.
What you describe is on the low end of what is possible, given the weaponization status of the powder sent to Daschle and the potential for parallel attacks evidenced on 9/11/01.
DR. HEYWOOD FLOYD:Mr. Halvorsen has made known to me some of the conflicting views held by many of you regarding the need for complete security in this matter, and more specifically your strong opposition to the cover story created to give the impression there is an epidemic at the Base. I understand that beyond it being a matter of principle, many of you are troubled by the concern and anxiety this story of an epidemic might cause your relatives and friends on Earth.
I can understand and sympathize with your negative views. I have been personally embarrassed by this cover story. But I fully accept the need for absolute secrecy and I hope you will.
It should not be difficult for all of you to realise the potential for cultural shock and social disorientation contained in the present situation if the facts were prematurely and suddenly made public without adequate preparation and conditioning.
Isn't it much easier to weaponize 5 g than 100 Kg? And how would you deliver 100 Kg? 100 Kg would put the "sleepers" to sleep permanently.
And that is a problem because...?
Excellent point. Any good guess as to why the Bush Administration is unwilling to state the obvious:
Iraq was a key player in the anthrax mailings, as well as 9-11?
The Administration maintains Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, but they decline to provide the proof. Why not state the obvious, Iraq attacked the U.S. with anthrax and participated in 9-11, since clearly there is no requirement to provide proof to the public for the Administration's claims.
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