This article was on the front of the San Jose Mercury news....
Almost five years after a deadly series of mailed anthrax attacks prompted warnings that a new anthrax vaccine was ``urgently needed,'' the nation's nearly $1 billion effort to develop the drug at a Bay Area company, VaxGen, is in trouble.
The company is about a year behind schedule on its latest contract, the first and biggest under the federal anti-terror program Project BioShield. And the delay could grow by at least another year because of a dispute with the government over how the vaccine should be tested.
Although federal officials consider VaxGen's vaccine promising, critics have questioned why the small Brisbane company won the contract. It has no commercial products, flopped at making an AIDS vaccine and has been delisted from the Nasdaq Stock Market since 2004 because of its fouled-up financial records. Yet the government had little choice, because major vaccine manufacturers declined to bid.
VaxGen blames much of the criticism it has received on a campaign orchestrated by its business competitor, and it claims it is making progress on the drug. But if it can't deliver the vaccine to federal specifications, the country will have to rely on the existing vaccine -- one that some soldiers have refused to take because of its side effects, and that needs improvement, according to health experts.
Some people also fear VaxGen's contract flap could discourage the biotech industry -- already wary of doing government business -- from participating in future anti-terror efforts.
``An unresolved dispute here will not only leave the nation without a much-needed, next-generation anthrax vaccine,'' Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, wrote federal health officials in June, ``but will also undermine the development of a vibrant bio-defense industry.''
Terrorism specialists long have considered anthrax the biological weapon of choice for extremists. It is relatively easy to obtain, can be dispersed over a wide area and secretes proteins that become highly toxic when they come in contact with human cells.
But the concerns were heightened dramatically in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, when anthrax-contaminated mail sent to U.S. Senate offices and the media killed five people and sickened at least 17 others.
The United States already has an anthrax vaccine, AVA. Developed in the 1950s, it has been used to inoculate 1.3 million military personnel. But AVA has been linked to six deaths and unpleasant side effects, from fever to body aches. Hundreds of soldiers have refused to take it.
Almost five years after a deadly series of mailed anthrax attacks prompted warnings that a new anthrax vaccine was ``urgently needed,'' the nation's nearly $1 billion effort to develop the drug at a Bay Area company, VaxGen, is in trouble.
The company is about a year behind schedule on its latest contract, the first and biggest under the federal anti-terror program Project BioShield. And the delay could grow by at least another year because of a dispute with the government over how the vaccine should be tested.
Although federal officials consider VaxGen's vaccine promising, critics have questioned why the small Brisbane company won the contract. It has no commercial products, flopped at making an AIDS vaccine and has been delisted from the Nasdaq Stock Market since 2004 because of its fouled-up financial records. Yet the government had little choice, because major vaccine manufacturers declined to bid.
VaxGen blames much of the criticism it has received on a campaign orchestrated by its business competitor, and it claims it is making progress on the drug. But if it can't deliver the vaccine to federal specifications, the country will have to rely on the existing vaccine -- one that some soldiers have refused to take because of its side effects, and that needs improvement, according to health experts.
Some people also fear VaxGen's contract flap could discourage the biotech industry -- already wary of doing government business -- from participating in future anti-terror efforts.
``An unresolved dispute here will not only leave the nation without a much-needed, next-generation anthrax vaccine,'' Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, wrote federal health officials in June, ``but will also undermine the development of a vibrant bio-defense industry.''
Terrorism specialists long have considered anthrax the biological weapon of choice for extremists. It is relatively easy to obtain, can be dispersed over a wide area and secretes proteins that become highly toxic when they come in contact with human cells.
But the concerns were heightened dramatically in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, when anthrax-contaminated mail sent to U.S. Senate offices and the media killed five people and sickened at least 17 others.
The United States already has an anthrax vaccine, AVA. Developed in the 1950s, it has been used to inoculate 1.3 million military personnel. But AVA has been linked to six deaths and unpleasant side effects, from fever to body aches. Hundreds of soldiers have refused to take it.
:Smokin: