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McCaskill calls for probe into smallpox-vaccine boondoggle
Hot Air ^ | November 25,2011 | ED MORRISSEY

Posted on 11/25/2011 8:22:29 PM PST by Hojczyk

Almost two weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times reported on the peculiar case of Siga Technologies, which got a no-bid contract to supply the Pentagon with an experimental vaccine for smallpox, a dead disease, when we have a plentiful supply of traditional vaccine to handle an outbreak.

Siga Technologies has close ties to the Democratic Party with its primary investor, party donor Ronald Perelman, and relatively new board member Andy Stern, the former head of the SEIU and a frequent visitor to the Obama White House. The deal amounts to almost a half-billion dollars for Perelman and Stern, and the White House appears to have intervened to relax contract requirements and eliminate any hint of competition for the project.

Under those circumstances, it should come as no surprise that a member of Congress wants this deal investigated. Should it surprise us that the demand comes from a Senate Democrat?

Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, has asked The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to review the Obama administration’s award of a $443 million sole-source contract to a company owned by a major Democratic donor. …

Citing “serious questions” about the contract, the Los Angeles Times reported that McCaskill has asked the inspector general of HHS to investigate. McCaskill is the chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting and Oversight.

(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 11/25/2011 8:22:34 PM PST by Hojczyk
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To: Hojczyk
Send the case to the Attorney General.

yitbos

2 posted on 11/25/2011 8:29:40 PM PST by bruinbirdman ("Those who control language control minds." -- Ayn Rand)
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To: Hojczyk

Too little too late, Claire. Everyone knows your game and this little show won,’t save you.


3 posted on 11/25/2011 8:30:10 PM PST by Opinionated Blowhard ("When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.")
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To: Opinionated Blowhard
McCaskill calls for probe into smallpox-vaccine boondoggle

The boondoggle consists largely in thinking that traditional smallpox vaccine will help in any way against the Soviet Union's weaponized form which was being produced by the kiloton as recently as the 1990s. The idea that they destroyed these stocks is ludicrous.
4 posted on 11/25/2011 8:33:30 PM PST by aruanan
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To: Hojczyk

One thing ya gotta give the dims-—they’re very ballsy!

I can’t help but wonder if they think they’re too smart to be caught. It’s even scary that the pubbies weren’t the ones to catch it!


5 posted on 11/25/2011 8:34:17 PM PST by basil (It's time to rid the country of "gun free zones" aka "Killing Fields")
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To: Hojczyk

Pfeh. McCaskill is extremely vulnerable and up for re-election in 2012. She’d be as mum as the flowers in my mom’s front yard if it were otherwise.


6 posted on 11/25/2011 8:35:00 PM PST by DemforBush (Send lawyers, guns, and money. Dad get me out of this!)
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To: Hojczyk

McCaskill is just mad that she didn’t get a cut.

Clue bat for you, McCaskill: you are just as disposable to obama and his politburo as the useless idiots you dupe into voting demscum are to you!


7 posted on 11/25/2011 8:53:22 PM PST by piytar (The Obama Depression. Say it early, say it often. Why? Because it's TRUE.)
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To: Hojczyk

Easy way to sweep this under the rug is to have a Demorat investigate a Demorat.


8 posted on 11/25/2011 8:55:48 PM PST by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote; then find me a real conservative to vote for)
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To: Hojczyk

Why is it that each scandal that involves Barry’s discretional spending comes in tranches of a half-a-billion dollars? A few solar companies, an electric car company in Finland, now smallpox vaccine. Why half-a-billion each wasteful time?


9 posted on 11/25/2011 9:41:41 PM PST by SERKIT ("Blazing Saddles" explains it all......)
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To: aruanan
The argument that the FDA can't approve it is thinking small. It obviously is a special case, one would hope a unique one. Infecting humans with smallpox NOW for testing is immoral. Not having enough of it should smallpox. reappear is immoral. If the FDA lacks authority to deal with this unique case we should pass an extremely narrowly worded law allowing its use in humans, without prior human testing, only when smallpox is confirmed. I wouldn't be at all surprised the claims of graft here are true, but in this case I'll accept the ends justifying the graft if the drug actually works in animal models.

Having a treatment for it around with uncertain efficacy still has strategic value. Of the subset of lunatics who might still have some, and are crazy enough to deploy it, how many would be willing to risk their attack fizzling? It shrinks an already small pool. Any case of smallpox now should be considered an act of war until proven otherwise. The only other possibilities would be a lab accident at the CDC or the one Russian repository.

Lest we automatically rule out the lab accidents we should remember the final two cases of smallpox resulted from a lab accident in Birmingham, UK. which was never fully explained. A photographer, a floor above in the building, who was allegedly never physically in the lab, contracted smallpox, presumably through air vents. She died. Her mother caught a mild case from her and survived. The head of the lab committed suicide. There'd been a larger outbreak from a London lab a few years earlier. The media, whenever discussing smallpox, rarely mention this. They prefer to focus on the "natural" final third world case, who survived, rather than the unnatural final first world cases.

BTW, smallpox is now longer the only disease man has eradicated. Victory was declared over rinderpest a few months ago, although it also survives in labs. Cattle world wide rejoice! Rinderpest, to them, was like smallpox on steroids to us - 90% mortality. Measles in humans is thought to have evolved from rinderpest

10 posted on 11/25/2011 10:02:01 PM PST by JohnBovenmyer (Obama been Liberal. Hope Change!)
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To: Hojczyk

Looks like someone is snooping around in her back yard


11 posted on 11/26/2011 3:53:30 AM PST by ronnie raygun (V)
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To: Hojczyk

Typical democratic misdirection. These people are the most immoral regime this country has ever seen.


12 posted on 11/26/2011 4:19:32 AM PST by Evergolightly (Ones conclusions are founded in the path traveled.)
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To: Hojczyk

So Obama and his accomplices are stealing another 1/2 billion from taxpayers, while at the same time they want to increase our taxes.


13 posted on 11/26/2011 9:06:07 AM PST by pleikumud
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