[Spunky]

"Over the last year, the Obama administration has aggressively pushed a $433-million plan to buy an experimental smallpox drug, despite uncertainty over whether it is needed or will work."

What the heck is a small pox drug? We have been given small pox shots since way back when, and they work.

[annieokie]

Glad you posted. That is exactly what I was thinking, and I bet they were CHEAP too. Got mine as a baby, all my kids got theirs as babies. Then they stopped giving them, about the 1970's?.

WHY? is what I would like to know, it did no harm to have the inoculations, so why stop them.

Want to guess where those inoculations came from, what source, SMALLPOX virus itself. Now they say that is not safe, guess not, cause it don't cost enough.

[okie01]

What the heck is a small pox drug? We have been given small pox shots since way back when, and they work.

As the article itself explains:

If there were an attack, the government could draw on $1 billion worth of smallpox vaccine it already owns to inoculate the entire U.S. population and quickly treat people exposed to the virus. The vaccine, which costs the government $3 per dose, can reliably prevent death when given within four days of exposure.

Instead of using the existing vaccine, H&HS proposes to buy 1.3 million (not billion) doses at a cost of $255 per dose.

This, my friends, is a payoff -- gold-plated corruption. And even the LA Times seems to recognize it.