Posted on 01/15/2002 4:15:54 PM PST by t-shirt
Edited on 05/07/2004 7:12:18 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
LANSING -- The nation's sole producer of the anthrax vaccine has won federal approval for its laboratory, but a few hurdles remain before it can ship the vaccine. That could happen later this month.
BioPort Corp. of Lansing received a Dec. 27 letter from the Food and Drug Administration clearing it to begin shipping the vaccine, provided a West Coast laboratory that puts the vaccine into vials also gets FDA approval.
(Excerpt) Read more at freep.com ...
See this quote from the Palm Beach Post Story:
"Only four of more than 1,000 eligible people took the shots on Dec. 22, the original deadline for accepting the vaccine."
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(In related News the reward goes up):
Upping The Anthrax Ante
Postal Officials Poised To Increase Reward To $2 Million
FBI Searches Copy Machines At Rutgers Univ. For Anthrax Links
Jan. 15, 2002
AP / CBS (CBS) The reward in the anthrax-by-mail case will be growing again.
Postal officials, who are still working out the final details, say it will be raised to about $2 million possibly within a week or so.
Originally, a $1 million reward was offered for information leading to the arrest of anyone mailing anthrax. Then, a mail advertising company added $250,000 more.
Between the cost of sanitizing the mail, and the lost business resulting partly from the anthrax scare, the postal service is more than $500 million in the red so far this fiscal year.
Meanwhile, FBI agents examined Rutgers University photocopying machines last week, looking for links to four anthrax-tainted letters mailed from central New Jersey.
Two agents arrived Friday at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology, a Rutgers affiliate in Piscataway, and asked protein biochemist Richard H. Ebright for the access code needed to operate the photocopiers.
"I asked whether it was related to the (anthrax) investigation," he said in a phone interview Tuesday. "The male investigator said, 'We can't leave any stones unturned so we're turning over stones,' or something to that effect."
The agents spent about 10 minutes at each Waksman Institute photocopier, making copies and slipping them into a portfolio or large envelope, Ebright said.
He said agents tested photocopiers in other buildings, but he did not know which ones or how many machines.
"It's obviously the geographic link," Ebright said. "The letters were mailed from this state, not more than 30 miles from this location."
Rutgers spokeswoman Sandra Lanman said Tuesday that it is "the university's policy is not to comment on investigations by outside agencies."
No anthrax research is conducted at Rutgers, Lanman said.
FBI spokeswoman Sherri Evanina would not comment Tuesday on the Rutgers visit or say whether similar tests were conducted elsewhere.
"Of course the investigation is ongoing into who sent the anthrax letters," Evanina said. "We're pursuing all possible leads."
Experts say photocopiers leave subtle clues on paper that can narrow the search for where copying was done. The makeup of ink also can provide clues.
At least four anthrax-laced letters passed through a Trenton-area mail facility. Two, addressed to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw and the New York Post, were postmarked Sept. 18. Two others were postmarked Oct. 9 and mailed to Sens. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. All four had block letters and used the date 09-11-01.
The letters to Brokaw and the Post appeared to be photocopies and the Daschle and Leahy letters also appeared identical.
By SCOTT HARPER, The Virginian-Pilot
January 15, 2002
VIRGINIA BEACH -- Responding to criticism and concerns from neighbors, the president of a Norfolk company burning wastes from anthrax decontamination projects said Monday that there is no health risk and no cause for alarm.
Robert L. Earl, president of American Waste Industries, said at a news conference here with state regulators that he has yet to make much money from the disposal work, and that he sees his role in helping to defuse the national anthrax scare as patriotic.
Some residents who live near the twin medical-waste incinerators in southern Norfolk remained skeptical.
After learning through the media on Saturday that anthrax-related wastes were coming their way, dozens of neighbors flooded company switchboards or contacted the press and state officials.
Most wanted to know two things: Is it safe? And why didn't anyone tell them in advance?
One neighbor said American Waste hung up on her when she called Monday to ask about the shipments and their potential risk to her 7-month-old child.
Earl said federal and state environmental officials approached him last month, asking if his company could handle a growing backlog of chemically neutralized waste from anthrax cleanups on Capitol Hill and at postal facilities in New York, New Jersey and Washington, D.C.
``We felt it was our patriotic duty to do what we could,'' Earl said.
American Waste is one of two sites on the East Coast burning carpeting, documents, papers, office materials and protective suits worn by workers who attempted to purge buildings hit with anthrax-laden letters after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Fort Detrick, an Army post in Maryland, is the other repository, said Frank Daniel, regional director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. Daniel said officials are scrambling to find safe disposal sites for more anthrax-tainted waste in other coastal states.
As many as five more locations, all outside Virginia, are expected to receive shipments to meet the demand, he added.
``We realize this is an emotional issue with the public . . . but there's only so many places it can go,'' Daniel said.
Asked why the state did not contact neighbors before the shipments arrived, Daniel said there were concerns about national security and there was no legal requirement to do so.
When the state Department of Environmental Quality agreed Thursday and Friday to allow the disposal activity, declaring the shipments ``special waste,'' several media outlets were informed, Daniel said.
``There's been no intent to keep anything from the citizens,'' he said.
Daniel said the department still is concerned about allowing bulky waste items, such as desks and office furniture, to be incinerated in Norfolk. DEQ staff members are continuing to discuss the issue with Earl and others.
Earl said his company burned waste material over the weekend and has six more ``containers'' on hand -- from a post office at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, congressional offices on Capitol Hill, and the Brentwood postal facility in Washington, where two employees died and others were sickened from anthrax exposure.
All materials accepted by American Waste have undergone pre-treatment with a chlorine-based solution, so the wastes ``only have the potential to be contaminated,'' Earl said.
After consulting with several health and environmental experts, state regulators determined that any hardy anthrax spore that survived the chemical wash could not withstand temperatures above 300 degrees. The incinerators at American Waste operate at between 1,400 and 1,800 degrees, Daniel said.
Asked if homes still faced any health risk, Daniel said: ``None whatsoever.''
Reach Scott Harper at 446-2340 or sharper@pilotonline.com
Anyone who lets themselves be vaccinated with this stuff has got to be crazy.
FBI Informant Loses Supreme Court Battle in Anthrax Case (Punished For Trying ToStop AnthraxTerror?)
Hey! I resemble that remark!
Gulf War Syndrome- Where there's smoke, *is* there fire?
you'll find references to Bioport, etc.
Debora MacKenzie
The 32 nations who govern the World Health Organization have voted to put off destroying the last official stocks of smallpox virus. They have asked the WHO to set a new deadline for destroying the stocks in May, at the assembly of all 191 members of the organisation.
The virus samples were to have been destroyed this year. But in November the US decided it would keep its stocks to help develop new drugs and vaccines for smallpox. The US was considered unlikely to reverse that decision if WHO members had voted to destroy the virus.
Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980, following a global vaccination campaign led by the WHO. The only officially remaining virus is in freezers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and at Vector, the Russian viral research institute at Koltsovo in Siberia.
These stocks were supposed to be destroyed in 1999, making the smallpox virus officially extinct. But the US president at the time, Bill Clinton, persuaded WHO members to postpone destroying them until December this year, so more research could be done on new vaccines and drugs, and on smallpox genes. The reason for the delay was a growing fear of smallpox as a weapon in a world no longer vaccinated for the disease.
Weaponised stocks
Not all smallpox may be in official hands. The Soviet Union weaponised 100 tonnes of the virus in the 1980s, and some may have escaped destruction. Jonathan Tucker of the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Washington says Iraq and North Korea are suspected of possessing the virus, partly because they have vaccinated their troops against smallpox.
In 1999, WHO members agreed to a smallpox research plan as part of the agreement to postpone destroying the virus. But in December 2001, the WHO Secretariat reported that two of its goals for 2002 - new anti-smallpox drugs, and an animal model for smallpox - would not be ready in time. It also said live smallpox virus would be needed to test any new drugs or vaccines.
In the wake of the anthrax attacks in the US, the US Department of Defence decided in November that smallpox stocks should not be destroyed before two anti-smallpox drugs, and a new, safer vaccine are licensed, along with new methods for detecting the virus and diagnosing infection.
Russia also opposes destroying the stocks. "In view of the recent tragic events in the US, I have my concerns about the threat of terrorist use," says Lev Sandakhchiev, head of Vector.
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