U.S. to Buy Anthrax Vaccine

The Washington Post ^ | March 12, 2004 | Justin Gillis

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Stockpile Would Permit Mass Inoculations

The government is preparing to buy enough experimental anthrax vaccine for 25 million people, a stockpile that would permit mass inoculations in numerous U.S. cities if terrorists launched a broad assault with the deadly germ.

The new vaccine would be the most significant addition to the national anti-terrorism stockpile since the Bush administration fulfilled a pledge to buy enough smallpox vaccine for every citizen of the United States. Up to now, there has been little commercial incentive for companies to develop a modern anthrax vaccine, but the new plan would change that, creating a reserve big enough in a year or two to immunize everyone in the New York and Washington metropolitan areas -- or in other cities that might be targeted in an anthrax attack.

Two biotechnology companies, in California and in Britain, have won contracts to make an early stockpile of the unlicensed vaccine sufficient to inoculate 2 million people, according to bidding documents released yesterday, and they are likely to bid soon on larger contracts. Coupled with the government's successes in stockpiling smallpox vaccine and antibiotics, the anthrax purchases mean the United States will soon have developed a wide array of defenses against the two most important biological weapons.

"The colleagues that I work with in this business would tell you that smallpox and anthrax are the two most-feared agents, and we've done a lot to take those off the table," said Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, who has advised the federal government on combating bioterrorism. He said a large-scale attack "would still be a tragic situation, but compared to what we had available two years ago, we have come a long, long way."

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