Free Republic

She's b-a-a-a-ck! Remember Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg? She's the tenured Marxist activist who from circa October 2001 until August, with the media's consent, manipulated coverage of last fall's anthrax attacks, in which five people were murdered and over a dozen sickened by anthrax-contaminated letters. She also engineered the smear campaign that sought to railroad scientist Dr. Steven J. Hatfill for the anthrax attacks. On September 22, 2002, Rosenberg published a long op-ed essay in the Los Angeles Times, in which she sought to resurrect her discredited theory, according to which the anthrax killer was an insider from the American biodefense...

Former US Ambassador to the Soviet Union: Ukraine’s NATO Collusion Caused the Russia ConflictFormer US ambassador to the Soviet Union, Jack Matlock has admitted that Ukraine’s own actions brought about their own peril with regards to Russia.“The war might have been prevented – probably would have been prevented – if Ukraine had been willing to abide by the Minsk agreement, recognize the Donbas as an autonomous entity within Ukraine, avoid NATO military advisors, and pledge not to enter NATO,” Matlock said.“Nevertheless, what was possible even as late as January 2022 may not be possible now. The Russian annexation of additional...

In 2003, terrorism was a more immediate national danger than infectious diseases. Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) had just redirected $117 million from infectious diseases to fund a new anthrax vaccine effort in response to the anthrax attacks that happened a week after 9/11. The millions were just a small part of the $1.8 billion Fauci had poured into defense from bioterrorist attacks over the preceding two years. More than half of those funds were devoted to anthrax and smallpox alone. In 2004, Fauci launched the $5.6 billion “Project Bioshield,” the National Institutes of...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A presidential ethics panel has opened the door to testing an anthrax vaccine on children as young as infants, bringing an angry response from critics who say the children would be guinea pigs in a study that would never help them and might harm them. The report, however, released on Tuesday by the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, said researchers would have to overcome numerous hurdles before launching an anthrax-vaccine trial in children. It now goes to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, who will decide whether to take the steps...

I can’t imagine President Bush’s Council on Bioethics ever countenancing this, but President Obama’s bioethics advisory commission has given conditional approval to test anthrax vaccine on children! From the Reuters story: “We have to get this precisely right,” panel Chair Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania, said at a news conference. “Many significant steps would have to be taken” before a pediatric anthrax vaccine trial could be considered, she said. But she added that it is important “to develop the knowledge needed to save children’s lives” in the event of an anthrax attack. Balancing the need to protect...

Alliance for Human Research Protection FYI / Action A public meeting of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues has been scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, January 14-15, to be held at the University of Miami Hospital Seminar Center, Florida: The stated topic for discussion is “ethical issues associated with the development of medical countermeasures for children.” http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-12-26/pdf/2012-31037.pdf The Obama Administration is seeking approval to conduct morally impermissible, wholly non-therapeutic medical experiments that would expose healthy children to risks of serious harm. Specifically, the Department of Health and Human Services is seeking to test the highly controversial, dangerous...

What do you get when you mix Democratic fat-cat donations, Big Labor favors, pharmaceutical lobbying and Beltway business as usual? Answer: another toxic half-billion-dollar Barack Obama-approved crony deal. Move over, Solyndra. Here comes Siga-Gate. This latest Chicago-style payoff on your dime involves a dubious smallpox drug backed by a liberal billionaire investor, along with a former union boss who was one of the White House's most frequent visitors. They're the "1 percent" with 100 percent immunity from the selectively outraged Occupier mobs that purport to oppose partisan government bailouts and handouts to privileged corporations. Ronald Perelman is the New York...

The Obama administration is wrestling with the thorny question of whether scientists should inject healthy children with the anthrax vaccine to see whether the shots would safely protect them against a bioterrorism attack. The other option is to wait until an attack happens and then try to gather data from children whose parents agree to inoculate them in the face of an actual threat. (more at link)

An advisory board to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services this afternoon urged the U.S. government to launch a controversial trial of the anthrax vaccine in children. The 12-1 vote backs a September recommendation from a working group that spent about 3 months weighing the pros and cons of such a study and came out in favor of it. Today's recommendation, by the National Biodefense Science Board (NBSB), isn't binding, and even if a study goes forward it will have to jump through many hoops before it can get up and running. That's because a trial like this...

Murtha-tied Company Wins Sole-Source Vaccine Contract Michael Goldfarb January 4, 2010 Several months ago we warned that Tara O'Toole who recently became Under Secretary for the Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security would reward her friends resulting in millions of dollars in gifts to John Murtha cronies who supported her nomination. And it now appears the Murtha/O'Toole favor factory has begun production. In February 2008, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a request for proposal (RFP) for a second-generation Anthrax vaccine. This RFP was issued to be a re-procurement for a contract that...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- The Pentagon can require its troops be vaccinated against anthrax, a federal judge said Friday. Judge Rosemary M. Collyer said the Food and Drug Administration acted appropriately when it found the vaccine to be safe and approved its use. She dismissed a lawsuit by military officials who argued the drug is unproven and the scientific data unsound. "The court will not substitute its own judgment when the FDA made no clear error of judgment," Collyer wrote. The dispute has languished in the court system for years. A federal judge suspended the vaccination program in 2004 after faulting...

ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON -- A Michigan company will receive $120 million to produce 5 million more doses of anthrax vaccine to bolster the government's stockpile of antidotes against bioweapons. Lansing-based BioPort Corp. completed its delivery of 5 million doses of anthrax vaccine to the federal stockpile in February under a $122.7 million contract. But the Department of Health and Human Services said Friday it would modify the contract to buy the additional doses of Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed. "We are committed to protecting the nation from the consequences of an anthrax attack," said Stewart Simonson, HHS' assistant secretary for public health...

Iraq? Afganistan? Gulf War Deployments? Anthrax Vaccine? Post deployment Illness?

ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday confirmed its previous finding that the anthrax vaccine being given to members of the U.S. military is safe and effective. The drug has been at the center of a multiyear lawsuit that began when six members of the military challenged the Pentagon's use of a mandatory vaccination against anthrax in some military troops. Published in the Federal Register Thursday, the FDA review on the Anthrax Vaccine Absorbed, or AVA, "determines AVA to be safe and effective and not misbranded." FDA spokeswoman Julie Zawisza said the agency found no evidence...

From: Ron Wright TO: Informed Source CC: Date: Sun Dec 12, 2004 10:05:36 PM PST Subject: BREAKING - HOT UPDATE ON "VACCINE-A" TO THE BLOGOSPHERE ANTHRAX VACCINE - Had additive agent that may be injurious to the health of those service people inoculated. Several days ago I posted and linked to a book review on our site, "Vaccine-A." We've since transferred this piece from the HSPIG Forum Site, "Book Reviews" to the new HSPIG blog site: http://www.hspig.org/MT/weblogs-hspig/archives/2004/11/anthrax_vaccine_1.html HSPIG has a keen interest in things related to bioterrorism and bio-chem weapons both in their use and our response and counter-measures. The...

WELLSVILLE -- Despite having three places he was involved in searched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Thursday, Dr. Kenneth M. Berry, 46, of Wellsville, was arrested, but on a domestic violence charge in New Jersey. Point Pleasant Beach (N.J.) Police charged Dr. Berry with four counts of assault and a temporary restraining order was issued by Judge James A. Ligouri. Agents from the FBI executed a search warrant at two homes in Wellsville Thursday as part of an investigation into "the origin of the anthrax-laced letters mailed in September and October of 2001 which resulted in the deaths...

Those who go to sleep at night with the threat of terrorism on their minds might be surprised to learn that Muslim CEOs are running companies that watch over our safety. • Fuad El-Hibri is CEO of BioPort, the only U.S. maker of anthrax vaccine. • Houssam Salloum is CEO of Axiolog, a Detroit firm developing a high-tech system for tracking international cargo into vulnerable U.S. ports. • Nafa Khalaf is CEO of Detroit Contracting, which after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 secured the five major treatment plants that supply water to 4.5 million residents of the Detroit area....

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...

A federal judge ruled Jan. 7 that the Defense Department could again legally administer anthrax immunizations to troops. That same day, DoD personnel chief Dr. David S.C. Chu noted in a departmentwide memorandum that military commanders "should immediately resume the anthrax vaccination program." The department's anthrax vaccine immunization program had been in hiatus since Dec. 23, after an injunction granted the previous day by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia caused DoD to suspend the program. The department, Chu wrote in the memo, "remains convinced that the AVIP complies with all legal requirements, and there is now...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday lifted his earlier court order and allowed the Pentagon (news - web sites) to resume its policy of compelling U.S. troops to get vaccinated against the deadly germ warfare agent anthrax.   U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, granting a request by the Bush administration, issued a stay of his Dec. 22 order that had prohibited the mandatory anthrax inoculations until a trial could be held on a lawsuit filed by six unidentified troops and Pentagon civilian workers who challenged the policy. Sullivan's ruling came eight days after the Food and Drug Administration...