Free Republic

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...

Andy Stern wasn’t kidding when he publicly stated the most famous rallying cry of Communism:[1] Stern professed, “Workers of the World Unite? It’s not just a slogan anymore.” Snip SIGA Technologies, Inc. is a company specializing in the development of pharmaceutical agents to combat bio-warfare pathogens and it was announced on June 21, 2010 that Andy Stern is joining SIGA’s Board of Directors. But wait, it gets even better… SIGA is also a Federal contractor for the government. For a list of SIGA’s contracts with the Federal government, go to: http://www.usaspending.gov/search?query=&searchtype=JTdFZnElM0Q…. SNIP Without question, Andy Stern’s new position at SIGA...

There are many who argue that President Obama has (repeatedly) broken his promise to bring transparency and openness to the White House. In literal terms, however, Obama may not have actually broken that specific promise ,.. it’s just that people may not have understood what Obama meant by transparency and openness. ..Here’s a case in point: First Dot: Several months ago, the union world was shocked when Andy Stern, the ignominious president of the Service Employees International Union abruptly “quit” as leader of the Purple Hand. Surprise and speculation swelled. Was it the Blago Trial? Is he sick?Second Dot: Then,...

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. Senior officials have taken unusual steps to secure the contract for New York-based Siga Technologies Inc., whose controlling shareholder is billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, one of the world's richest men and a longtime Democratic Party donor.

There's Something Fishy About The White House's $433 Million Investment In A Smallpox Vaccine Becket Adams, The Blaze Nov. 15, 2011, 12:21[Editor's note: smallpox is indeed a horrifying and terrible disease; this cannot be overstated. It is not the intent of this article to mitigate the very real and terrible nature of the disease. The point of this article is to question the White Houses’ intentions in this deal.] Several critics believe that the Obama administration’s $433 million investment in the new ST-246 smallpox vaccine reeks of scandal. How could a multimillion dollar investment in an antiviral pill that could...

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. The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this month that the Obama administration has taken unusual steps to procure an experimental smallpox vaccine from a company owned by a major Democratic donor despite concerns from some experts that such a drug was unnecessary and would not be effective. Citing “serious questions” about the contract, the Los Angeles Times reported that McCaskill has asked the...

David Williams of The Los Angeles Times has uncovered a $433 million dollar government contract to purchase a smallpox anti-viral drug that may, or may not, be necessary in the case of a bioterrorist attack. For that matter, we are not even sure if the drug will work. ST-246, a pill to be manufactured by Siga Technologies, Inc., would come into play as a second level of defense in the event of a smallpox attack. Currently, the nation has stockpiled some $1 billion in smallpox vaccines, enough to inoculate the entire U.S. population and treat those who have contracted the...

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. Senior officials have taken unusual steps to secure the contract for New York-based Siga Technologies Inc., whose controlling shareholder is billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, one of the world's richest men and a longtime Democratic Party donor.

(Image: Everett Collection/Rex Features) A document has just gone on display at Mount Vernon, Virginia - the museum in the former home of George Washington, first US President. It is an order dated 1777 and signed by Washington himself to send troops that had not been vaccinated for smallpox - or survived it - to Philadelphia to be vaccinated. These troops were then to join up with the main army, where the disease was raging. It sounds like amazing foresight for its day. "Washington's careful handling of the smallpox epidemic at the beginning of the war was a significant...

RICHMOND, Va. - An outbreak of smallpox was the furthest thing from historian Dr. Paul Levengood's mind when his staff at the Virginia Historical Society put together an exhibit of "bizarre bits" that were added to the society's collection since its founding in 1831, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. There was Confederate president Jefferson Davis's cigar, confiscated by Union troops. There was a fungus carving of Robert E. Lee on his horse, Traveller, and a wreath made of human hair. Then someone mentioned a letter, handwritten and dated 1876, with what appeared to be a smallpox scab pinned inside...

Which do you think is less expensive, not to mention preferable: a cure for cancer, Alzheimer's disease and diabetes, or caring for people with these diseases? Wouldn't it be better medical and public policy to direct more resources toward finding a cure for diseases that cost a lot to treat than to rely on a government insurance program, such as Obamacare, which seeks mainly to help pay the bills for people after they become ill? Isn't the answer obvious? Apparently not to many politicians trapped in an old paradigm that focuses too much on hospitals, doctors and medicines and too...

Hunting rope squirrels for food could be fuelling cases of monkeypox in the Congo basinResearchers probing risk factors for human cases of monkeypox in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a ‘hotspot’ of the disease, found that people living near dense forests favoured by rope squirrels are more likely to contract the virus. “Our finding... is consistent with the fact that rope squirrels are the only natural host that have been demonstrated to transmit the monkeypox virus directly to humans in Africa,” write Trevon Fuller and colleagues this month in EcoHealth. The study suggests that the scant resources available for...

Bavarian Nordic wins freeze-dried Imvamune contract from US government 20 November, 2009 The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) in the US has awarded a US$40m contract to Bavarian Nordic of Denmark to develop a freeze-dried version of its Imvamune smallpox vaccine. The funds will be used to validate the freeze-dried manufacturing process and the associated pre-clinical and clinical studies to support the development of this version of the vaccine. The funding represents 33% of the total contract value, followed by four additional years of optional funding, which will be triggered by the completion of pre-determined technical milestones. The...

North Korea’s armed forces are capable of carrying out 13 kinds of viral and bacterial attack, the South Korean Government said yesterday in one of the most detailed assessments of the dictatorship’s biological weapons arsenal. In a submission to the South Korean National Assembly, the Defence Minister also said that the North had 5,000 tonnes of chemical weapons, believed to include mustard gas, phosgene and sarin. Among its biological agents are cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, typhus, typhoid fever and dysentery. Despite the alarming assessment, Kim Tae Young also said that his country’s armed forces had the capacity pre-emptively to destroy...

It wasn't a bullet or roadside bomb that felled Lance Cpl. Josef Lopez three years ago after nine days in Iraq. It was an injection into his arm before his unit left the states. The then 20-year-old Marine from Springfield, Mo., suffered a rare adverse reaction to the smallpox vaccine. While the vaccine isn't mandatory, the military strongly encourages troops to take it. However, it left Lopez in a coma, unable for a time to breathe on his own and paralyzed for weeks. Now he can walk, but with a limp. He has to wear a urine bag constantly, has...

The guy pictured below in the tie-less bad Don Johnson/"Miami Vice" look from the '80s is Drew Parenti, FBI Special Agent in Charge of Sacramento. But this brown-nosing uber-panderer isn't auditioning for the role of Crockett or Tubbs (either of whom frankly would be more competent at dealing with the enemy). No, he doesn't have a tie on because Muslims--the most extreme among them--don't respect ties. It's Western garb, and they want the world to know, Ahmadinejad-style, that they reject all things western. So congrats, Agent Parenti, you're now a graduate of the Islamist School of Barbaric Fashion. Would Don...

Sure, the economy is causing a crisis, but what about anthrax? How about smallpox? In a little noticed move, federal officials this month have declared a series of public health emergencies relating to potential weapons of biological terror. On Oct. 1, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt declared an anthrax public health emergency. On Oct. 10, he declared health emergencies for smallpox, radiation sickness from the detonation of a nuclear device and poisoning from botulinum toxins, the active ingredient of Botox. There’s no clear evidence that terrorists have managed to weaponize anthrax or stolen large caches of Botox from...

Enlarge ImageEat me.Poxvirus (in green) may enter its host cell (in red) by sporting a "garbage" tag that prompts the cell to swallow it.Credit: Jason Mercer/Swiss Federal Institute of Technology It might not be the most elegant entrance, but poxviruses have engineered a way to sneak into cells through the garbage chute. According to a new study, the virus disguises itself as junk so that it will be gobbled by cells cleaning up floating debris. The discovery could explain how the virus that causes smallpox infects its hosts. In order to replicate, viruses must find some way of getting...

GLOUCESTER'S ROMAN MASS GRAVE SKELETONS WERE PLAGUE VICTIMS By 24 Hour Museum Staff 29/04/2008 Archaeologists work to uncover the Roman mass grave in Gloucester during 2005. © Oxfod Archaeology A mass Roman grave, discovered in Gloucester in 2005, may have contained the victims of an acute disease of epidemic proportions, possibly plague. This is the startling conclusion to a new report by Oxford Archaeology and archaelogical consultancy CgMs, who have been conducting an 18-month programme of scientific study on the grave, which contained around 91 skeletons. The discovery of a mass grave of Roman date is almost unparalleled in British...

Call it one price of globalism. Last year, tuberculosis increased in four of the Bay Area's five largest counties, and the San Jose area in 2006 had the highest TB rate of any large American metro area, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the California Department of Public Health. San Francisco, after an outbreak of TB among Latino day workers in the Mission district, has the highest TB rate of any...