FDA Fast-Track’s Half-Billion-Dollar Smallpox Vaccine
December 26, 2011, Submitted by: Ken Tweet
(image: SIGA)
A ‘Siga Technology‘ drug, named ST-246, which reportedly works by blocking the ability of the smallpox viruses to spread to other cells, has been granted “fast-track” status by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
1.7 million doses, at the cost of $255 per dose, will add to the U.S. Government’s $1 Billion stash of smallpox vaccine.
Smallpox reportedly is no longer found in the natural environment, but The U.S. government is claiming the need to stockpile the drug in order to strengthen U.S. preparedness should the virus be used as a biological weapon in a terrorist attack.
USA TODAY reports,
Though natural transmission has ceased, the virus lives in freezers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and possibly in Russia, where Soviet scientists are believed to have created tons of weaponized smallpox. The breakup of the Soviet Union and the rise of global terrorism led the USA a decade ago to begin stockpiling vaccine.
For thousands of years, smallpox was one of the world’s most prolific killers. In the last century of its existence, smallpox is estimated to have killed at least half a billion people. All the wars on the planet during that time killed perhaps 150 million.
Mercola.com, a natural health website, asks the question “Why is the U.S. Doubling Its Protection Against this Non-existent Health Enemy?”
Unfortunately, there are serious, and sometimes fatal consequences of bringing drugs to market without adequate safety testing — and it is unclear why there is an urgent need for this drug that would warrant “fast-track” approval.
What’s more, Siga’s ST-246 only has a “guaranteed effective” shelf life of 38 months, which means if it’s not used in just over three years, it will be worthless.
Given the current U.S. deficit, you can’t help but wonder why the government just spent half a billion dollars on this. Do they know something that we don’t know? Or is this more political favors handed out to big-pharma at the expense of the taxpayer once again… ?
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from the “government relations” section of their website:
http://www.siga.com/index.php?ID=12
“SIGA has found that working relationships with federal partners and academic laboratories are essential to its success. Category A pathogens must be tested in facilities with the highest level of biosecurity and safety, and few U.S. centers are equipped for BSL-3 or -4 work. SIGA collaborates with numerous federal and academic BSL-3 and -4 installations to perform the necessary tests on its drug candidates. As a result, SIGA has solid, longstanding relationships with many federal agencies and an enviable track record of obtaining federal funding to support its research and development activities.
Moreover, the federal government shifted its budget priorities to emphasize potential terrorist threats and their countermeasures after the 9/11 attack. Funding for research and development of agents against biological threats has risen dramatically since then, and is expected to grow even further. The “Implementation Plan” for biowarfare threats, released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasure Enterprise in April 2007, specifically identified the need for countermeasures against smallpox and the hemorrhagic fever viruses (Ebola and Junín). In response to this demand, SIGA is currently working to supply essential countermeasures to the Strategic National Stockpile and the Department of Defense.”
I do not believe that smallpox or any other virus does not have some natural reservior other than a human host. Like anthrax that puts a protective shell around inside waiting for a moist spot to grow, I truly believe that smallpox and all other viruses lay dormant waiting to reemerge with the next unlucky victim. It has long been thought that many dead bodies that died from smallpox decades or centuries ago have the smallpox virus waiting, as long as the conditions are very dry. Aniamls and plant life are also believed to be reserviors for viruses such as the Ebola virus.
Now for the real reason behind a fast track for anti-viral type smallpox money being flushed into it. Other countries such as Iraq, North Korea, Iran, and others in all likelihood retained samples of the smallpox virus. The last case was I believe 1977 or 78, but in the late 1960′s there were plenty of cases still going around. North Korea you can probably bet most anything, retained the virus for weapons purposes and for their own research. To think that smallpox is ONLY in two spots in the entire world (Russia and Atlanta) is totally wishful thinking that is totally unrealistic. Other countries have smallpox and this is what the U.S. intelligence is worried about, it getting into some terrorist’s hands.
Any terrorist that can get their hands on the smallest sample of smallpox can grow the pathogen in simple chicken eggs, it does not take much expertise or very much money. Dispersing the germ can be done by the most rudimentary of atomizers that are all over the market. A high school chemistry student could probably do it.
Smallpox has an incubation period of normally ten days in which the standard vaccine can be given before symptoms appear. This time frame would allow the U.S. government to vaccinate everyone and avoid an outbreak of terrible level. There are however variants of smallpox such as one from India that infect in 1-5 days and this short time frame would not allow for time for many to be vaccinated before the symptoms appear. An anti-viral smallpox drug would lessen the severity of those already infected. There is also the possibility that the U.S. intelligence got wind of some genetic manipulations done on smallpox in which the common smallpox vaccine would not work.
Smallpox has a fatality rate of about 1/3 of those not vaccinated against it, but it goes much worse than this rate of death. It is the morbidity rate of smallpox that is so horrible that approaches 95% of those sick. Someone with smallpox gets very sick for 2-3 weeks at least and is completely incapacitated during this time which would devastate the country’s ability to function if it was widespread. Also an awful life long repercussion from getting smallpox is that many people end up blind or with much impaired vision.
Smallpox is a nightmare for anyone to get and I say let the government spend as much money as they need to come up with an effective means of at least lessening the effects of catching this terrible disease. The whole point is that YES THE GOVERNMENT DOES KNOW SOMETHING THAT THEY DARE NOT TELL THE PUBLIC.