Two months before 9/11, a report by an independent panel of experts on the viability of developing and using vaccines to protect soldiers from anthrax, smallpox, and other bioweapons was impractical, poorly conceived, and doomed to failure. Congress was sent a copy of this report. But, then 9/11 came and Bush used fear - his prime cattle prod of the American people, especially of Congress - to sweep aside any second thoughts about selling out not just civil liberties, but the well being of our troops.

He also used the disaster as a springboard for handing out huge chunks of cash to the pharmaceutical industry - and not just the pharmaceutical industry at large, but preferentially to a select few with ties to the administration. Project Bioshield, decried by most real bioweapons experts as at best ineffective, at worst ridiculous, pumps $6-10 billion in biotech research over the next 10 years, focusing on projects with the least likelihood of protecting Americans against a real attack.
Not only does this assure a free cash flow to drug lords, but Bush also pledged to build nearly a dozen research facilities in the name of "bioweapons research" - free (well, not to you and me the taxpayers) labs, in other words, for his pals in the industry. The only catch: it doesn't do a thing to improve national security. "A recent survey by the National Association of Counties and the National Association of County and City Health Officials reveals that even now - two years after 9/11, very few states or counties in the U.S. are equipped to deal with any type of bioterrorism attack. While earmarking over $10 billion for smallpox and anthrax vaccine funding and needless air monitoring sensors, Bush expects states to split just $1 billion fifty ways to cover anti-terrorism public health efforts. The equipment required by hospitals alone to upgrade to an acceptable preparedness standard is estimated at $1.3 billion."

www.newsinsider.org/seal/anti_terrorism_placebo.html


Within weeks of 9/11, third-rate corporations like BioPort (it failed three FDA inspections and was only hastily passed after 9/11) and Dynport (whose parent company engaged in the trafficking of young girls in a white slave ring in Bosnia, among other criminal activities) became star players in an explosively expanding market for vaccines. Once endless war on "terror" was declared, these companies were handed every drug baron's dream come true: a captive mass of users that numbered in the hundreds of thousands that could be targeted without any advertising costs, through a single middle man - the US government. Better yet, the companies were immune from prosecution for the inevitable wrongful injuries and deaths from their poorly tested, dangerous products! They could just call it pneumonia or "acute leukemia" when a soldier was killed by the vaccine cocktail they were forced to receive. And, if anyone dared to refuse the deadly brew, they could just be slapped in the brig and given dishonorable discharges. A corporate monster's idea of heaven!


And what an amazing "coincidence" that the very companies standing ready to help manufacture vaccines and treatments just happened to be closely connected to the Pentagon. Here's an introductory rogues gallery. (Rummy photo by William Philpott from Yahoo/Reuters archive at story.news.yahoo.com/news)




GILEAD SCIENCES, INC.: Rumsfeld's Old Company Reaps Benefits of Friends in High Places

From 1997 to 2001, Donald Rumsfeld was chairman of Gilead Sciences Inc., a biopharmaceutical firm in Foster City, Calif. He has also served as a director for Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and has millions of dollars worth of stock in both Amylin and Gilead, including some 68,200 vested shares in Gilead worth from $1 million to $5 million. Gilead certainly appears to have benefited from having a good friend in a very high place. Since 2001, Gilead sciences revenues have nearly quadrupled (they more than tripled in 2002 alone). How did they do it?


Although we may never find out what and how many strings were pulled, a few strings are dangling out in the open. For one thing, Gilead has scooped up a great big fat chunk of pork through Project Bioshield (see section on smallpox vaccine below). For example,
Bill Gates, who owes the Bush administration big time for getting him out of this anti-trust case with barely a slap on the wrist (relative to what should have been the penalty) has given over $6 million to Gilead Sciences to fund trials of an experimental use of the antiviral HIV drug Viread. These trials are being conducted on poor people in Cambodia, India, and several African nations.

google cache of FindLaw.com article from October 28, 2003: Gilead Profits More than Triple: 216.239.37.104/search

Viread is being touted as a potential "HIV vaccine," a claim which frightens many AIDS experts, who say that the drug could be falsely viewed as a "magic bullet" pill, encouraging people to engage in unsafe sex. This pattern (using the availability of HIV drugs as an excuse to revert to unsafe practices) has been well established and is responsible for some of the resurgence of HIV cases in the US.


Guess who the main buyer of Viread is likely to be? The DoD. Under the DoD's HIV/AIDS program, any drug even touted as a possible HIV preventive is likely to become yet another mandatory "treatment" of the "captive consumer pool" (ie, our troops).

Now consider this disturbing thought: The Bush administration has failed to make serious AIDS fighting funds available (not to mention his refusal of funds to any clinics, even in AIDS-ridden countries) that dare push any form of birth control besides "abstinence." This strategy will benefit Gilead Sciences and other peddlers of the high-priced AIDS-fighting drugs. Afterall, a population riddled by AIDS is a population ripe for high sales of Viread through its government or humanitarian agencies, especially if it can be marketed as a "magic bullet" against the disease. In short, Gilead will sell hope to those made hopeless by lack of real comprehensive preventive steps against the disease.



As of October, Viread wasn't selling as well as Gilead anticipated. I predict that Rummy will soon pull some strings and set that right - by, say, inducing the government to make it part of the Pentagon's "required pharmacy".

In any case, rhere is no doubt that Gilead Sciences has ties to the US government, to the Pentagon in particular. Rumsfeld was replaced at Gilead by Cordell W. Hull, who is now also chairman of the company's Audit Committee. Hull also serves as a director of Bechtel Group, Inc., Bechtel Enterprises and the Fremont Group.

Smallpox Attack Chance Slim, But Gilead's Smallpox Profits May be Fat

Have you wondered why the DOD has been so determined to keep the smallpox virus alive and well in its storage site at the NIH (&/or possibly Frederick, MD), when most other stores of the virus in the world have been destroyed? Why so much hype has centered on the "danger" of smallpox being used by terrorists when there are so many other more readily accessible bugs more likely to be used? Why so much money is being selectively pumped into smallpox research?

Well consider this: Gilead Sciences would stand to make a huge killing if the DOD could trump up a sufficient case for reissuing smallpox vaccine on a massive scale. That is, of course, just what the DOD has done. Gilead has a drug called Cidofovir which the company alleges augments the effectiveness of a smallpox vaccine - though its real usefulness has been disputed by experts. However, without smallpox perceived as a widespread, imminent threat, Gilead can't make a dime. So what does the DOD do? Starting in 2001, it tries to make the smallpox vaccine REQUIRED by all first responders and military people in the US! Even though, by itself, the vaccine has been shown to be dangerous. What a nice multi-billion-dollar gift to Rummy's cocktail party and golf pals back on the Gilead board. Here's a clip from "Vaccines for Defense" from the UCLA Dept. of Epidemiology:



"Donald Smee, a virologist at Utah State University in Logan who has collaborated with the USAMRIID researchers, notes that cidofovir has two attractive features: It works with a single dose, and it already has been licensed (although for a different use) by the U.S.Food and Drug Administration. If used in conjunction with vaccine during a smallpox outbreak, says Smee, "the damage could be certainly contained more quickly.

"Cidofovir does have a downside: It must be given intravenously. "If you had a biological attack where a lot of people had to be treated, IV [would] become a pain," says Smee, who, along with De Clercq, notes that it might be relatively easy to make an aerosolized form of the drug. Epidemiologist Donald A..Henderson, the former head of WHO's smallpox eradication program [and for a short time, head of Bush's Office of Public Health Preparedness] says he's "very doubtful "that an antiviral drug would prove effective against symptomatic smallpox. Nor does he think it would be preferable to a vaccine during the window of time between infection and disease, when the vaccine could still help. Henderson says, however, that antivirals like cidofovir could play a useful role in treating problems such as infection of immunocompromised people caused by the renewal of vaccinations with the vaccinia virus.

"It will be difficult to prove that cidofovir works against smallpox, however, because the disease was declared eradicated in 1980. This is where Jahrling's monkey studies could be critical. Jahrling and his colleague Lisa Hensley last year found a strain of variola that could infect and cause severe disease in cynomologous monkeys -- a first. "They had vesicular lesions that looked just like smallpox," says Jahrling. In all, 11 of these 12 monkeys died within a week to 10 days. This is much "hotter" than human variola, which takes a few weeks to cause disease, and Jahrling now is attempting to refine the model.

"But Henderson calls the monkey model "ridiculous," because he is not convinced that it represents human smallpox. "There's a great desire on the part of [the Department of Defense] to justify retaining the smallpox virus," says Henderson. "And that's what it all boils down to." Henderson is referring to the fierce debate about whether the remaining stocks of variola should be destroyed. If a monkey variola model proves valid, it could alter the decision."

In Spring of 2002 Henderson, while still head of the Office of Public Health Preparedness, expressed strong doubts as to the wisdom of using Cidofovir as a small pox treatment. At best, said Henderson, antiviral drugs could be used to treat people who can't be vaccinated - which of course, would limit Gilead's potential profits. Not surprisingly, Henderson was removed from his office no long after the publication of this article in Nature in which he expressed his concerns:
www.nature.com/nsu/020318/020318-3.html
Meanwhile, Cidofovir was added to Project Bioshield's list of preferred treatments.
12.31.13.115/HealthNews/reuters/NewsStory0130200320.htm


Gilead is also aggressively pursuing development of several drugs and vaccines that could win huge government contracts: the treatment of hepatitis B with Hespera, treatments for hepatitis C, at least one flu vaccine, and the small pox treatment. Of course the effectiveness of all these treatments will be ultimately "proclaimed" by a thoroughly corrupt FDA with ties to Bush and Rummy.



BIOPORT: The Old Hawks Club Cashes In

BioPort has been consistently rumored to have received substantial funding from the Carlyle Group, which, of course, was founded in part by George Bush I. On the board of directors sits former UK Prime Minister (and rightwinger) John Major, as well as William Crowe, Jr, former Chariman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Reagan. The CEO is an Arab named Fuad El-Hibri. Although El-Hibri prefers to be described as "of Lebanese descent", his strongest ties seem to be to Saudi Arabia, including business ties to the Bin Laden family.

The FDA did not, to its credit, want to OK BioPort for anthrax production due to the companies astoundingly shoddy record. But guess who pushed the approval through, using all the strong-arm tactics at his disposal? Donald Rumsfeld. Next, Rummy helped force the FDA , in 2002, to officially "approve" the vaccine for inhalation use, even though the research was totally inadequate and the drug was, in effect, an "experimental treatment" for this purpose. Even though a firestorm of questions and criticism had erupted around the vaccine after Gulf War I that had never been resolved. But under the Bush Reich, approval was oh, so easy. Sitting on the committee that approved the drug were several people who had worked for, or were currently receiving funding from, pharmaceutical companies that make vaccines.

In Canada, where the government is not merely one arm of an octopus of corporations, when a Michael Richard Kipling refused to take the anthrax vaccine and his case went to court, it was ruled that sufficient doubts existed about the safety of the vaccine to justify the soldier's refusal. The judge said the evidence shows that the vaccine "was unsafe and hazardous and could be responsible for the important symptoms reported by so many persons who received that vaccine."


www.vaccinationnews.com/DailyNews/June2002/WarningSagaDangerousVax.htm

For more on BioPort, see "Ancient Evils: The Dark and Ongoing Story of BioPort
www.newsinsider.org/seal/ancient_evils.html


MOST RECENT DEVELOPMENTS RE: Anthrax Vaccine

Anthrax Vaccine: If it Smells like a Skunk and Looks Like a Skunk.....

"I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying: If it smells like a skunk and looks like a skunk, then it’s probably a skunk. And that includes the bigwigs at the FDA, the Institute of Medicine and the military and the vaccine manufacturer, Bioport, as they try to convince us that the current anthrax vaccine has been proven safe for use against inhalation anthrax, which would be the feature of a weaponized attack. No such science has ever been done in a convincing fashion. A bunch of mixed-message guinea pig studies and a few studies with a total of 65 monkeys is not classic science. In fact, what it amounts to upon close inspection is junk science. I would dearly love to be on the same podium with the military’s medical brain trust as they stumble and fumble to explain the actual data surrounding the "safety" and efficacy" of the anthrax vaccine. To score points, they would have to hypnotize the audience and induce some sort of brainwashing on the spot. It’s that bad."

www.vaccinationnews.com/DailyNews/June2002/WarningSagaDangerousVax.htm



Great background on Bioport
www.americanfreepress.net/Alternative_Health/U_S__Anthrax_Vaccine_Maker_Cal/u_s__anthrax_vaccine_maker_cal.html

DYNPORT: Evil and Incompetence Pays Well under Bush!

DynPort, upon which Bush has lavished millions of taxpayer dollars, is a subsidiary of DynCorps. Among DynCorps past execs: Enron's executive Herbert S. "Pug" Winokur, a major Bush donor, Richard Perle, and former CIA director James Woolsey. The dust from the World Trade Towers disaster had not yet settled when DynPort was awarded a $322 million contract to produce vaccines for Rummy's DOD. More recently, Dynport landed a nice fat contract for developing anti-botulinin serum for the Bush Reich.

In addition, Dynport landed a juicy contract for providing a mercenary police force in Iraq. It is a payback, of course, for the $100,000 that Dynport showered on the Bush campaign. But the reward comes less than a decade after the corporation was implicated in a white slave trade ring in Bosnia, where it handled a similar contract. Guess the more evil you are, the better you do under the Bush administration and "new GOP."

In addition to being the spawn of an evil entity, DynPort has a history of staggering incompetence - just the sort of thing you want to unleash on your sons and daughters in the military, eh?

Here' s an excerpt from an article I did in 2002: "Dynport (a thinly disguised subsidiary of DynCorps, now the 13th biggest DOD contractor in dollars) :"Last year, " reports Cryptome.org, "the Pentagon hired a systems contractor called Dynport, headquartered in Reston, Virginia, to develop and make a number of different vaccines for troops. The smallpox-vaccine contract [aside from representing a totally unnecessary mass inoculation] calls for three hundred thousand doses, at a cost of $22.4 million, or seventy-five dollars a dose, with delivery now scheduled for 2006. (The date has been pushed back at least once already.) This amount of vaccine could be made in about fifteen flasks the size of soda bottles. There are 2.3 million people in the armed forces, and they have several million more dependents.

"Three hundred thousand doses is not enough vaccine to protect anyone -- not even our troops. It totally ignores the fact that smallpox is contagious," one military man said. "These guys [Dyncorp] ought to be buying tank treads and belt buckles. They know nothing about vaccines." Army General Philip K. Russell, M.D., who gave the order to send biohazard troops into Reston in 1989 to deal with a building full of monkeys infected with Ebola said, "Many of us are afraid that Dynport won't deliver the goods without wasting an inordinate amount of money."
(Of course spending - and wasting - money, taxpayer money, is what Bush and his buddies do best.

see www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/03/60154.html

216.239.53.100/search


In closing, I leave you with this thought. The pharmaceutical industry, already overempowered, has become a total monster under the Bush administration, one that refuses to recognize any limits. It gets everything it wants. Ithas gotten our soldiers, it has gotten our elderly (through the Medicare Bill sellout), it has turned its back on our children in order to pursue bigger profts. What is next? I predict that, before 2004 is out, the Bush Regime will have created a nationwide bioterror scare or flu scare similar to that used by Gerald Ford in 1976 and will attempt to force a mass innoculation or similar treatment (look how much Cipro they sold!) of the entire nation. If you can force your product on the 1.4 million souls in the military, why not go for the gold and force it on 240 million?!

As FDR said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." And that fear will be manufactured by Bush & Co.