Cost, need questioned in $433-million smallpox drug deal

I didn't like it very much when Bush was awarding no bid defense contracts to his buddies, and I don't like it any more when Obama does it. Crony capitalism strikes again!

Reporting from Washington— 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.

Ronald Perelman

When Siga complained that contracting specialists at the Department of Health and Human Services were resisting the company's financial demands, senior officials replaced the government's lead negotiator for the deal, interviews and documents show. When Siga was in danger of losing its grip on the contract a year ago, the officials blocked other firms from competing.

The drug is designed to be taken after someone has already been infected and vaccines won't help, so there's no way of ethically testing it, it also has a short shelf life, meaning supplies of the drug are going to have to be constantly replenished.

Source:www.latimes.com...

All this money going for a smallpox drug? Is it really necessary? Could it have something to do with this?

North Korea’s latent nuclear weapons program is rightfully the main point of concern for its neighbors and the international community. But far less publicized is Pyongyang’s ongoing efforts to build upon its capabilities to produce and maintain chemical and biological weapons (CBW).

Source:the-diplomat.com...

The LA Times story is dated 11/13. The Diplomat story is dated 11/12

canadafreepress.com...

Here is another article on it.

Siga was trying to get a contract to sell the government 1.7 million doses of smallpox vaccine, but ran into some major problems. For example, their drug is experimental and has never been tested on humans, so no one has any idea of whether or not it works. Then, there’s the fact that smallpox was eradicated, wiped out, back in 1978, except for small samples kept locked away by the Russians and us. And to top it off, Siga wanted $255 per dose, for a total of $433,500,000.

So a man who is the 52nd richest in the country (part of the 1%) and a democrat and a financial backer of obama decides to sell an untested drug that is 85 times as expensive as the tested and proven to work drug and when it looks like he will loose the contract the gov't pulls there own negotiators out to make it easier for him to win and when that doesn't work they change the rules to make it a no-bid contract. While people are protesting about capitalism the white house is looting the country.

Of course since this thread isn't a pro OWS one no one will read it.

There hasn't been a naturally occurring case of smallpox since 1978, so I'm not sure what this is all about. We don't even vaccinate first responders anymore unless it's absolutely necessary. They must be worried about artificial gene synthesis being used to re-create it.

And $400 million is pocket change compared to the minimum bid Clinton got back from the pharma companies about an anthrax vaccine: $1 billion.