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Bush: Get Anthrax Vaccine

Newsday - July 28, 2003
Laurie Garrett, Staff Writer

More than 500 scientists working on AIDS and other infectious diseases learned recently that their federal grants are being reduced so that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases can meet a White House mandate to come up with a new anthrax vaccine.

The move is unprecedented in the 116-year history of the National Institutes of Health, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as the collection of 27 research institutes has never been ordered to carry out a major applied science program - in this case, making a vaccine. And, Fauci said, the NIH has never been told to come up with funds to pay for a White House-mandated effort in lieu of additional funding.

The anthrax vaccine is not included in the $1.75 billion in scientific research funds to combat bioterrorism that were allocated for 2003 and 2004. Last year, the White House tagged on an additional $250-million request to cover anthrax vaccine development, but Congress allocated only $43 million.

The White House told the NIH it had to fulfill the mandate even without designated funding, Fauci said in an interview Friday.

The term of grants has been reduced for research on diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, Lyme disease and cholera. According to the Infectious Diseases Society of America, most are four-year grants reduced to 3 1/2 years, but some as short as two years have also lost six months.

"We're not happy about it, but we tried to do what was least painful," Fauci said.

An anthrax vaccine is already available and has been used on 2.5 million people, mostly military personnel, since the 1970s with only 22 serious adverse side effects reported, according to the Food and Drug Administration. A coalition of medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, supports continued use of the old vaccine.

Congress and the White House have indicated they want new vaccines made for civilian use, based on more advanced technology.

The reduced grants for research into other diseases mean that scientists will complete their studies far faster than planned or look for more money, said Dr. Dan Kruitzkes, an AIDS researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston who serves on the board of the Infectious Diseases Society.

An AIDS researcher, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the atmosphere in the scientific community is "the worst I've seen in my 30 years of research."

Last year, in a speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Fauci predicted that the $1.75 billion in bioterrorism research funds promised by the White House, most of which went to the allergy and infectious diseases institute, "will be a boon for all public health and emerging diseases research."

Now, according to the infectious diseases society, the opposite appears to be the case. The organization learned last month of plans to reduce basic research budgets to accommodate White House demands for a new anthrax vaccine, and lobbied Congress to find a way around the problem. The Senate Appropriations Committee requested White House clarification, which arrived in a July 2 letter from Office of Management and Budget Director Joshua Bolten.

Bolten's letter said the allergy and infectious diseases institute would have to find funds for making an anthrax vaccine. Costs might rise, he wrote, depending "on the number and quality of responses to a recent NIAID contract solicitation" to private companies. That phrase underscores two recent trends that have emerged recently from the White House: goal-oriented research and private sector efforts. For Fauci's institute that means it must act as a procurement organization, reaching out to private companies, negotiating bids and setting the scientific standards for products to be developed by for-profit companies.

A coalition of AIDS research and patient organizations sent a letter to Bolten recently, saying, "OMB's apparent decision to require NIH to assume responsibility for procuring the anthrax vaccine contradicts the institution's primary mission of advancing scientific knowledge through research. ... The Department of Homeland Security ... is the appropriate agency to oversee anthrax vaccine procurement."

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) wrote President George W. Bush on July 11 urging reconsideration of the anthrax vaccine policy. As of Friday, they had not received a response, aides said.

A White House-ordered audit procedure is under way at NIH, with every scientific program required to justify its mission and explain why its research couldn't better be done in the private sector.

Today the National Academy of Sciences will convene a special session in Washington aimed at protecting the NIH's integrity and preserving its longstanding independence.

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