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“Protecting the health and informed consent rights of children since 1982.”

 

FROM THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

For Immediate Release                                                    Contact: Mark Corallo/Beth

Frigola

February 26, 2002                                                                                                       (202) 225-5074

 

 

Committee to Hold Hearing on Anthrax Research

 

Who:    Government Reform Committee, Dan Burton (R-IN) Chairman

 

What:   Full Committee Hearing on “Quickening the Pace of Research in

Protecting Against Anthrax and Other Biological Terrorist Agents - A Look at

Toxin Interference”

When:Thursday, February 28, 2002

10:00 a.m.

 

Where:        Room 2154 in the Rayburn House Office Building

Witnesses:

Panel 1: Dr. Robert Smith - Founder and Research Director of Enzyme Systems Products (ESP), Livermore, California;

Dr. Gary Thomas - Senior Scientist at Vollum Institute, Portland, Oregon;

Dr. John Collier - Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts;

Dr. John A.T. Young - Professor in cancer research at the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Medical School, Madison, Wisconsin.

Panel 2:            Dr. Rodney Balhorn - Research Director at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories (LLNL);

Dr. Stephen Leppla - Senior Investigator for the National Institutes of Dental and Cranial Facial Research of the National Institute of Health, Bethesda, Maryland;

Dr. Arthur Friedlander - Senior Scientist at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

 

Background:     The tragic deaths of five individuals from inhalation anthrax last fall have highlighted the need to quicken the pace of research looking for new and better therapies for inhalation anthrax exposure.  On Thursday, the Committee will hear testimony from leading researchers and scientists working on treatments for people who have been exposed to anthrax.

There is a need for safe and effective anthrax therapies to be used as both pre- and post-exposure treatments. The current medical model calls for vaccinations to be used when available as a preventive measure and for antibiotics to be used post-exposure, whether or not an individual was immunized.

One of the most promising lines of research being conducted today focuses on the development of an anthrax anti-toxin, which would prevent the toxin from inhaled anthrax spores from entering human cells. The current state of anti-toxin research will be the focus of Thursday’s hearing.

The Committee report titled, “The Department of Defense’s Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program: Unproven Force Protection,” can be accessed on the Government Reform Committee website at http://www.house.gov/reform/ns/reports/anthrax1.pdf.

 

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