By Jim Rarey

April 23, 2002

First it was Homeland Defense with a director appointed by the President to pull all of the government agencies together to protect the country against terrorism. Other than issuing occasional warnings of impending terrorist acts based on unknown sources, little has been done in the public view. For that matter, even the Congress is in the dark as the President refuses to let Homeland Defense Director Ridge talk to them

Now comes a new "cooperative" effort to provide protection against "bio-terrorism." But this one is quite different from Homeland Defense. It is a merging of government and the "private sector." Announced quietly without fanfare (the reader will soon understand why) the first notice was the appearance of new website on the Internet appropriately named Homeland Health.com. The website explains that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has joined with the pharmaceutical industry to develop defenses against biological threats.

Aside from the involvement of for profit companies in the effort, another major difference from Homeland Defense is that the man in charge is not a part of the government.

The nominal head of the industry’s effort comes through its trade association Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). However, PhRMA’s president Alan F. Holmer announced that Dr.Michael Friedman would be the association’s Chief Medical Officer for Biomedical Preparedness and lead the initiative.

Friedman will interface with a number of government agencies including HHS, The Dept. of Defense, the FDA, NIH, and the CDC and, oh yes Homeland Security. Holmer did not say whether or not Friedman would be making use of the association’s lone consultant (as listed on its webpage) Arthur Anderson, LLP.

Friedman himself is a thirty-year veteran of government service in public health. He was a leader in the FDA and at one time its acting commissioner. Friedman was the FDA official that gave the Department of Defense the go ahead to use the anthrax vaccine in the Gulf war although the FDA had not found it to be safe or effective against inhalation anthrax.

But Friedman is no longer in government. He currently is a senior vice president of the pharmaceutical giant Pharmacia Corporation from which he will be drawing his paycheck (and bonuses and stock options?) Many, including this writer, would predict that the recommendations and agenda of Pharmacia might carry more weight with Friedman than those from the others. So what is Pharmacia and who runs it?

In April 2000 three well-known companies were combined to form the Pharmacia Corporation of today. Pharmacia and Upjohn Laboratories who had earlier combined acquired Montsano (chemical) Company. The combined companies have a pipeline of new drugs, a $2 billion Research and Development budget and leading sales force in the U.S. market. Additionally, with the acquisition of Montsano’s agriculture division, about 90% of the world’s genetically engineered foods will contain a Pharmacia (Montsano) gene.

The current Chairman of the Board and CEO of Pharmacia is a Pakistani named Fred Hassan. Hassan was President of Pharmacia-Upjohn at the time of the merger with Montsano and moved into his current position after Montsano’s CEO had served an interim 18 month period as head of the combined companies.

There are a couple of well-known names on the Pharmacia Board of Directors and one whose name has only recently come into the public consciousness.

William Ruckelshaus is a Harvard trained lawyer who came out of the Justice Department to become the first administrator of the new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970. He served another three-year term as EPA administrator during the Reagan administration. Ruckelshaus is currently a principal in the Madrona Investment Group

Michael (Mickey) Kantor is a close confidante of Bill Clinton and served in his administration first as the United States Trade Representative (USTR). Kantor took over as Commerce Secretary following the controversial death of Ron Brown. Kantor was one of the point men involved in blunting some of the Clinton personal scandals including the Kathleen Willey affair.

Dr. Philip Leder, although a virtual unknown outside of medical circles, has impressive credentials. He is Chairman of the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and a Senior Investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). He was a contemporary of Dr. Don C. Wiley at Harvard. Wiley, who had made a breakthrough in genetic research, died in a mysterious plunge from a bridge in Memphis, Tennessee that was ruled an accidental death. Wiley also was funded as an investigator by HHMI.

Perhaps the most controversial member of Pharmacia’s board is Frank Carlucci. Carlucci is Chairman of the Board and CEO of the Carlyle Group, which describes itself as a "merchant bank." However its portfolio ranks it as one of the major defense contractors in the country.

The Carlyle Board of Directors reads like a class reunion of former cabinet members from past Republican administrations. However, Carlucci himself seemed equally at home under Democrat and Republican presidents during his checkered career in public service.

In the 1950’s and 1960’s, Carlucci was a foreign service officer ostensibly in the State Department although some alleged that was cover for his CIA activities. Indeed he served as Deputy Director of the CIA in the Carter administration. He served in foreign posts in the Congo and Brazil when Communist or pro-Communist governments were overthrown as well as ambassador to Portugal when that government fell.

Carlucci held several sub-cabinet level positions in the Nixon Administration. As Deputy Secretary of Defense under Caspar Weinberger in the Reagan administration he was responsible for development and procurement of new weapons. In that post he formed a number of associations that would prove to reap rewards for the Carlyle Group. He later was elevated to Secretary of Defense where he worked closely with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William Crowe. Crowe would become the "front man" in the takeover by the el Hibre family of the State of Michigan laboratory producing the only anthrax vaccine approved by the FDA.

Although Pharmacia will likely be first among equals in influencing PhRMA’s involvement in bioterrorism, there are plenty of other big shooters (don’t take that literally) in the association. Virtually all of the American and foreign pharmaceutical giants are members along with some smaller companies and subsidiaries of the giants.

Numbered among the sixty six members is Bayer, the German firm that returned to profitability through the surge in sales of its antibiotic Cipro following the mailed anthrax incidents last year.

Surprisingly, none of the companies involved in direct manufacture of anthrax and smallpox vaccines to be sold to the U.S. Government is a member of PhRMA. Currently Bioport in Michigan produces the only FDA approved anthrax vaccine. Acambis, supported by Baxter investments will be the supplier of a new smallpox vaccine. The FDA is said to have promised quick approval of Acambis’ vaccine shortcutting the normal approval cycle.

However, under the radar of the PhRMA umbrella there is a web of interlocking agreements, partnerships and alliances among members, for profit non-members, and tax-exempt foundations involved in bioweapon research and production. Ostensibly searching for defenses against biological attacks, the threats must be produced to measure the effectiveness of vaccines and antibiotics.

A common thread in the fabric of this web is the presence of two giant foundations; Battelle Memorial Institute (BMI) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Billions of dollars have been funneled through these institutes to universities, private companies and individual researchers in the bio-genetic field of scientific effort. The money comes from government grants, contracts with various government agencies and from their own huge endowments. Both have extensive ties to the CIA and other government agencies involved in classified operations.

In a three part series (Anthrax, GOCO’s and Designer Germs) this writer detailed Battelle’s management, or co-management of four super-secret government installations, one of which (Dugway, Utah) stockpiles and has produced weaponized anthrax.

Researcher’s Leonard Horowitz and Patricia Doyle have catalogued the extensive involvement and control by HHMI of research on the human genome. At least six microbiologists in that field with ties to HHMI have been murdered or died mysterious deaths (five since 9/11/01).

One of the undercurrents in the development of the ability to change genes is the documented effort by scientists in several countries (including the U.S.) to turn the science into production of deadly designer diseases that attack only specific segments of the population.

According to an undercover FBI informant, American scientist Larry Ford (who had ties to the CIA) designed an agent for the South African bioweapon program that would affect only blacks. Ford later was considered a suspect in the attempted murder of his business partner and himself died from a shotgun blast that was ruled suicide.

One of the concerns of researchers, including this writer, is that such bioweapons may have been perfected and the spate of some fourteen or fifteen scientists’ deaths is merely a cleanup operation eliminating those who know too much or are potential whistle blowers.

A second concern is with the vaccines and other "defensive" agents being hastily contrived. Could any of them actually contain dangerous designer genes? As states adopt the model Emergency health legislation, combined with the 1996 interstate emergency assistance compact, procedures will be in place to compel vaccinations under threat of detention in a different state.

These (unconstitutional) "emergency" procedures only require the declaration of any emergency by states’ governors. In the case of a health emergency, only a perceived threat is necessary, not an actual outbreak. And who will announce the existence of a "threat?" Odds are it will be Homeland Health.

The author is a free lance writer based in Romulus, Michigan. He is a former newspaper editor and investigative reporter, a retired customs administrator and accountant, and a student of history and the U.S. Constitution.

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