• Home
  • Victims
    • Vaccine Victims Memorial
    • Gardasil & Silgard
      • G / S Australasia
        • G / S Australia
        • G / S New Zealand
      • G / S Europe
        • G / S Czech Republic
        • G / S Denmark
        • G / S France
        • G / S Germany
        • G / S Ireland
        • G / S Italy
        • G / S Norway
        • G / S Scotland
        • G / S Spain
        • G / S United Kingdom
      • G / S N. America
        • G / S Canada
        • G / S Mexico
        • G / S United States
      • G / S S. America
        • G / S Brazil
        • G/S Colombia
    • Cervarix
      • Cervarix Asia
        • Cervarix India
        • Cervarix Philippines
      • Cervarix Europe
        • Cervarix Czech
        • Cervarix Netherlands
        • Cervarix Scotland
        • Cervarix Slovakia
        • Cervarix Spain
        • Cervarix UK
      • Cervarix N. America
        • Cervarix Mexico
  • Resources
    • HPV Testing Resources
      • Pre-HPV Vaccination
      • Post-HPV Vaccination
    • Medical Professionals
    • Vaccine Injury Attorneys
    • Political Action Groups
    • Vaccine Groups
    • Vaccine Victims Hotline
  • SANE Vax Press Releases
  • Videos
    • Vaccine Safety Videos
    • Vaccine Victim Videos
    • Pharma Videos
  • About
    • About Us
    • Who We Are
    • Press Releases
    • SANE Vax in the News
    • Contact Us

SaneVax, Inc.

The First International HPV Vaccine Information Clearinghouse

  • NEWS
    • Government Agencies
      • African
      • Asian
      • Australasian
      • European
      • North American
      • South American
      • United Nations
      • WHO
    • Pharmaceutical Companies
      • CSL Biotherapies
      • GlaxoSmithKline
      • Inovio Pharmaceuticals
      • Liquidia Technologies
      • Merck & Co.
      • Novartis
      • Pfizer
      • Qiagen
      • Sanofi Aventis
      • Sanofi Pasteur MSD spmsd
      • Wyeth Laboratories
    • Science & Medicine
      • Cancer
      • Clinical Trials
      • Environmental Health
      • Heavy Metal Toxicity
      • HPV Science
      • Influenza
      • Meningitis
      • Pertussis
      • Pharmaceuticals
      • Rotavirus
      • STD’s
      • Vaccine Science
      • Women’s Health
    • Vaccine Adverse Events
    • Vaccine Injury Reporting
      • VAERS
      • VAMPSS
    • Vaccine Litigation
    • Vaccine Marketing
    • Vaccine Politics/People
    • Vaccine Victims
      • Cervarix Injuries
      • DTP/DTaP Injuries
      • Fluvax Injuries
      • Fluzone Injuries
      • Gardasil / Silgard Injuries
      • Menomune Injuries
      • MMR Injuries
      • Polio Vaccine Injuries
      • Synflorix Injuries
      • Yellow Fever Vaccine
    • Vaccines
      • Anthrax
      • Breast Cancer
      • Chicken Pox
      • Cholera
      • Combination Vaccines
      • Diphtheria
      • Hepatitis B
      • HPV
      • Influenza Vaccines
      • Malaria
      • Measles
      • Meningitis Vaccines
      • MRSA
      • Mumps
      • Norovirus
      • Pertussis Vaccines
      • Pneumococcal Disease
      • Polio
      • Rotavirus Vaccines
      • Shingles
      • Smallpox
      • TB
      • Tetanus
      • Typhoid
      • Yellow Fever Vaccine
    • Vaccines and the Media
  • WORLD NEWS
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Australasia
    • Europe
    • North America
    • South America
  • RESEARCH
    • Cancer Research
    • Cervarix Vaccine
    • Gardasil/Silgard Vaccine
    • Human Pap. Research
    • Immunization Practices
    • Neurology
    • Vaccine Adjuvants
    • Vac. Ingredient Research
    • Vaccine Injuries
    • Vaccine Preservatives
    • Vaccine Related Research
    • Vaccine Safety
  • CITIZENS SPEAK
    • Cervical Cancer Debate
    • HPV Vax
      • Australian Concerns
      • Canadian Concerns
      • Irish Concerns
      • Spain Concerns
      • UK Concerns
      • United States Concerns
You are here: Home / NEWS . . . . . . . . / Science & Medicine / Clinical Trials / Cost, need questioned in $433-million smallpox drug deal

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

November 27, 2011 By Norma 1 Comment

By David Willman, Los Angeles Times

A company controlled by a longtime political donor gets a no-bid contract to supply an experimental remedy for a threat that may not exist.

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.

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.

Siga was awarded the final contract in May through a “sole-source” procurement in which it was the only company asked to submit a proposal. The contract calls for Siga to deliver 1.7 million doses of the drug for the nation’s biodefense stockpile. The price of approximately $255 per dose is well above what the government’s specialists had earlier said was reasonable, according to internal documents and interviews.

Once feared for its grotesque pustules and 30% death rate, smallpox was eradicated worldwide as of 1978 and is known to exist only in the locked freezers of a Russian scientific institute and the U.S. government. There is no credible evidence that any other country or a terrorist group possesses smallpox.

If there were an attack, the government could draw on $1 billion worth of smallpox vaccine it already owns to inoculate the entire U.S. population and quickly treat people exposed to the virus. The vaccine, which costs the government $3 per dose, can reliably prevent death when given within four days of exposure.

Siga’s drug, an antiviral pill called ST-246, would be used to treat people who were diagnosed with smallpox too late for the vaccine to help. Yet the new drug cannot be tested for effectiveness in people because of ethical constraints — and no one knows whether animal testing could prove it would work in humans.

The government’s pursuit of Siga’s product raises the question: Should the U.S. buy an unproven drug for such a nebulous threat?

Read the entire article here.

Related

Filed Under: Clinical Trials, Government Agencies, Smallpox, United States, Vaccine Science Tagged With: biodefense, clinical trials, experimental smallpox vaccine

Comments

  1. keith says

    November 27, 2011 at 6:35 pm

    Well I would definitely challenge that the smallpox vaccine stockpiled by the U.S. would do anything for the disease if there was an outbreak. There’s no study showing any smallpox vaccine was ever effective, and it certainly makes no sense to say giving a vaccine after exposure to the disease is going to provide any protection (that’s never been proven either). But to point out even sillier claims is that the Los Angeles Times article states that the vaccine will prevent death within four days of administration. Now you and I and everyone else knows they did not test this. They did not infect people with smallpox and give one group the vaccine while another group got a placebo, then check to see the death rate in each group. I wish the Los Angeles Times would do real journalism and either print only what they know, or fully research claims they read before simply repeating them. But I guess if we had real journalism then our media as we know it today would cease to exist. I, however, am all for that.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Follow Us

SaneVax on FacebookSaneVax on TwitterSaneVax on LinkedInSaneVax on YoutubeSaneVax RSS Feed

Help Support SaneVax

Notice: We need your support. This massive research & presentation comes from a team of volunteers. We need your help to keep this critical information available.



SaneVax relies on support from participants like you. We are a 501 (c)(3) non-profit corporation, donations are tax deductible. Help keep this venue available and support the spirit – Thank you!

This Week’s Survivor

Lauren from North Carolina

Categories

Links

  • Creating an HPV Industry
  • File a VAERS Report
  • Gardasil and Unexplained Deaths
  • HPV Industry Timeline
  • HPV Mechanisms of Action in Women
  • HPV Vaccine Fact Sheet
  • Petition: Rescind HPV Vaccine Approval
  • Presentation to the FDA
  • Supreme Court Arguments

HPV Vaccine VAERS Reports

Description 12/14/2019  TOTAL
Disabled 3,092
Deaths 523
Did Not Recover 13,072
Abnormal Smear 695
Cervical Cancer 186
Infertility 52
Life-threatening 1,001
Emergency Room 15,419
Hospitalized 6,448
Extended Hosp. Stay 304
Serious 9,497
Total Adverse Events 64,270

Access expanded report here.

Related

Subscribe2


 

Log In

Featured Video

forcing flu shots

Forcing Flu Shots on Health Care Workers: Who is Next?

News

SaneVax News Blog!
News

Videos

Safety • Victims • Pharma
No Genetic Epidemic

Contact

Contact S.A.N.E.Vax
S.A.N.E.VAX log thumbnail

Copyright © 2025 SaneVax, Inc. · Site by TheWebElves.com a div. of KalaRhythms.org · Log in