washingtontimes.com
Fund Project Bioshield
The Senate's dithering on Project Bioshield is starting to detract from the nation's security. Designed to protect the nation from bioterrorism attacks, the initiative will fail unless Congress allocates the necessary funds.
President Bush announced Project Bioshield in his 2003 State of the Union address. It would allocate $6 billion in funding for pharmaceutical companies to develop treatments against likely agents of attack like smallpox and Ebola. Industry has been reluctant to make the costly investments in research required to discover such countermeasures without some certainty of financial return. Under Bioshield, the government would promise to purchase successful treatments.
Last fall, Congress provided funding for the initiative in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appropriations bill. While that measure carried an implicit authorization, companies have been reluctant to sign contracts without specific statutory authority. That authority passed the House by an overwhelming margin, but has been delayed interminably in the Senate. The primary culprits have been Democrats Robert Byrd and Carl Levin.
Those delays are already having a detrimental effect on research and development. In an editorial, "An Uncertain Call to Arms," published in this week's issue of Science magazine, Claire Fraser, president and CEO of the Institute for Genomic Research, noted that "this delay has had a sobering effect within the industry, causing doubt that any investments made to develop new countermeasures against potential bioterror agents will ever pay off." Ms. Fraser's company has put a hold on further development of an antibody-based treatment against anthrax until it has guarantees of government support. Other companies have also become discouraged. A few months ago, Asha George, managing director for the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security, said the delay "is totally turning the companies off. They cannot develop things in the hope that someday soon the government will get around to funding them."
Administration officials have repeatedly expressed hopes that the Senate would see fit to authorize Project Bioshield this spring. Mr. Bush has urged Congress to pass the measure on numerous occasions. As Penrose Albright, DHS assistant secretary for science and technology, said, "The consequences are so huge that you can't wait around for some evidence that an attack is being planned. So we have to prepare."
Having already endured two bioterror attacks, senators ought to be especially conscious of the necessity for Project Bioshield. Additional delays are likely to have deadly repercussions. The clock is ticking. While terrorists are almost certainly arming for another assault on American soil, innovators and venture capitalists are turning elsewhere. Senators must send Project Bioshield to the president. |
