Funding OK'd for bioterror vaccines

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers who experienced the dangers of anthrax firsthand sent President Bush legislation Wednesday to give private companies $5.6 billion in incentives to develop antidotes to biological and chemical weapons.

"This is the largest first responder program ever enacted in American history," Homeland Security Committee chairman Christopher Cox, R-Calif., said before the House voted 414-2 to pass the Project Bioshield Act.

Over the next 10 years, the act would give the pharmaceutical industry the financial guarantees it says it needs to research and produce vaccines and antidotes for bioterror agents. Otherwise, the industry said, such products would have little marketable value.

"What's the incentive today to develop a vaccine for Ebola or for the plague when there is no real market for such a vaccine in this country?" asked Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., a chief sponsor of the legislation.

Bush said in a statement that he looked forward to signing the bill, which would help protect the homeland and "break new ground in the search for treatments and cures while strengthening our overall biotechnology infrastructure."

With the House vote, Congress completed work on legislation Bush requested in a State of the Union speech 18 months ago. Agreement between the House and Senate was delayed by a dispute over how to guarantee a steady stream of funding to drug makers without taking away Congress' authority to make annual decisions on spending levels.

Protection against the weapons is of personal interest to many lawmakers, who have seen their offices closed and their lives disrupted twice by biological threats since the Sept. 11 attacks.

It took three months and $23 million to clean up Senate office buildings after deadly anthrax bacteria was discovered in October 2001 in the mailroom of then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. Hundreds of people who work in those buildings were given antibiotics such as Cipro.

Three Senate office buildings were also closed for up to a week this February after the biological toxin ricin was found in the office of Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

The legislation guarantees that any company that develops countermeasures to treat diseases and conditions caused by bioterrorism would have a buyer in the federal government. Also included would be antidotes for chemical, radiological and nuclear agents.