Pentagon's Anthrax Program In Limbo

By THOMAS D. WILLIAMS
The Hartford Courant
July 07, 2000

The Pentagon's anthrax-vaccination program is running so short of supplies that it could be suspended as early as next week.

The U.S. Defense Department is considering several options, but the agency's chief spokesman, Rear Admiral Craig Quigley, refused to disclose Thursday what options are available.

He did, however, concede that the vaccine is in short supply. Quigley said a constant regular source is many months away because the manufacturer's new vaccine and its manufacturing process failed a federal inspection last November.

"We've been in an anthrax-tight environment for some time,'' Quigley told reporters at the Pentagon's regular press briefing Thursday. Pentagon officials say they have enough vaccine on hand, 190,000 doses, for the rest of this month - a reserve needed for war emergencies.

Quigley said Defense Secretary William Cohen will make a decision about the program's future early next week.

In November, inspectors for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cited the vaccine's manufacturer, BioPort Corp., for 30 major deficiencies. All of the 1.8 million doses used on 455,000 service members since the program began two years ago were manufactured by the state of Michigan. BioPort purchased the remainder of Michigan's vaccine supply and its plant in September 1998. The company is owned in part by retired Admiral William Crowe, former head of the military's joint chiefs of staff and President Clinton's former ambassador to Great Britain.

The Pentagon has said another lot of 200,000 doses is under federal testing; if approved, the lot would be used up by September. A month before that lot expires, another lot would have to be tested and approved to keep the supply going, according to the scenarios laid out by Quigley Thursday.

ABC News.Com reported last week that the lot currently being tested has already failed one FDA inspection, a point Pentagon officials would not confirm Thursday.

Quigley conceded that there are not enough federal resources to monitor inspections of all available lots of vaccine in storage and that Pentagon officials never expected to be caught short.

The status of the vaccine and its manufacturer are further complicated by a criminal inquiry of BioPort by the Defense Department's inspector general. The target of the inquiry, according to officials, is the financial relationship between the company and the Pentagon. A fiscal audit already discovered, in part, that when BioPort asked for financial help last year from the Pentagon, the agency gave it $800,000 more than the company requested, and about $2.2 million more than Defense Department auditors had recommended.