Pentagon assessing BioPort
Review of contract with Lansing firm started this month
By Tim Martin
Lansing State Journal
Friday, August 24, 2001

The Pentagon is reviewing its contract with Lansing's BioPort Corp., sole
provider of the military's troubled anthrax vaccine.

The military has pumped $126 million into BioPort, but production problems at
the company have all but stalled the program aimed at protecting troops
against a deadly biological weapon possessed by Iraq and several other
potential enemies.

The review - started last week - comes as new Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld examines a wide variety of Pentagon programs to determine if they're
worth the money. A report on the BioPort contract is due in early September.

Ending the contract could cripple BioPort, which has 220 employees in north
Lansing devoted almost entirely to the vaccination program. The company had
been working toward restarting vaccinations in late 2002, but the review
could put those plans - and the program's future - in jeopardy.

"All facets of the biological weapons defense program are under constant
review and scrutiny,'' Pentagon spokesman Jim Turner said. "Due to the
failure of BioPort to produce the vaccine, this contract review has been
directed and will continue.''
The Pentagon plans to continue its anthrax vaccination program, Turner said.
But the program now includes only troops at highest risk for an anthrax
attack because vaccine supplies are critically low.

The Pentagon has some strong supporters of the anthrax vaccination program,
made mandatory for the nation's 2.4 million troops in 1998 under former
President Bill Clinton. But Rumsfeld and other newcomers appointed to the
Pentagon this year by George W. Bush are giving several programs a fresh look.

"This review is not uncommon or unexpected,'' BioPort spokeswoman Kim Brennen
Root said. "We understand, with any new administration, programs would be
reviewed.''

BioPort and military officials have said the program is needed to protect
troops against anthrax, which the Pentagon has said is the top biological
weapon threat facing the U.S.

But the program has come under fire in Congress and among troops for safety
and financial concerns.

At least 400 military personnel have faced disciplinary action rather than
take the vaccine. But military and Food and Drug Administration records
indicate adverse reaction rates to the anthrax vaccine aren't much different
than to vaccines in general.

Even some of the program's staunchest critics don't think the Pentagon will
pull the plug on BioPort.

"So much money has been dumped into BioPort, I doubt they would yank the
contract now,'' said Lansing's Randi Allaire, a former member of the Air
National Guard.

But the money, coupled with lack of production, could trouble Pentagon
auditors.

Less than 20 percent of U.S. troops have received any of the six-shot anthrax
series because BioPort has been unable to win government approval to sell the
vaccine.

"How much longer are we going to permit the taxpayers of America to pay a
company for a product it can't produce?'' said Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C. "I
hope the Department of Defense makes a good business decision and voids the
contract.''

BioPort finished renovating its north Lansing labs in 1999, but so far does
not have FDA approval to sell vaccine made there. BioPort expects to get that
OK by October, which could lead to approved vaccine in 2002.

"We have every intention of getting the approval and meeting our Department
of Defense obligations,'' Brennen Root said. "The scrutiny this program and
this company the past few years have been intense. "We've lived through this
before. It works to cement the resolve of the people who work here.''

The Pentagon has studied options for a second source of the vaccine in case
BioPort fails. But experts say it could take five years for another lab to
get set up and approved to make the drug.

Contact Tim Martin at 377-1061 or tmartin@lsj.com.