07.06.11
Big bioterror defense industry project in Pittsburgh shelved
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, long a force in expanding government funding for bioterror defense, has shockingly seen plans for a bioterror vaccine facility collapse. “But there is no joy in Mudville; mighty Casey has struck out,” as the poem goes.
From the Pittsburgh Tribune, on July 1:
UPMC is halting its plans to build a vaccine factory in Hazelwood, a hospital spokeswoman said this morning.
The long-proposed factory, high-profile project was expected to produce vaccines to counter biological warfare agents such as smallpox.
UPMC officials said their strategy differs from that of the federal government, which would have paid for about half the project. The government wants to save money by using an existing commercial facility that also could be used for production of non-commercial products, said Robert Cindrich, a senior advisor to UPMC President Jeff Romoff …
“Unfortunately, the request for proposals recently released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services cannot be reconciled with the approach and would greatly increase the risks for UPMC.”
Cindrich said the government’s request includes no guaranteed orders.
This is the project that Tara O’Toole, formerly of the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Biosecurity and now at the Dept. of Homeland Security, tried to build. And a couple years ago it looked like a done deal.
But the economic collapse, along with relentless national budget-cutting, have coincidentally intervened to derail some of the bioterror money train. It also didn’t help that the UPMC’s big political fixer — the person who helped guarantee the pork, Jack Murtha, passed away.
In the past, I’ve been critical of the bioterror industry engine represented by the UPMC Center for Biosecurity and Tara O’Toole. (The Bioterrorism tab contains much, if you dig down. For synopses, one can look here, and here and here and here.)
This is good news. Funding UPMC for more bioterror defense, even dressed up as a vaccine manufacturing facility, was always a bad idea. The jobs created would be minimal in the national picture. UPMC estimated 1,000 but that is surely an exaggeration.
Cutting the money by transference to an already established facility puts a crimp in some bioterror defense industry plans.
And it is certainly bad news to the industry’s key lobbyists — Bob Graham and Jim Talent — who, once upon a time, even made a video to peddle the project.
A reader adds:
“DHHS is still going forward with its two billion-dollar vaccine facilities and DOD has its billion dollar vaccine facility still in the works. Breaking ground next year, if they can get the contract vehicles in place before the next year’s Republicans stop the budget process through a continuing resolution authority. So some other Big Pharma firm will get the action. The waste goes on.”