Now they want to test an experimental anthrax vaccine on children?

[pnwmom]

Federal law prohibits testing on children that could harm them and won't directly benefit them. So I don't see how this can be done. . . but I've been surprised before.

http://blogs.forbes.com/stevensalzberg/


The anthrax vaccine is a truly bad idea. The U.S. has wasted billions of dollars on it, and it just seems to go from bad to worse. Now a government panel has recommended that we test the vaccine on children, which raises a whole new array of ethical questions.

Don’t get me wrong: vaccines are the greatest boon to public health of the last 200 years. We eradicated smallpox, we’re close to eradicating polio, and childhood deaths from infectious diseases are far, far lower thanks to the vaccines we give our children. These are truly wondrous advances.

But the anthrax vaccine is different, from start to finish.

For starters, anthrax is not infectious. This might come as a surprise to those who’ve only heard about this through the media. An anthrax “outbreak” is impossible, because the B. anthracis bacterium cannot spread from person to person. Vaccines against diseases such as measles, mumps, and influenza protect millions of people each year, because these are common infectious diseases that spread easily between people.

Anthrax was never a public health threat, and it isn’t one now. We don’t need an anthrax vaccine. And by developing and then promoting one, the government is abusing the good will that the public has towards vaccines, possibly endangering the public health further by playing into the hands of the anti-vaccine movement.

SNIP

[Marazinia]

1. They must have some orphans laying around not earning anybody money

That's right, orphans. From the following article: http://www.pnj.com/article/20111029/NEWS01/110290307/Anthrax-vaccine-won-t-tested-kids-least-now

The National Biodefense Science Board said Friday a separate review board should look into the ethical issues of doing such tests in children, as they cannot give consent for themselves. If that is completed successfully, the panel said, the Department of Health and Human Services should develop a plan for a study of the vaccine in children.

The last time I saw language like this linked to testing of medications on children, it involved using orphans to test new HIV treatments. They had no parents to get consent from, so the government happily consented for them. It may still be happening. The only argument against it was that the children can't consent themselves.

[pnwmom]

3. I wonder what they mean by "look into the ethical issues."

This issue has already been looked into, thoroughly, decades ago. We have strict standards for research involving children, and I see no reason for changing them -- which is what they're really talking about.

[Marazinia]

6. That's supposed to be the case

But orphans have still been used in HIV drug testing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_world/4038375.stm

[peacetalksforall]

2. Head of the company (Emergnt BioSolutions) - Fuad El-Hibri

Fuad El-Hibri (born March 2 1958) is an American businessman, and CEO of Emergent BioSolutionsEarly life

Fuad El-Hibri (born March 2, 1958) in Hildesheim, Germany<1> spent his childhood equally in Europe and the Middle East before coming to the USA to get an economics degree from Stanford and an MBA from Yale<1>

Education

El-Hibri earned a Masters Degree in Public and Private Management from Yale University and a Bachelors Degree with Honors in Economics from Stanford University.

Early career

El-Hibri served as president of Digicel from August 2000 to February 2005. He served as the president of East West Resources Corporation from September 1990 to January 2004.

He was a member of the senior management team of Speywood, LTD. in the United Kingdom and organized and directed the management buyout of Porton Products Ltd. El-Hibri reorganized Porton, and was advisor to the senior management team involved in the oversight of operations and served as a senior associate and resident project manager at Booz Allen Hamilton and as a manager of Citicorp in New York (Mergers and Acquisitions), and in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (Operations and Credit).

El-Hibri has been chairman of East West Resources Corporation, a venture capital and financial consulting firm, since June 1990. He served as the chairman of Digicel Holdings from August 2000 to October 2006. He serves as director of Emergent BioDefense Operations Lansing Inc.

Current career

El-Hibri has been Director and CEO of Emergent BioSolutions on the compromising of US National Security in the New York Times General Russell, who led the early countermeasure program, told me: “It was Emergent lobbying that killed VaxGen. Period. Emergent bought the Congress. Congress killed VaxGen.” Several current officials share Russell’s view. When I asked one senior biodefense official about the lack of a new anthrax vaccine, the official nearly exploded: “Why don’t we have a second-generation anthrax vaccine? The reason is Emergent lobbying!” Even the director of Barda, Robin Robinson, acknowledged that politics played a role in the decision. “Should we have kept it? I think there’s a long debate,” he said. “They had brought in some really top-flight people in there, and Lance Gordon was really good at judging talent. Unfortunately, there was a lot of political pressure.” since 2004 and he serves as Chairman of the El-Hibri Charitable Foundation, and founded the El-Hibri Peace Education Prize in 2007. El-Hibri serves as a member of the board of trustees of American University. He is a member of the board of directors of the International Biomedical Research Alliance (an academic joint venture among the National Institutes of Health, Oxford University and Cambridge University). El-Hibri is also a member of the board of trustees of the National Health Museum.

El-Hibri Peace Education Prize

The stated purpose of the El-Hibri Peace Education Prize is "To honor one peace educator annually with the El-Hibri Peace Education Prize in order to bring awareness of and to promote the expansion of the field of Peace Education." The stated mission of the prize is to "recognize outstanding peace educators based in the United States by awarding $15,000 annually to an individual or organization making valuable contributions to peace education and social justice in the Middle East." <3>
References

^ a b c Jones, Del (May 18, 2004). "Muslim CEOs of U.S. firms fight terrorism, 'stop evil'". USA Today. Retrieved May 3, 2010.
^ "Corporate Governance - Biography".
^ "El-Hibri Peace Education Prize".

From Wiki for the bio:

There is more here: (may require Find) - quite interesting

http://heavenstaxforce.blogspot.com/2011/06/rick-perry-and-gardasil_16.html

[Laluchacontinua]

10. Interesting.

Suber says that, "While Fuad El-Hibri was needed no financing to take over the State of Michigan biologic lab, he did need a front man to reassure the military with respect to their Anthrax contract. He already had the perfect front man in former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. William J. Crowe Jr. Adm. Crowe had a long history of involvement with the El-Hibri family. Crowe owns 22.5 percent of Intervac shares, although he hasn’t invested a penny in the venture."

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fuad_El-Hibri


John Engler is the Former Governor of Michigan. Engler has strong ties to the Bioport Corporation.

According to the February 2003 article "3500 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd" by Tom Suber:

"... George Herbert Walker Bush and company already owned Michigan Republican Governor John Engler. Governor Engler was persuaded by his cronies to sell off the state's biologic products lab after nearly a century of service to the citizens. The Governor removed the biologic lab from the Department of Public Health established it as a new state agency, the Michigan Biologics Products Institute. This new agency was limited to a two-year term of existence. This action, along with the creation of a three-person commission (Michigan Biologics Products Commission) was the beginning of the privatization of Michigan's vaccine facility by Fuad El-Hibri. Governor Engler gave the most respectable and profitable agency in Michigan government to Fuad El-Hibri without any individual investment whatsoever. ... Receipt of a $180 million business for absolutely nothing in return. Isn't privatization grand?

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Engler


Crowe was married to Shirley Grennell in 1954...He sat on the Boards of Texaco, Merrill Lynch, Pfizer, Norfolk Southern Corporation and General Dynamics. He also served on the board of Emergent BioSolutions (then Bioport), a company that provided controversial Anthrax Vaccinations to the US Military in the 1990s. The deal was approved by the Clinton administration, which Crowe had a previous relationship with....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Crowe

[Laluchacontinua]

11. There's more: don't know whether this is reliable or not, but...

This site connects Bruce Ivins (the supposed anthrax mailer) & the Carlyle Group to this company & gives more info on the El-Hibri family.


According to Crowe’s associate and spokesman, Jay Coupe, Crowe owns 22.5 percent of Intervac shares, although he hasn’t “invested a penny” in the venture. Another 30 percent of Intervac shares are owned by Nancy El-Hibri, a mother and homemaker in suburban Maryland and the rest of the company is in the hands of “I&F Holdings,” a company directed by Nancy El-Hibri’s father-in-law, Ibrahim El-Hibri, a Venezuelan citizen, and her husband, Fuad El-Hibri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent...

The reclusive Ibrahim El Hibri, who grants no interviews, has homes in Caracas, Maryland, Paris and Beirut, which he visits all year around, being careful of avoiding tax residence in any of them. Where he got his millions is a mystery. He invested in Porton International, a British pharmaceutical firm where his son worked, in the early 90’s and according to a US Congressional review, Porton International sold anthrax vaccines to the Saudi Arabian Government. In Venezuela, Ibrahim El Hibri runs the country’s third largest cell phone operator Digitel, despite having sold control of the company to Telecom Italia Mobile. Meanwhile in El Salvador, his son Fuad El Hibri, finds the time to run Digicel, a cellular telephone concession which the family bought two years ago.

After the attacks of September 11th. President Bush placed BioPort’s North Lansing laboratory under protection, invoking the national interest. Interestingly enough, the Italian magazine Il Manifesto reported, in its October issue, that this happened at the same time that the FBI also placed the El Hibri’s at the top of their list of suspects for sending anthrax spores through the mail system...

http://buelahman.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/


Ref: Ibrahim1, Fuad2 and Nancy3 El-Hibri, Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr.4

DBAs:

Porton Products, Ltd. (UK; F. El-Hibri, director)5
Speywood Holdings, Ltd. (UK; F. El-Hibri, director)6
East West Resources Corp. (Washington, D.C., 1990; Fuad El-Hibri)7
I&F Holdings NV (Netherlands Antilles; Ibrahim El-Hibri)
Intervac LLC (Maryland; Crowe, N. & F. El-Hibri, I&F Holdings)8
Intervac Management LLC (Maryland; F. El-Hibri and “four others”)
BioPort, Inc. (Michigan, 1998; Intervac, Intervac Mgt., MPBI2)9, 10 ,11, 12
Michigan Biologic Products, Inc. (MI, 1/7/97; MBPI1 principals et al.)13
Michigan Biologic Products Institute (state; Myers, van Ravenswaay)14
Michigan Biologic Products Commission (state)15
Dynport LLC (Reston, Virginia; ?)16
Southern Research Institute (Birmingham, AL; Col. David Franz,USAMRIID)17
British Nuclear Fuels, Ltd. (UK, government owned)18
BNFL, Inc. (U.S. subsidiary of BNFL)19
Global Options (D.C. “crisis management firm”)20

K: This is a vastly expanded version of the earlier summary. In addition to any information you may be able to find on the Russian and Polish activities of Fuad and Ibrahim El-Hibri and East West Resources Corp., is it possible that any of your English academic contacts might be able to provide information on Porton, Speywood and the El-Hibri/I&F Holdings activities in the UK? I am particularly interested in any role Crowe, as ambassador, may have played in facilitating their UK entry. The El-Hibris’ German history might also be worth exploring.
Stephen P. Dresch, Ph.D.

http://www.forensic-intelligence.org/Crowe.PDF
xc:

[peacetalksforall]

19. Rumsfeld Crowe - and hate to say it - it elaborates on the timing that conincides (and

was enabled by?) with the Clinton administration.

http://www.militarycorruption.com/rumsfeld.htm

It's seems to be blog type opinion site, but there are links to more sites.

[peacetalksforall]

20. Another older blog

"THE GREAT ANTHRAX STOCK SWINDLE!

Where, oh where to begin!

Well, let's begin with Adm. William J. Crowe Jr. It seems that back when Goerge H. W. Bush was setting up Osama Bin Laden as a Freedom fighter (A "freedom fighter" is the same thing as a terrorist, only aimed at someone you don't like) , the good Admiral (seen right) and his buddies on the Joint Chiefs were selling American made weapons-grade Anthrax to Saddam Hussein in the hopes that he would use it on Iran (and then we wonder why the Iranian people don't much like Americans). Who knows who else got these American-made weapons of mass destruction either from Admiral Crowe or Saddam.

But that was then and this is now. Admiral Crowe is retired. Admiral Crowe is quite wealthy, far beyond what one might expect on even an Admiral's salary. In fact, Admiral Crowe sits on the Board of Directors and owns 13% of BioPort Corporation.

What is the BioPort Corporation, I hear you ask? Well, it's the only corporation in the United States with a license to make Anthrax Vaccine. Except that BioPOrt doesn't actually make the vaccine, BioPOrt simply bought the lab that does make the vaccine, Michigan Biologic Products Institute, from the State of Michigan in 1998, oddly enough at the same time John J. Maresca, Vice President of International Relations, UNOCAL Corporation, was telling congress that access to the oil reserves under the Caspian Sea required a new government in Afghanistan.

Along with the actual Anthrax Vaccine, BioPort acquired Michigan Biologic Products Institute's sole and exclusive customer for the vaccine, the U.S. Department of defense. And here is the kicker. Since acquiring Michigan Biologic Products Institute, BioPort has not delivered a drop of the stuff! Only 4% of the vaccine contracted for has been delivered. FDA audits have uncovered suspicious record keeping and contamination problems, causing the FDA to ban delivery of the product. Despite this ban, the U.S. Government has continued to front BioPort millions of dollars to kep the operation going. And, given the "State of Emergency", it is likely that FDA concerns for the product will soon be set aside and the vaccine delivered, not to the citizens whose taxes paid for it all, but to the military and to the government.

So, good old Admiral Crowe and his fellow investors in BioPort are set to make a bundle off of the Anthrax scare. Especially when market demand pushes the price of the product high up above the contracted for $3.50 an ounce. And who are those fellow investors? Well, another part of BioPort is owned by the Carlyse Group. That's George H. W. Bush's current occupation. Yet another portion is owned by (you had better sit down), the Bin Laden family!

That's right. Just as the Bin Laden family made a fortune with the contract to rebuild the Khobar Towers supposedly blown up by Osama, the Bin Ladens will again make a fortune from their part ownership of the only company able to make an Anthrax Vaccine in the United States, because Osama might have some of that Anthrax that the United States sold to Saddam.

In fact, the shortage created by the FDA bans will make all the players instant billionaires as market forces drive the price of the vaccine up to thousands of dollars per ounce. (The same amount of Anthrax treatment Cipro that sells for $20 in India now costs $690 in the US). "

http://s15.invisionfree.com/Loose_Change_Forum/ar/t5370.htm

[canetoad]

4. If it's possible

Can you please link to the documentation that proposes anthrax vaccine testing on children?
TIA

[Contrary1]

5. Here's one:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/28/MNA31LNQ5S.DTL

[canetoad]

7. Thank you for the link

It seems that this is a reality. More details and contacts are available here:http://www.phe.gov/Preparedness/legal/boards/nbsb/Pages/110707meeting.aspx

[Ilsa]

8. This is an obscenity. nt

[Laluchacontinua]

9. don't worry, they'll test it in africa. Big Pharma tests in the Third World these days.

Poor people don't raise a ruckus.

[pnwmom]

12. Human subjects regulations for U.S. researchers applies to research conducted offshore, too. n/t

[Laluchacontinua]

13. Not if it's not conducted by US researchers.

[pnwmom]

14. How do you think we could control them? n/t

[Laluchacontinua]

15. I don't think "I" could control them in any case. Not sure who the "we" is you refer to.

[MedicalAdmin]

16. Arguing with a corporate apologist is like arguing with a teabagger.

Come to think about it, they pretty much have te same job description.

I wonder why the other corporate apologists aren't here crooning about anti-vaxxers and woo. Could it be because they think that testing anthrax vaccines on poor kids is a good idea?

I wonder why they aren't taking about the latest huge metastudy from the university of Minnesota regarding the really crappy efficacy of flu vaccines.

[pnwmom]

Why are you suggesting I'm an apologist for big pharma?

The people who are constantly arguing with me about vaccine safety issues would think that's pretty funny.

[MedicalAdmin]

23. I didn't.

What you infer is your business.

My comments were general and certainly not in response to you specifically. Given your posting history, why would assume that? However my point stands. Why aren't the apologists all over this post.

[pnwmom]

17. How do you think the US government could control non-US researchers

carrying out research in other countries?

[Laluchacontinua]

18. I'm not sure what the point of the question is, as not all research done

for Pharma co's is conducted by government researchers, and evading control is precisely the reason for doing research on poor, often illiterate or ill-informed foreigners.

But medical ethicists say that even if today's research is not as egregious as the Guatemala experiment, American companies are still testing drugs on poor, sometimes unknowing populations in the developing world.

Many, like (Dr.) Markel, note that experimenting with AIDS drugs in Africa and other pharmaceutical trials in Third World countries, "goes on every day."

"It's not good enough, in my opinion, to protect only people who live in the developed world -- but all human beings," he said.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/guatemala-syphilis-experiments-shock-us-drug-trials-exploit/story?id=14414902


By the end of July a US district court will decide whether drug giant Pfizer should stand trial in the United States for presiding over a coercive, botched 1996 experiment on Nigerian children with meningitis. In a class-action suit filed last August, thirty Nigerian families say the company violated the Nuremberg _ Code by forcing an unapproved, risky experiment on unwitting subjects who suffered brain damage, loss of hearing, paralysis and death as a result.
If allowed, the case will open a rare window on a business generally shrouded in FDA and Big Pharma secrecy: the global commerce in human experimentation.

Over the past decade, the drug industry has quietly exported its clinical testing overseas, where oversight is slim and patients plentiful. According to a largely unnoticed Health and Human Services (HHS) report, the number of foreign investigators seeking FDA approvals increased sixteen-fold between 1990 and 1999. The actual numbers are probably much higher-companies aren't required to alert the FDA before taking their research overseas, nor does the FDA track research by location after approving new drugs.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Health/Globalizing_DrugResearch.html

[peacetalksforall]

21. They place their trust in 'helpers'. And what do they get.

[RegieRocker]

22. If the goverment says it is safe it must be. We don't want to bring back

disease!
:sarcasm:

[trotsky]

24. "playing into the hands of the anti-vaccine movement"

Yup, they sure are. Anti-vaxers are breathlessly all over this announcement, posting it on message boards everywhere.