Anthrax Vaccine Supplier Bioport May Be Investigated

0 Comments | Insight on the News, June 12, 2000 | by Jamie Dettmer, | Timothy W. Maier

Democratic Michigan state Rep. Lling Brewer has introduced a state resolution demanding Congress initiate a criminal investigation of BioPort Corp., now the sole supplier of the anthrax vaccine for 2.4 million American troops.

Michigan once produced the anthrax vaccine but sold its facility and plant to BioPort last year for $24 million. Brewer initiated a state ethics investigation concerning the sale but that probe failed to unearth any crimes. Brewer had complained that two board members of BioPort used to work for the state of Michigan and could have had inside information about the bidding process. He told Insight in September that "the buyers became sellers and the sellers became buyers" (see "Why BioPort Got a Shot in the Arm," Sept. 20, 1999).

Brewer also objected that BioPort's chief executive officer was Faud El-Hibri, who helped facilitate the purchase of anthrax vaccine for Saudi Arabia, which had been unable to obtain it from the U.S. government. Even more surprising to Brewer was that there was no national-security review of the BioPort sale.

Brewer since has been in contact with House Armed Services Committee Republican member Walter Jones of North Carolina, who last year prompted a Pentagon inspector-general investigation that found BioPort used millions of dollars of advance money paid by the Pentagon for expenditures that had nothing to do with the vaccine, such as office furniture and road improvements.

Brewer's resolution calls on Congress to initiate a criminal investigation of BioPort for diverting funds and violating federal bid-rigging statutes, to make anthrax shots for military personnel voluntary until safety and efficacy questions are answered, to suspend court-martials of military personnel who have refused the shots until all adverse-reaction questions have been answered and to pay no more tax dollars to BioPort until these questions are answered and the FDA grants the company high-tech facility approval.