Cost, need questioned in $433-million smallpox drug deal

[PoliticAverse]

A company controlled by a longtime political donor gets a no-bid contract to supply an experimental remedy for a threat that may not exist.

Reporting from Washington— Over the last year, the Obama administration has aggressively pushed a $433-million plan to buy an experimental smallpox drug, despite uncertainty over whether it is needed or will work.

Senior officials have taken unusual steps to secure the contract for New York-based Siga Technologies Inc., whose controlling shareholder is billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, one of the world's richest men and a longtime Democratic Party donor.

When Siga complained that contracting specialists at the Department of Health and Human Services were resisting the company's financial demands, senior officials replaced the government's lead negotiator for the deal, interviews and documents show.

Read the rest: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-smallpox-20111113,0,4293298.story

[pscot]

1. Another bogus threat imagined by the Cheney gang

Create fear and cash in.

Dr. Nicole Lurie, a presidential appointee who heads biodefense planning at Health and Human Services, cited a 2004 finding by the Bush administration that there was a "material threat" smallpox could be used as a biological weapon.....

Negotiations over the price of the drug and Siga's profit margin were contentious. In an internal memo in March, Dr. Richard J. Hatchett, chief medical officer for HHS' biodefense preparedness unit, said Siga's projected profit at that point was 180%, which he called "outrageous."

In an email earlier the same day, a department colleague told Hatchett that no government contracting officer "would sign a 3 digit profit percentage."

In April, after Siga's chief executive, Dr. Eric A. Rose, complained in writing about the department's "approach to profit," Lurie assured him that the "most senior procurement official" would be taking over the negotiations.

[walerosco]

2. I bet it probably has a war on terror

justification. Remember folk, you have to live in fear and always prepare for the next boggeyman by spening million and millions of dollars we do not have. Isnt there an antrax cntract in the pipeline too? god knows how much that would cost we the people

[starroute]

4. In this case I think it's the "North Korea is weaponizing smallpox" story

That's been getting a lot of play this week, it seems.

http://www.stripes.com/news/exercise-focuses-on-potential-n-korea-biological-chemical-attack-1.160403

November 10, 2011

U.S. and South Korean military officials huddled in operations centers over the past two weeks going over, in great detail, how they would respond to a chemical or biological attack from North Korea. . . .

A 2007 Popular Mechanics investigative report stated that, according to defectors, South Korean intelligence agencies and other sources, North Korea has built “one of the world’s most extensive biochemical warfare programs.”

“The weaponry is thought to have the potential to decimate <South Korea> and the 28,000 U.S. troops stationed there,” the story said. . . .

In September, the Yonhap News Agency reported that South Korean lawmaker Shin Hak-yong called for greater efforts to expand the South’s defense against potential biological warfare, saying that North Korea is prepared to spread 13 kinds of biological agents, including anthrax bacterium, the smallpox virus and cholera.

[Psephos]

3. Read the article, people - this deal is blatant crony capitalism.

The original contract on this unneeded drug was supposed to be awarded through competitive bidding to a small company (less than 500 employees). A winning bid meeting the criteria was selected, and then (after the lobbyists started pushing the Administration), the bidding was suddenly canceled. HHS then cooked up a phony excuse to award it on a no-compete single-source contract to a company backed by Perelman, who donated three quarters of a million dollars in 2008 and 2010 to Dems. When an HHS negotiator tried to investigate how much money the company would be making, and what the cost basis of the drug actually was, the negotiator was abruptly replaced. The HHS director, Dr. Nicole Lurie, then wrote the company and said don't worry, you won't have any more problems.

The profit margin on this bullshit drug with no real-world use is 180%! Read the article, you'll be sick to your stomach.

Really, are we going to tolerate this kind of open sore on the D brand?

More to the point, haven't we had enough of companies who use political donations as a way to rip off our country?

This kind of corruption is what has brought the US to its knees.