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Congress OKs Bioweapons Vaccines Money
WASHINGTON (AP) - Lawmakers who experienced the dangers of anthrax firsthand sent President Bush legislation Wednesday to give private companies $5.6 billion in incentives to develop antidotes to biological and chemical weapons. ``This is the largest first responder program ever enacted in American history,'' Homeland Security Committee chairman Christopher Cox, R-Calif., said before the House voted 414-2 to pass the Project Bioshield Act.
| Nothing like a brush with death to focus a politican. Now can we persaude them to remember the WTC? |
Over the next 10 years, the act would give the pharmaceutical industry the financial guarantees it says it needs to research and produce vaccines and antidotes for bioterror agents. Otherwise, the industry said, such products would have little marketable value. ``What's the incentive today to develop a vaccine for Ebola or for the plague when there is no real market for such a vaccine in this country?'' asked Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., a chief sponsor of the legislation. Bush said in a statement that he looked forward to signing the bill, which would help protect the homeland and ``break new ground in the search for treatments and cures while strengthening our overall biotechnology infrastructure.'' With the House vote, Congress completed work on legislation Bush requested in a State of the Union speech 18 months ago.
Posted by: Steve White 2004-07-15 |
