DISQUS

This story is interesting, but ignores the central fact that the primary subcontractor for both Vaxgen and Emergent Biosolutions (formerly Bioport, but still owned by the same people) was Battelle Memorial Institute. Here is the relevant quote from Vaxgen's SEC filing, Oct 2002:

BEGIN:
October 3, 2002 - Brisbane, Calif. -VaxGen Inc. (Nasdaq: VXGN), the
current leader in AIDS vaccine development, has been awarded a contract from the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the U.S.
National Institutes of Health (NIH), to develop a new anthrax vaccine and to
create a feasibility plan to manufacture an emergency stockpile of 25 million
doses. NIAID is expected to award a separate contract in 2003 to manufacture the
stockpile.

The only anthrax vaccine currently licensed, BioThrax(R), requires six
injections over 18 months. The goal of the new government contract is to develop
a vaccine that proves to be safe in humans, efficacious in animal challenge
studies and requires no more than three injections.

Under the initial phase of the NIAID contract, VaxGen will be awarded
$13.6 million to advance the development of a vaccine candidate initially
developed by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases
(USAMRIID). If results from the first phase are positive, VaxGen will be
eligible for an additional $13.6 million in 2003 as a continuation of the
current contract to support a Phase II clinical trial. A second, much larger
contract to manufacture the 25-million dose stockpile will be awarded by NIAID
through a competitive bid process next year.

"This award builds on VaxGen's expertise in the development, testing and
manufacturing of vaccines, and reflects our commitment to develop a broad array
of biopharmaceutical products for the prevention and treatment of human
infectious diseases," said VaxGen Chief Executive Officer Lance K. Gordon, Ph.D.
"Our objective is to meet or exceed the government's requirements and be
selected to supply vaccine for the stockpile. If successful we would also plan
to sell the vaccine to other approved governments and private customers."

As a major sub-contractor to VaxGen, Battelle of Columbus, Ohio, will have
primary responsibility for initial manufacturing of the vaccine candidate as
well as for conducting pre-clinical safety and efficacy studies in accordance
with FDA guidelines. VaxGen has budgeted approximately $4.5 million for
Battelle's contributions to this urgent initiative. Battelle has substantial
experience in biologics research and development, specifically including anthrax
vaccines."
END

A few technical notes: the Bioport/Emergent vaccine is the one that was injected into hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the most egregious human guinea pig experiment of this generation. Numerous sensitive individuals had severe, even life-terminating responses - this is your "Gulf War Syndrome", as Gary Matsumoto reported in his fairly good book on the topic.

However, claims that Vaxgen had a superior product were not true - their product was apparently just as lethal and never made it into human trials. It was a recombinant product as well, and let's explain what this means:

Battelle was screwing around with genetically engineering anthrax bacteria. This private non-profit corporation deserves a large amount of immediate scrutiny - they've already been caught in violation of U.S. biological warfare treaties several times. For more details, please read http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_10/Tucker.asp

"On September 4, 2001, exactly one week before the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, a front-page story in The New York Times revealed the existence of three secret threat-assessment projects being conducted by the U.S. intelligence community and the Department of Defense:

"One controversial provision creates a new program to have the government buy surplus sugar from the marketplace and put it toward ethanol production. Chris Edwards, director of tax policy at the conservative Cato Institute, said that that provision hurts consumers twice: First, when their taxpayer dollars fund the program; and later, when it reduces market supply, thus keeping sugar prices artificially high on the grocery store shelves."

Actually, from the economic angle, this is one of the main benefits of biofuel production - farmers can take excess crops from the market, convert them to ethanol, and thus not be stuck with crops the market doesn't want. From the farmer's end, such flexibility allows one to survive the changing picture of demand and supply - this is "diversification" at the farmer's end.

If diversification is good for investment, why isn't it also good for farmers?

However, the subsidies for exports should be banned, period. That is a great dishonest scam that does as much economic damage abroad as it does at home. Instead, we should focus on subsidies for low-energy food production (solar and wind and electric motor-based farm equipment), as well for water- and fertilizer-efficient farming practices that use minimal amounts of pesticides and herbicides.

The biofuel subsidies are very defendable - the U.S. has always subsidized fledgling technology startups using taxpayer dollars - that is the number one theme in U.S. academic universities today, and is actually out of control - pharmaceuticals, electronics, military contracts, financial studies - there are huge taxpayer subsidies for these industries that go unremarked on, or are defended as classic examples of public-private partnerships that do wonderful things for the economy.

The fact is, the fossil fuel industry and their financial controllers are realizing that if biofuels , electric cars and fuel efficiency take off, their petroleum markets will shrink to almost nothing - so they are trying every trick in the book to halt it, but that now seems very unlikely. Thus, it's bye bye, dinosaurs - evolve or fossilize.

Aryan Rand Corporation.

No correction?

Unbelievable. An article on vaccine-related autism that doesn't even mention the word "mercury". Mercury is the metallic component of thimerosal, which is an "Organomercuric compound" - other examples include dimethyl mercury, etc. These compounds easily cross the blood-brain barrier.

Thimerosal looks like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Thiomersal-2...

In the brain, mercury interferes with the development of neuronal cells. This can lead to "mitochondrial fatigue" certainly. The actual science here can be seen at http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v9/n9/abs/4001...

What the science indicates is that some individuals are probably more sensitive to mercury poisoning than others, and these individuals are indeed at high risk from thimerosal injections due to the neurotoxic effects of mercury.

However, there are many other routes of mercury poisoning that may be far more important than vaccines - namely eating fish, but also living near a coal-fired power plant and breathing the air. However, the only accessible lawsuit target here is the thimerosal manufacturers, thus the focus on that. The primary source of mercury pollution is coal combustion.

So, get your facts straight, please.

This probably isn't the best comparison as far as the job potential of the renewable energy industry goes. You'd want to look at solar panel manufacturing, battery or other energy storage system manufacturing, solar system design and installation, and large-scale construction projects like solar thermal towers, offshore wind turbines, robust and flexible electricity grids, etc. Put all that together and you have a huge infrastructure boom that will continue for decades, as well as an ever-increasing number of associated jobs.
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It also appears there is a factual error somewhere here, or a disagreement . . . according to http://www.redherring.com/Home/24034 , the Edison project is not CSP: "Edison

Brookings Institute: Home of pro-war pro-occupation pundits O'Hanlon and Pollack. Perhaps you could ask Pollack how he managed to get so many lies and inaccuracies into his book, the PNAC bible on Iraq - what was it called again? The Gathering Fog? Ah, here it is: "The Threatening Storm." It was the subject of a glowing New York Times book review by Jack Matlock Jr.:
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"Containment, he argues, is eroding rapidly, has not eliminated Iraq's nuclear weapons program or weakened Saddam Hussein's grip on the country, and cannot be sustained much longer. . . .
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. . .As I was reading Pollack's dismissal of deterrence as a viable strategy, I could not help reflecting that in 1947 a stronger case than his could have been made that the least risky course for dealing with Stalin following World War II would have been to invade the Soviet Union and depose the tyrant before he could acquire nuclear weapons."

Not much more to say about that. So much for the Brookings Institute - another spin doctor tank spewing filth across the media spectrum. Independent? Really.

If you want to write an article about Rockefeller, you might instead want to focus on the role he played in burying the investigation into the false WMD claims - in his role as Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence - although Pat Roberts (R) did play the lead role during most of the Bush years on that.

There are quite a few questions that our timid Congressmembers didn't think needed answers, such as the one brought up in this story: "Petraeus' promise to Big Oil", UPI Outside View, April 8 2008:

"Speaking at a news conference in Iraq with Vice President Dick Cheney on March 17, Petraeus said Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had asked him to call "large Western corporations" to get them to invest in Iraq's oil, according to United Press International. . ."

"We have made a few initial inquiries on (Iraq's) behalf," Petraeus' military spokesman said in a coyly disingenuous statement, refusing to tell UPI the companies the general had contacted. "Rest assured," he said, "it would be companies that have the capability and reach to take on projects of the size and scope that Iraq needs to continue to progress forward."

The author, Nick Mottern, concludes that:

"The general needs to be asked which companies he talked to and what military information he may have imparted when he made these extraordinary calls, which may well violate military regulations. . ."

"Petraeus also needs to be asked whether his apparent security assurances to the oil majors had anything to do with the disastrous attempt by Maliki's troops starting in late March to try to get control of the oil center of Basra in southern Iraq. This military fiasco and human-rights atrocity was launched only a few days after Cheney "held one-on-one meetings with Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders in Iraq to speed passage of a law opening Iraq's enormous petroleum reserves to more efficient production by global oil companies," according to the Wall Street Journal. "

http://www.upi.com/International_Security/Energ...

Hey! Whatever happened to those Cheney Energy Task Force hearings, anyway?

A few more questions for the counterinsurgency general:

Q: General, from a military perspective, how do the plans to privatize Iraqi oil and carry out a "soft partition" of Iraq appear to affect the willingness of Iraqis to support the insurgency? If we start supporting a plan to nationalize Iraqi oil, and we also give up the partition plans, do you believe that we would start to win Iraqi hearts and minds?

Q: General, you have often pointed to Iran as a major backer of some elements of the Iraq insurgency - yet the closest ally the U.S. has in Iraq is Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who heads the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), and has historically close ties to Iran. Iran has also apparently played a major role in brokering a cease-fire between Maliki and Sadr. What is now your current view of Iran?

Q: General, we've heard a lot about Al Qaeda in Iraq from military press releases, but there's been little independent confirmation that Al Qaeda really is active in Iraq, and many Al Qaeda fighters are reported to have joined the "Sunni Awakening". On the other hand, there is abundant evidence that Al Qaeda has regrouped on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Given this situation, how do you justify the focus on Iraq?

Q: General, to what extent is the U.S. using Operation Phoenix-style counterinsurgency programs in Iraq? Can you state whether or not the "El Salvador Option" is being applied in Iraq today, as Seymour Hersh reported:

"The new rules will enable the Special Forces community to set up what it calls

Nagl in the New York Times:
"The