British officials hastened orders of 16 million doses of smallpox vaccine after a U.S. warning that Iraq would target the United Kingdom with biological weapons if the United States attacks Iraq, according to the London Telegraph (see GSN, April 12).

At a March 12 meeting, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney told British Prime Minister Tony Blair that intelligence sources indicate Iraq would attack the United States and United Kingdom with biological weapons (see GSN, Nov. 30, 2001).  Officials placed a vaccine order with British pharmaceutical company Powderject three weeks later, according to the Telegraph (Bamber/Hastings, London Telegraph, April 14).

“As part of the government’s continuing vigilance against international terrorism, we have secured supplies of smallpox vaccine,” said the British Health Ministry.  “There is no credible threat but it is important that the government takes all necessary steps to ensure the protection of the population” (see GSN, Oct. 26, 2001).

The contract with Powderject could provide enough smallpox vaccine for 20 million people, according to analysts.  There are no plans to immunize the entire population because of the potential side effects of the vaccine and because such a plan could cause panic, the Health Ministry said.

Political Payback?

The Powderject contract has come under scrutiny since it was discovered that the company’s chief executive officer is a significant donor to the country’s governing Labor Party, the Financal Times reported.  Other pharmaceutical companies have complained that they were not given a fair chance to bid for the contract, according to the Times.  The Health Ministry said it had consulted with the pharmaceutical industry and did not launch a formal bidding process out of national security concerns (Jenkins/Newman, Financial Times, April 12).

Powderject won the contract because it was the only company able to provide the Lister strain of vaccine, British health official John Hutton said Saturday.

“The contract was awarded to Powderject for one reason and one reason alone,” said Hutton.  “They were the only company that were able to supply the vaccine that we required as soon as possible.”

“There is no medical reason” why the Lister strain of vaccine should have been chosen over others, said John Oxford, professor at the Royal London School of Medicine and a specialist in vaccine science.

“The Lister strain is the classic strain that has always been used in [the United Kingdom] but it is only one of a number that were used in the global eradication programs of the 1970s,” Oxford said.

The United States has placed orders for smallpox vaccine doses with the British pharmaceutical company Acambis Pic, which uses a different strain (see GSN, Dec. 6, 2001).  Acambis Chief Executive Officer John Brown said he wants to know why his company was not given a chance to bid for the British contract.

“At the moment we are producing for the U.S. government.  It would be highly unlikely that anyone is going to be able to get a fully tested vaccine available before us,” he said.

Tim Collins, shadow health minister, has called for an independent investigation into the Powderject contract, according to the London Telegraph.

“There are some very serious questions about how the process has been conducted,” Collins said (Francis Elliot, London Telegraph, April 14).

North Americans Seek Alternatives

Meanwhile, the U.S. Defense Department and the Canadian National Defense Department have agreed to develop jointly a new smallpox vaccine, the Pentagon announced Friday.

“This agreement is very important to our national security interests and establishes a precedent between our two countries for future collaboration,” said U.S. Army Col. Stephen Reeves, joint program manager for biological defense.

According to the five-year plan, researchers will take the current Pentagon smallpox vaccine and a treatment called vaccinia immune globulin (VIG) — which is used against some adverse effects of smallpox — through clinical trials and production.  Both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Health Canada would consider the results for licensing (see GSN, April 3).

Both U.S. and Canadian officials plan to stockpile the vaccine and VIG (U.S. Defense Department release, April 12).

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