By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — U.S. President George W. Bush appealed to the pharmaceutical industry yesterday to lobby Congress to support Project Bioshield, a $6 billion, 10-year effort to stockpile medicines and technologies to respond to a bioterrorist attack (see GSN, June 23).

In a speech to the Biotechnology Industry Organization convention here, the president called Project Bioshield a “great scientific effort” and “a key part of our all-out effort to prepare for the threat of bioterror.”

Bush proposed the plan during his January State of the Union speech, but the legislation is still being considered in the House Select Committee on Homeland Security.  Republican and Democratic lawmakers have criticized Project Bioshield as being ineffective, poorly structured and too narrowly focused (see GSN, May 16).

In May, Representative Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) said the $5.6 billion project is “chicken feed to this [pharmaceutical] industry.”

Bush asked conference attendees to lobby members of Congress, saying that under the plan Washington would spend more money on pharmaceutical research.

“If you’re interested in seeing more flexibility and more research dollars for the sake of national security, I need your help in lobbying the members of the United States Congress,” he said.

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