UK 'Bought Wrong Smallpox Vaccine'

The UK Government has bought the wrong vaccine to protect the country from a smallpox attack by terrorists, according to a new report.

July 30, 2002

Smallpox is the most devastating infectious disease

The UK Government has bought the wrong vaccine to protect the country from the threat of a smallpox attack by terrorists, according to a leading American authority on the subject.

A report by the independent research body, the Potomac Institute, has raised doubts about whether the vaccine would be effective in the event of an attack.

Smallpox facts

• Can transmit through air
  
• Kills about 30% of those infected
  
• No cure
  
• First symptoms can be mistaken for flu
  
• Officially eradicated in 1980 after global vaccination
  
• First used as weapon by British against Native Americans in 18th century
  

The claims have raised new questions about the government's decision to award the contract for the supply of smallpox vaccine to a company run by a Labour donor.

Powderject Pharmaceuticals won the £32m contract just weeks after its chief executive Paul Drayson had given the Labour party £50,000.

The government has ordered millions of doses of a smallpox vaccine based on what is known as the Lister strain of the disease to protect people in the UK in the event of a terrorist attack.

In America, the Bush administration has bought a different vaccine developed by the New York City Board of Health to combat another type of smallpox which its scientists believe is more likely to be used by bio-terrorists.

Scientific experts

That decision is reported to be backed up by the new study by the Potomac Institute. Its authors say the British government has got it wrong.

Their claims have been welcomed by the senior Labour backbencher, Dr Ian Gibson.

He says it is not at all clear whether the vaccine bought by the government would be effective in the event of an attack.

But the Department of Health says it stands by its decision which was based on advice from a committee of scientific experts.

That advice remains unpublished.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2160382.stm