National Security Presidential Directive 33 - Biodefense for the 21st Century
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/index.htmlWhite House press release on NSPD 33 -
PRESIDENTIAL ACTIONPresident Bush has made strengthening the nation's defenses against biological weapons a critical national priority from the outset of the administration -- investing over $10 billion since 2001. While significant progress has been made to protect America, President Bush instructed Federal departments and agencies to review their efforts and find new and better ways to secure America from bioattacks.
The result of this review is Biodefense for the 21st Century, a presidential directive that provides a comprehensive framework for our nation's biodefense. Biodefense for the 21st Century builds on past accomplishments, specifies roles and responsibilities, and integrates the programs and efforts of various communities -- national security, medical, public health, intelligence, diplomatic, agricultural and law enforcement -- into a sustained and focused national effort against biological weapons threats.
BIODEFENSE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
Many new programs have been launched to assure the development of vastly improved capabilities over the mid- and long-term. For example:
- Biodefense medical research and development at the National Institutes of Health has been funded at over $1.5 billion per year since fiscal year 2003, 30 times the investment in fiscal year 2001; and
- The new National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasure Center at the Department of Homeland Security is applying cutting-edge science to the study of biological agents and providing a world-class forensics center.
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/biodef.htmlI've never heard of this "National Biodefense Center" before, but it's huge.
"As of 2004, a "national biodefense campus" is under construction at Ft. Detrick, MD. With start-up costs conservatively pegged at over $1 billion, this cluster of three laboratories (under the control of DHS, the US Army, and National Institutes of Health), joins existing or planned federally subsidized labs at Boston University, (etc.) to create what Rutgers University biochemist Richard H. Ebright calls an "enormous overcapacity" in biodefense research. The DHS piece of this unholy trinity is the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasure Center. ... In any event, the proposal for the Ft. Detrick campus struck many reasearchers as so profligate and unwise an expenditure of $1 billion dollars that several spoke out in opposition."
Homeland Security Scams, James Bennett
http://books.google.com/books?id=zW9LLWKGW34C&pg=RA1-PA192&lpg=RA1-PA192&dq=%22national+biodefense+analysis+and+countermeasure+center%22&source=web&ots=8bucHHql7Q&sig=aKpyk9V__o7Fx01E03WuAiCjds4#PRA1-PA192,M1Also, wasn't Ft. Detrick where the anthrax that was used in the 2002 attacks was traced to? Hmmm.
Article from today:
DHS picks Battelle to run biodefense labWASHINGTON, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security named the Battelle National Biodefense Institute as operators of a new biological-threat analysis lab in Maryland.
Battelle received a five-year contract from the department to carry out both operations and scientific programs at the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center currently under construction at Fort Detrick, Md.
Battelle's initial five-year contract is valued at $250 million. It includes provisions for five one-year extensions that would bring the total potential value of the pact to $500 million.
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20061220-033042-3767rSomeone's making a ton of money from this. Has anyone heard of Battelle before? I wonder if they're connected to one of the other Bush crony companies.
ETA:
Wow - Battelle is actually involved in anthrax vaccine research, and one one of only five laboratories that had the Ames strain of anthrax that was used in the 2001 anthrax terrorist attacks.
Ames Strain Of Anthrax Limited to Few LabsWashington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 30, 2001; Page A01
"Since the mid-1980s, the U.S. Army laboratory that is the main custodian of the virulent strain of anthrax used in the recent terrorist attacks distributed the bacteria to just five labs in the United States, Canada and England, according to government documents and interviews.
Two of the labs -- both in the private sector -- received the strain this spring, only a few months before letters tainted with anthrax spores were mailed to New York and Washington, the records show."Transfer records obtained by The Post under the Freedom of Information Act show that USAMRIID, which is located in Frederick, shared the Ames strain last March with scientists at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, an Albuquerque research institute,
and in May and June with the Battelle Memorial Institute, a Columbus, Ohio, corporation involved in anthrax vaccine research.http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36408-2001Nov29Anyone seeing a pattern here? Anthrax mailings in 2002 create sudden demand for biodefense technology & anthrax vaccines. Battelle was one of only 2 private companies that had this strain of anthrax, and months after Battelle received it, the Ames-strain anthrax mailings began. Batelle reaps the benefits of the millions of dollars of DHS pork spent on anthrax/biological weapons research, and two years later, Battelle gets a $500 million dollar contract for new biodefense institute. Means, motive, and opportunity. Battelle isn't building anthrax vaccines, they're building better, deadlier forms of anthrax for use as bioweapons.
U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits Sept. 4, 2001 -
NY TIMES - "Over the past several years, the United States has embarked on a program of secret research on biological weapons that, some officials say, tests the limits of the global treaty banning such weapons. ...
Earlier this year, administration officials said, the Pentagon drew up plans to engineer genetically a potentially more potent variant of the bacterium that causes anthrax, a deadly disease ideal for germ warfare.
Among the facilities likely to be open to inspection under the draft agreement would be the West Jefferson, Ohio, laboratory of the Battelle Memorial Institute, a military contractor that has been selected to create the genetically altered anthrax. ."
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E02E1D71639F937A3575AC0A9679C8B63&sec=health