Ahh, the lack of honor and integrity that spews from this regime would make even former President Richard M. Nixon roll over in his grave. The most disgusting and corrupt White House in this nations history is at it again, knee-deep in political kickbacks! Gosh, if this isn’t the “Hope & Change” we all were banking on, I don’t know what is!
Now I know some of the afraid-of-their-own-shadow crowd on the big government side of the aisle will defend this waste of the taxpayers money as a “public safety issue.” Wrong answer, Buckwheat. Smallpox has been eradicated and only exists in freezers at a U.S. government installation and a Russian institute. Nowhere else.
Also, the United States has the smallpox vaccine, enough for everybody. Oh, and the really neat part about this newest scandal, there is no way (ethically) to test this new drug. Bottom line, if it fails, you die. Period. This is a political favor, nothing else.
Over the last year, the Obama administration has aggressively pushed a $433-million plan to buy an experimental smallpox drug, despite uncertainty over whether it is needed or will work.
Senior officials have taken unusual steps to secure the contract for New York-based Siga Technologies Inc., whose controlling shareholder is billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, one of the world’s richest men and a longtime Democrat Party donor.
See, you just knew when it comes to Obama and the Democrats, favors need to be granted.
Siga was awarded the final contract in May through a “sole-source” procurement in which it was the only company asked to submit a proposal. The contract calls for Siga to deliver 1.7 million doses of the drug for the nation’s biodefense stockpile. The price of approximately $255 per dose is well above what the government’s specialists had earlier said was reasonable, according to internal documents and interviews.
Once feared for its grotesque pustules and 30% death rate, smallpox was eradicated worldwide as of 1978 and is known to exist only in the locked freezers of a Russian scientific institute and the U.S. government. There is no credible evidence that any other country or a terrorist group possesses smallpox.
If there were an attack, the government could draw on $1 billion worth of smallpox vaccine it already owns to inoculate the entire U.S. population and quickly treat people exposed to the virus. The vaccine, which costs the government $3 per dose, can reliably prevent death when given within four days of exposure.
Ahh yes! The Obama Regime picking winners and losers again! Leonid Brezhnev would be proud of Obama’s central planning!
Siga’s drug, an antiviral pill called ST-246, would be used to treat people who were diagnosed with smallpox too late for the vaccine to help. Yet the new drug cannot be tested for effectiveness in people because of ethical constraints — and no one knows whether animal testing could prove it would work in humans.
Well, since this is Obama’s baby, I think he should be the guinea pig. He’s the one that should be infected, then treated with this drug to see if it works or not. Come on Mr. President, it’s time for you to step up to the plate, be a man and lead by example.