US: President George W. Bush's announcement Tuesday of a $7.1 billion plan to combat the threat of an avian influenza pandemic has drawn criticism from scientific experts and the state and local authorities mandated to implement much of the program.
It is also being exposed as a thinly disguised gift to US pharmaceutical companies that stand to profit handsomely from the production of vaccines and treatments for the bird flu under the administration's plan, while avoiding liability for damages resulting from their operations.
Bush unveiled the "National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza" in a speech Tuesday to doctors, scientists and members of Congress at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Utilizing the phraseology common since the 9/11 terror attacks, Bush described the threat of the bird flu as "a danger to our homeland," and urged Congress to fund his proposal.
The threat of a worldwide outbreak of avian flu is genuine. The H5N1 strain of the virus has already infected 122 people and killed 62 in four countries--Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia--and has contaminated poultry flocks across wide stretches of Asia and into Europe.
While up to now most human victims appear to have been infected directly from birds, the danger is that the deadly virus could mutate into a form easily transmittable between humans. A recent Science magazine article stated that according to expert opinion the odds of an eventual global outbreak are "100 percent," posing a danger to millions of lives.
Critics have decried Bush's "crash program" as too little, too late. Dr. Allan Rosenfield, dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York, told Reuters, "It should have happened five years ago." To put the $7.1 billion figure into perspective, it is close to the amount spent by the US in a month on the war in Iraq. It is also less than the $8-billion flu preparedness plan passed recently by the Senate.
It is also a fraction of the $70 billion in additional tax cuts for the wealthy that Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress are preparing to enact.
The Bush administration's "National Strategy" to fight an avian flu pandemic is not only woefully inadequate, but promises windfall profits to the giant pharmaceutical interests while leaving cash-strapped state and local authorities financially responsible for implementing large portions of the plan.
The overwhelming share of the proposed $7.1 billion--$6 billion--is earmarked to purchase vaccines and antiviral drugs and to change the way the vaccines are produced. In particular, drug manufacturers will receive $2.8 billion to shift from an older technique that involves inoculating a virus into fertilized hens' eggs to a more efficient approach using cell cultures to produce vaccines.
Also allocated in these drug-related costs are between $1.2 billion and $1.5 billion to build a 20 million-dose stockpile of an experimental vaccine (based on the bird flu presently found in Asia), $1 billion for antiviral medicines, and $800 million to develop new flu treatments. Only $251 million is slated to go to affected nations in Asia to monitor the disease and build new laboratories.
But while the US pharmaceutical companies stand to reap billions, one of the most sinister aspects of the administration's plan calls for their protection from legal liability. In his remarks, Bush said he wants "to remove one of the greatest obstacles to domestic vaccine production--the growing burden of litigation," urging Congress to "pass liability protection for the makers of life-saving vaccines."
Administration officials have yet to clearly spell out how the drug giants would be shielded from this "growing burden of litigation," but the implications are clear: ordinary citizens suffering sickness or death as a result of the use of vaccines or flu treatments would be sharply restricted in efforts to seek legal redress for their injuries. Congress has already approved limits on the legal liability for drugs and vaccines used for bio-defense.
While details of how the money is to be doled out have yet to be released, pharmaceutical companies expressed their delight at the prospect. "It's really an encouraging step," said Dino Dina, chief executive of Dynavax Technologies of Berkeley, California, which is developing a drug to increase the effectiveness of bird-flu vaccines.
Gilead Sciences of Foster City, California, developer of the antiviral drug Tamiflu, was singled out for mention in Bush's speech. Gilead stands to make about $50 million from royalties for Tamiflu, which is manufactured by Roche.
Local and state officials, however, were less enthusiastic. The plan calls for $644 million to "ensure that all levels of government are prepared," and calls for states to buy enough antiviral medicine to treat 31 million people, with the federal government providing a 25 percent subsidy. But Trust for America's Health, an advocacy group, calculates that this amounts to an "underfunded mandate" of about $510 million.
The "National Strategy" also allots $100 million for state and local preparedness in the event of a flu pandemic. But the Bush administration's budget has already reduced funding for state and local health departments by $130 million, so the net result is a $30 million cut in funding.
Commenting on the shortfall for local health authorities, Mary Selecky, secretary of the Washington State Department of Health, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "I appreciate that the feds want to stockpile antiviral drugs and improve the work toward getting a vaccine, but we also need basic support for state and local public health departments."
The Infectious Diseases Society of America, a professional organization of disease experts, said in a statement that "significant issues remain to be resolved, including investment in state and local preparedness, (medical) surge capacity and risk communication."
There is also no funding in Bush's program to counteract the danger of an inadequate number of hospital beds in the event of a pandemic. Hospital beds have been slashed in recent years due to a combination of federal budget cuts and moves by for-profit health care corporations to boost revenues.
According to a leaked draft of the plan drawn up by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and obtained by the New York Times, in the event of a flu outbreak, hospitals would be overwhelmed, riots would engulf vaccination clinics and power and food could be in short supply.
In remarks last month, Bush seized on the threat of an avian flu pandemic to press for legislative changes to grant him de facto martial law powers in the event of an outbreak. He said that large numbers of US combat troops could be needed to "effect a quarantine."
In the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, Bush administration officials have repeatedly urged Congress to repeal or amend the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 statute that bars the use of the military for domestic policing, except under conditions of a popular insurrection.
At a news conference Wednesday on the new bird flu plan, HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt did not indicate whether the government planned on restricting travel in the event of a pandemic, but said that the departments of Homeland Security and Transportation were still considering possible scenarios and plans.
Up to now, one of the major factors contributing to the short supplies of vaccines and influenza treatments has been their limited profit potential for pharmaceutical corporations, as compared to more lucrative profits from the production of drugs for chronic conditions, such as heart disease, impotence and arthritis.
As in other aspects of social life in America, private ownership, production for profit and the anarchy of the capitalist market constitute the central obstacles to an effective and comprehensive plan to safeguard the people. In the case of the avian flu pandemic threat, millions of lives are potentially at stake. But the government's response is to treat it as a pretext for expanding the domestic use of the military and providing a new windfall for multibillion-dollar corporations.
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By Ian Sample posted 4 November 05
Using nothing more than a swab of saliva and the internet, a 15-year-old boy has tracked down his anonymous sperm donor father, according to details released today.
By sending a swab taken from the inside of his cheek for genetic testing, the teenager was able to use genealogy websites to trace his father by looking for men with a matching Y-chromosome, which is passed down the male line.
The genetic detective work has major implications for men who have donated sperm under condition of anonymity and expect their identity to remain secret for ever. The news is expected to lead to a surge of other donor children attempting to find their genetic fathers, according to experts. But the implications stretch beyond the ethical issues surrounding children hunting for their genetic fathers. The boy's ability to use publicly available genetic tests and internet searches suggests that police forces could do the same and obtain the surnames of potential suspects with DNA samples gathered from crime scenes.
The boy took the saliva sample late last year and sent it off to an online genealogy DNA-testing service called http://www.FamilyTreeDNA.com. For a fee of $289 (£163) the boy had his genetic code available for other members of the site to search. Although the boy's genetic father had never supplied his DNA to the site, after nine months the boy was contacted by two men who were on the database and whose Y-chromosome matched his own. The two men did not know each other, but shared a surname, albeit with a different spelling, and the genetic similarity of their Y-chromosomes suggested there was a 50% chance that the two men and the boy shared the same father, grandfather or great-grandfather.
The surname was the clue the boy needed. His mother had been told his father's date and place of birth and his degree subject, even though his name remained a secret. With the growing pile of information, the boy turned to another internet service, Omnitrace.com, which he used to buy information on everyone born in the same place and on the same date as his father.
Only one man had the surname he had obtained earlier, and within 10 days the teenager had made contact, amicably, with his genetic father, according to today's issue of New Scientist magazine.
"This is the first time that I know of it being done," said Bryan Sykes, a geneticist at Oxford University and chairman of OxfordAncestors.com, a company that offers genetic testing for ancestry research. "Fifteen years ago, when the father donated his sperm, nobody in the world could have known this would be possible." The news is likely to be unsettling for men who have donated sperm in countries where anonymity is still commonplace, such as the US.
"Sperm banks are recruiting donors and promising them anonymity. I don't think that's a valid promise any more," said Wendy Kramer, founder of http://www.DonorSiblingRegistry.com a web-based service that matches donor children with their siblings. Dr Sykes added that his own company was now considering allowing its own databases to be used by children seeking their donor fathers.
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By Eric Allison posted 4 November 05
UK: Prison officers should play a greater role in the education of inmates to prevent reoffending, says an academic report published today. The report marks the first time that uniformed staff, who normally have little involvement in prisoner education, have been consulted at length.
The government spent £122m on prison education last year to try to cut reoffending rates. But more than half of the prison population of almost 78,000 people still have a reading age of 11 or below.
The prison service contracts out education al work to public and private sector providers. But the report, called Wings of Learning, from the centre for crime and justice studies at King's College London, found these organisations lacked experience and had a high staff turnover, and that there was a wide gulf between "old and new guard" prison staff.
The Learning and Skills Council now runs education in jail. The report says that confusion caused by several changes in organisations running education services has worried staff and managers.
It also shows that just 20% of the staff are women and only 4.12% of officers are from black or ethnic minority groups. While most staff say their job begins and ends with security, others claim they have utilised their talents and qualifications. Phil Wheatley, the director general of the prison service, said the report was helpful in "giving a voice ... to frontline staff".
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