ANTHRAX AND LAWYERS

摘要

In 2004 the federal government sought bids for the development and delivery of a new anthrax vaccine. As FORBES reported soon afterward (June 6, 2005), none of the big drug companies responded. The old anthrax vaccine continues to be supplied by a tiny privately held company. The $900 million contract for the new vaccine went to an equally tiny enterprise that has never successfully brought a drug to market. As the New York Times recently reported (in a front-page story remarkably similar to the earlier FORBES account), these two corporate midgets are now locked in a Lilliputian lobbying battle to see who gets to protect Americans against bacterial spores that could quite easily be used to kill millions of people.