US to buy UK anthrax vaccine?

[Guest guest]

A contact has just told me that the US government is about to place an order

for UK produced anthrax vaccine. Can anyone confirm this?

Angus

Disabled, politically sensitive and vaccine damaged Gulf Veteran

Vice chair National Gulf Veteran's and Families Association

Former Sgt with 1st Field Laboratory Unit, biological warfare detection

section Alpha

HREF= " http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/science/story.jsp?story=84057 " >http:

//news.independent.co.uk/uk/science/story.jsp?story=84057

British scientists make half a million doses of anthrax vaccine

By Steve Connor

Science Editor

18 July 2001

Britain has resumed production of an anthrax vaccine designed to protect

troops against one of the most deadly agents in the arsenal of biological

warfare.

The Ministry of Defense has received up to half a million doses of the

vaccine which will be offered voluntarily to its personnel serving in the

Persian Gulf and other regions of the world thought to be at risk of

biological attack.

Scientists at the Government's Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research

(CAMR) at Porton Down in Wiltshire have produced the vaccine using a new

£2m production facility which has taken two years to build.

Anthrax is caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis which produces spores

and toxins that can cause skin infections, fever, breathing difficulties

and toxic shock.

During the 1991 Gulf War, CAMR supplied the Ministry of Defence with enough

anthrax vaccine to inoculate tens of thousands of troops who were thought

to be at risk of biological attack from Saddam Hussein.

Military experts feared that Iraq might use anthrax bombs which spray a

fine aerosol containing enough spores to cause the pulmonary form of the

disease when inhaled.

There is a risk of pulmonary anthrax if more than about 10,000 spores are

breathed in. The symptoms can appear within two days and can eventually

kill upto 90 per cent of victims.

CAMR is thought to be one of only a few places in the world capable of

making anthrax vaccine. The West's other production facility, in the United

States, has been closed down and does not currently have a licence from the

US Food and Drug Administration.

" The facility is currently the only one anywhere in the world which is able

to manufacture a licensed vaccine against anthrax, " said a spokesman for

the centre.

CAMR grows a " disabled " strain of the bacteria in large fermenting vats and

makes the vaccine by isolating bacterial proteins that generate a

protective immune response when injected into the bloodstream.

Anthrax normally infects domestic animals, such as cattle and sheep, and is

endemic in some parts of the world, such as South and Central America,

Southern and Eastern Europe, as well as wide areas of Asia, Africa, the

Caribbean and the Middle East.

In addition to supplying the Ministry of Defence, CAMR will also produce

the vaccine for the Department of Health and veterinary organisations.

" CAMR will continue to produce the vaccine in the future to ensure that the

UK retains the capability to protect its armed forces from the threat of

this element of biological warfare. It will also continue to supply the

vaccine to meet public-health requirements, " the spokesman said.

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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT