Valley fever vaccine funds at risk

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http://www.bakersfield.com/local/Story/802770p-801867c.html

Valley fever vaccine funds at risk

Filed: 07/22/2001

By VIC POLLARD, Californian Sacramento Bureau

e-mail: vpollard@...

SACRAMENTO -- The quest for a valley fever vaccine may be in danger of

losing $1 million of its funding.

Legislation by Assemblyman Roy Ashburn, R-Bakersfield, to continue the

current level of state financial support for the research program has been

temporarily shelved and could become a victim of the state budget crisis.

The bill would provide $1 million for the program.

Loss of the funding would not stop the research project, but it could slow

it down, said Stanley Eugene of Cal State Bakersfield, which is

coordinating the research.

With full funding, he said he believes the program will produce a vaccine to

prevent the disease in four or five years.

Valley fever is a regional disease that afflicts people in Central

California, Arizona and Mexico. Because the potential market is so limited,

major pharmaceutical firms have not conducted the costly research necessary

to find a vaccine.

The disease, caused by mold that grows in the soil of the region, can cause

symptoms ranging from mild to severe and even cause death in vulnerable

patients.

For the past three years, under legislation authored by Ashburn, the

Legislature and the governor have provided $1 million a year to help fund

the search for a vaccine.

That is in addition to $700,000 a year provided to the program in the budget

of the state Department of Health Services and an average of $1.2 million a

year from the California Health Care Foundation.

However, the $1-million-a-year state funding schedule expired July 1.

Ashburn tried and failed to get it reinstated in the current budget proposal

that is pending in the Legislature.

Then, he put another three years' worth of funding at that rate in a bill,

but that was cut back to $1 million by an Assembly committee.

Now, faced with an uncertain economy that has forced major budget cuts, the

Senate Appropriations Committee has shelved it along with hundreds of

millions of dollars worth of other spending proposals that will have to wait

until legislative leaders determine how much money is available in the

budget for " legislative initiatives, " as members' pet projects are often

called.

Final decisions won't be made until the Legislature returns from its summer

recess in late August.

Ashburn said it is difficult to tell what the prospects for the funding are.

" It would be better if the funding were included in the budget or one of the

(budget-related) trailer bills, " he said.

The chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Dede Alpert,

D-Coronado, declined to make a prediction.

" There's a lot of sympathy for the cause " of the valley fever research

program, she said.

But she added that the fate of the spending item may depend partly on

whether it gets support from Gov. Gray .

There was no immediate comment from the governor's office.