White House Admits Lag in Bioterror Effort

From the Washington Post:

"The Bush administration acknowledged yesterday that it still lacks a strategic plan for countering bioterror threats two years after Congress created a special program and appropriated billions of dollars for the purpose, and it pledged fresh efforts to speed up and streamline the troubled Project BioShield.

Under sharp questioning on Capitol Hill from members of both parties, the administration conceded many of the criticisms that have been leveled against Project BioShield by the drug and biotechnology industries in recent months. That $5.6 billion program is meant to build an elaborate national stockpile of drugs and other measures to counter biological and radioactive weapons, but corporate executives have complained of delays, bureaucratic inertia, and other problems in the way the program is being run.

"I think what's lacking in all this is a real sense of urgency," said Rep. Anna G. Eshoo, a California Democrat representing much of Silicon Valley. "I can't help but think we are not prepared if, God forbid, any of these catastrophes were to be visited upon the United States."

While declaring that BioShield is indeed a high priority of the government, Alex M. Azar II, a deputy secretary at the Health and Human Services Department, conceded that the lack of a strategic plan has left industry guessing about the government's priorities. Corporate executives warned that they do not know what kind of research to launch, and cannot raise private money to help finance the work, without a clearer set of marching orders."

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Project BioSheild, eh? Sounds like a typical Bush administration program. Bad-ass sounding name, but with little funding, initiative, direction or leadership to back it up. Although I must say I'd rather be wasting tax dollars on the Regan-esque folly of Star Wars for Germs than spending 8 billion a day to kill Iraqi peasants.