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http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2004_4_13.html#5182C04A
British Firm Suspends Testing on Smallpox Vaccine
A British company contracted by the United States to supply a smallpox
vaccine suspended trials today after testing volunteers began suffering
serious side-effects, the London Evening Standard reported.
The United States ordered 209 million doses of Acam2000, a chemically
produced vaccine administered by injection.
Pharmaceutical company Acambis was required to put the vaccine through
the normal tests for other drugs. Some people used in the test suffered
a serious heart condition, the Evening Standard reported. No one outside
the drug trials has received Acam2000 (Jim Armitage, London
Evening Standard, April 13).
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"With the US on high terrorist alert, it fast-tracked orders for 209
million doses of the drug from Acambis before it had been fully tested."
Now, intense monitoring has discovered that some of those used in the
test suffered a major heart condition. The drug has not been given to
anybody outside the trials.
Acambis smallpox vaccine blow
Jim Armitage, Evening Standard
13 April 2004
ACAMBIS, the Cambridge-based drugs company that supplies the US
government with smallpox vaccines to protect the population against
biological attack, today suspended trials on the medicine after finding
serious side-effects among some volunteers.
With the US on high terrorist alert, it fast-tracked orders for 209
million doses of the drug from Acambis before it had been fully tested.
Now, intense monitoring has discovered that some of those used in the
test suffered a major heart condition. The drug has not been given to
anybody outside the trials.
Acambis, headed by chief executive Gordon Cameron, is one of many drugs
companies attempting to make a safer version of the only licensed
existing vaccine, Dryvax, which has been used for generations. Despite
its efficacy, Dryvax's manufacture, from calves' bellies, is seen as
dated.
The company's Acam2000 is a chemically produced version of the vaccine
given by injection.
Acambis was one of the companies that lost out in the bidding for the
contract to provide vaccines for Britain. That deal was controversially
won by PowderJect, whose founder Paul Drayson was a major Labour Party
donor.
Smallpox was eradicated in 1971 after a worldwide Dryvax vaccination and
quarantine programme organised by the World Health Organisation.
But the threat of biological weapons use by rogue states and terror
organisations has led most first-world governments to stock up on
unlicensed vaccines to give to the public in the event of an attack.
The military and front-line medical workers vaccinated since 9/11,
considered most likely to come into contact with the disease, have been
given Dryvax from old stock.
Shares in the group fell 41 1/2p to 322 1/2p on the news.
*THE threat from terrorists has led governments around the world to rush
out orders for stockpiles of smallpox vaccines, none of which has been
fully licensed.
As part of its contract with the US, Acambis was asked to get the drug
through the normal trials required for other drugs and prove that it was
as effective as Dryvax, its predecessor.
The problems now appearing in the Phase III trials were anticipated
because heart conditions had been noticed in previous Dryvax vaccination
programmes.
It is unclear whether the findings reported today are down to the
intensive monitoring now being conducted into Acam2000 or the product
itself.
The smallpox vaccine drawn from calves' bellies was invented in the
1890s when a scientist, Edward Jenner, spotted that milkmaids were less
prone to the disease than the rest of the population.
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CIA, DIA Trade Blame Over Handling of "Curveball"
The CIA and the U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Intelligence Agency
are blaming each other for the handling of a discredited Iraqi defector
known as "Curveball," who was the main source for the Bush
administration’s allegations that prewar Iraq had mobile biological
weapons facilities, Newsweek reported this week (see
GSN, April 7).
Officials familiar with the CIA said that the DIA was in direct contact
with the German intelligence agency that managed Curveball. Defense
officials, though, said the CIA "should look in the mirror" before
blaming the Pentagon’s intelligence agency (Hosenball/Wolffe,
Newsweek, April 19).
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