Bioterrorism preparedness plan expected this summer

Top administration officials intend to announce in June or July a comprehensive plan for defending the nation against biological warfare. Senior officials are hoping that by then they can offer enough details to reassure citizens and to guide lower-level officials, said Anna Johnson-Winegar, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for chemical and biological defense.

The plan, she said, is to include details on the availability of gas masks, the process for quarantining attack areas, the creation of a "national vaccine strategy," and an office to oversee the development of disease-fighting vaccines. One reason the details of the bio-war plan matter, according to Johnson-Winegar, is that they will help "reassure the public that we know what to do." She added that the prospect of quarantines--which would be intended to restrict fleeing people from spreading a deadly disease--is "scary to a lot of people."

The plan will be announced by Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, and Tom Ridge, the director of the Office of Homeland Security, Johnson-Winegar said. President Bush, she added, may also approve new national security directives to bolster the defense effort.

"We will be releasing a national strategy this summer," said Illa Brown, a spokeswoman for the Office of Homeland Security. Brown declined to detail the plan.

All of this is good news for Carl Feldbaum, the president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, which includes many companies and universities that would like to participate in the government-funded programs. But the industry can't move ahead unless there is a published bio-defense strategy, Feldbaum said. So far, the strategy "is not written in concrete, which is what it takes to convince outside investors" to fund initiatives.

Feldbaum met with Ridge in late April to discuss how the members of his organization might contribute to the new defense efforts, and to seek regulatory changes that might speed deployment of vaccines and other therapies to be used against biological weapons. "It was an excellent meeting.... [Ridge] fully understands the need for the Food and Drug Administration to be on board in terms of fast-tracking vaccines and therapeutics for our troops [and seeing that they] will be available for the rest of us as well," Feldbaum said.

On April 30, roughly 360 biotech-industry executives--almost twice as many as had been expected--congregated at a hotel in Arlington, Va., to hear Pentagon officials describe current plans for bio-war defense programs. The increased attention to biological threats comes in the wake of the anthrax attacks in October, which in addition to killing five people caused more than $1 billion in damages, according to Ken Alibek, president of Advanced Biosystems. Alibek developed bio-war weapons for the former Soviet Union.

Since the anthrax attacks, senior administration officials, including Ridge and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson, have prodded state and local governments to prepare response plans for biological attacks. Thompson, in January, authorized $1.1 billion for state governments, set up a national center to track attacks, approved production of an anthrax vaccine, and asked for $4.3 billion in the fiscal 2003 budget for biological defense programs. The Pentagon is also pushing ahead with plans, which include procuring up to 900 devices for identifying lethal biological attack agents.

The new national strategy should appear soon, Feldbaum said, although some elements "will be very sensitive and classified." For example, he said, the details of some contracts for developing countermeasures against certain diseases may be kept secret.