Senate adds $289 million in supplemental funding for avian flu

The Senate voted Wednesday to add $289 million to establish a compensation fund for victims of experimental vaccines and other products designed to combat possible pandemics such as avian flu.

The 53-46 vote was another setback for fiscal conservatives on a still-growing $109 billion fiscal 2006 emergency supplemental spending bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. President Bush has threatened to veto the measure if it emerges from a House-Senate conference greater than $94.5 billion.

Both the Bush request and the Senate bill, moving toward passage Thursday, back $2.3 billion for avian flu countermeasures, on top of $3.8 billion included in the fiscal 2006 Defense spending bill to begin implementing Bush's pandemic flu preparedness plan.

Last year's Defense bill also contained liability protections for pharmaceutical manufacturers developing vaccines to combat the deadly flu virus, at the behest of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., after the conference report had been signed.

They argued the liability protections were needed to spur development of anti-viral drugs. But critics were rebuffed in their efforts to establish a compensation program for victims of experimental drugs gone awry.

Arguing victims have no redress while drug companies are protected from lawsuits, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions ranking member Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., swayed 11 Republicans to back his amendment.

The effort coincides with the Bush administration's release Wednesday of its revised pandemic preparedness plan. The one area where the administration acted quickly, Kennedy said on the floor, was in backing Frist's liability protection amendment to the Defense bill.

"This lopsided provision gave drug companies a free pass to ignore even basic safety standards but denied nurses, doctors, firefighters and other first responders compensation if they were injured by faulty vaccines," he said.

The avian flu amendment, as well as numerous others, faces an uphill climb in conference with the House's $91.9 billion version. Conservatives have conceded defeat on the Senate floor on a series of amendments targeting provisions they regard as unnecessary to the war on terror or hurricane relief.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has withdrawn most of his amendments, including one to strike $11.3 million for flood protection in Sacramento, Calif. The Bush pandemic flu plan urged local and state governments to make preparations for a potential outbreak and not wait for a federal bailout. The plan adds detail to the outline the White House unveiled last fall for readying for a possible outbreak of the avian flu.

The plan lays out specifics steps the government could take to slow the spread of the potentially deadly virus, including a ban on travel and deploying a stockpile of drugs to affected areas. The report also underscores the effect a flu outbreak would have on the economy, noting that as much as 40 percent of workers might stay home for as long as two weeks.

Kennedy dismissed the report for not detailing how it would work, including how vaccines would be distributed. "A flu plan that doesn't say how to distribute vaccine is about as useful as a hurricane plan that doesn't say how to rescue people from a flood," he said.