Obama Small Pox Deal: Another Half-Billion Crony Capitalism Waste Of Taxpayer Dollars

This might be a little surprising for a few of you but during the past year the Obama administration was pushing a small-pox vaccine giving it $433-million dollars of taxpayer money even though there is doubt about whether the vaccine will work. The administration awarded the contract on a no-bid basis, to Siga Technologies Inc., whose controlling shareholder is billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, one of the world's richest men and a longtime Democratic Party donor. Perelman is most famous for his ownership of Revlon (he also almost killed Marvel Comics).

Perelman even gave $50,000 to fund Obama's inaugural bash!


Now before you comment that the Obama Administration was doing a little hanky-panky allow me to add fuel to the fire, according to the LA Times (no bastion of conservative thought)

When Siga complained that contracting specialists at the Department of Health and Human Services were resisting the company's financial demands, senior officials replaced the government's lead negotiator for the deal, interviews and documents show.

When Siga was in danger of losing its grip on the contract a year ago, the officials blocked other firms from competing.

Siga was awarded the final contract in May through a "sole-source" procurement in which it was the only company asked to submit a proposal. The contract calls for Siga to deliver 1.7 million doses of the drug for the nation's biodefense stockpile. The price of approximately $255 per dose is well above what the government's specialists had earlier said was reasonable, according to internal documents and interviews.

The Siga drug is for people who have been diagnosed with small pox too late to use the vaccine to be effective. Because of the PC restrictions against testing on animals.

The government's pursuit of Siga's product raises the question: Should the U.S. buy an unproven drug for such a nebulous threat?

We’ve got a vaccine that I hope we never have to use — how much more do we need?” — Dr. Donald A. Henderson

"We've got a vaccine that I hope we never have to use — how much more do we need?" said Dr. Donald A. "D.A." Henderson, the epidemiologist who led the global eradication of smallpox for the World Health Organization and later helped organize U.S. biodefense efforts under President George W. Bush. "The bottom line is, we've got a limited amount of money."

Dr. Thomas M. Mack, an epidemiologist at USC's Keck School of Medicine, battled smallpox outbreaks in Pakistan and has advised the Food and Drug Administration on the virus. He called the plan to stockpile Siga's drug "a waste of time and a waste of money."

The Solyndra scandal cost at least a half-billion tax-payer dollars, keep an eye on this story because it looks like another half-billion of wasted tax dollars thanks to crony capitalism. Didn't Obama promise to clean up Washington? Maybe it was a typo, maybe he meant to say he was going to clean up IN Washington.