Bioterror Busters Turn to N.Y. Team to Fight Smallpox
Source: The New York Post
December 31,2000
DEBUGGING: Dr. Vincent Fischetti of Rockefeller University leads the search for a smallpox cure.
The Pentagon has commissioned a group of New York
scientists to develop drugs to treat smallpox in the wake of reports
that the deadly virus could emerge as the weapon of choice for
bioterrorists. A team of scientists at Rockefeller University - in
conjunction with SIGA Technologies Inc., a Manhattan-based
biotechnology firm - is working on a new class of drugs to counter the
possible devastating spread of smallpox,
The Post has learned.
Scientists and bio-warfare experts warn that the United
States is totally unprepared for a smallpox attack because the
disease - which spreads through the air with a 30 percent mortality
rate - was believed to have been eradicated in 1980 and there are few
stockpiles of vaccines left and no medicine to treat the virus.
Dr. Vincent Fischetti, head of Bacterial Pathogenesis
and Immunology at Rockefeller University and one of two scientists
heading the search for a smallpox cure, says the disease is an
especially dangerous weapon since it’s "simple to grow" and can spread
rapidly.
"If you had a smallpox virus attached to the bomb that
went off at the [1996] Olympics in Atlanta, you would have had a
global catastrophe because all those people from all over the world
who were there would have gone home and spread the disease very
rapidly," he said.
In recent Congressional testimony, top Pentagon
officials said intelligence reports indicate that 10 countries -
including Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea and Syria - have been
developing biological weapons to spread diseases like anthrax, the
plague and smallpox.
Dr. Donald Henderson, director for the Center for
Civilian Biodefense Studies at Johns Hopkins University, considers
smallpox "the most serious bioterrorist threat to the civilian
population."
In a recent report he noted that "its destructive
potential today is far greater than at any time in history.
"A spreading, highly lethal epidemic in an essentially
unprotected population, with limited supplies of vaccine, no
therapeutic drugs and with shortages of beds suitable for patient
isolation, is an ominous specter," he said.
Other recent studies, including one by the
Washington-based Henry Stimson Center, indicate that some scientists
believe the threat is being exaggerated.
They point out that even if terrorists do possess
germ-warfare agents, turning them into weapons is an extremely complex
undertaking.
But the U.S. government is taking the threat very
seriously - investing more than $1 million to prevent a smallpox
attack, which the Russians have conceded they were aiming for years
ago.
The Centers for Disease Control this year let out
contracts to pharmaceutical firms to mass-produce 40 million doses of
smallpox vaccine.
Fischetti’s group has received a total of $1.4 million
in grants from the Pentagon and the Department of Health and Human
Services to develop drugs to treat the virus.
In conjunction with a SIGA team at Oregon State
University headed by Dr. Dennis Hruby, Fischetti said he is working on
the development of anti-viral compounds similar to the combination of
drugs that slows down the AIDS virus.
Fischetti said he does not know how soon his work will
produce results.
"The technology is there," he said hopefully.
A separate project to develop a decontaminant spray that
sends healing agents through the body’s mucus system is also being
developed by the two SIGA teams.
by Niles Lathem
http://www.nypostonline.com/news/20069.htm
- NYP: Michael Norcia