6 NATURE MEDICINE • VOLUME 8 • NUMBER 1 • JANUARY 2002

NEWS

Prompted by the recent anthrax scarein the US, the Bush administration isto enhance bioterrorism research pro-grams at the National Institute ofAllergy and Infectious Diseases(NIAID).

The initiative arose, in part, from “arecent outpouring of ideas from con-cerned academic and industrial scien-tists on ways to combat potentialagents of bioterrorism,” Health andHuman Services secretary, TommyThompson, said in a statement, addingthat the intention is for the NIAID tobe able to put many of those new ideasinto practice.

NIAID director, Anthony Fauci (seepage 10), says, “Our offices have beendeluged with calls from scientists whowant to help. At scientific meetingsand conferences I am often approachedby researchers with promising ideasand a desire to contribute to the fightagainst bioterrorism.”

NIAID is the main beneficiary ofNational Institutes of Health (NIH)funding for bioterrorism and in FY01received $36 million for this area of in-vestigation from the total $47 millionthat NIH earmarked for bioterrorism.Prior to 11 September, the President’sFY02 budget requested an increase to$93 million for NIH bioterrorism re-search, of which $81.6 million wouldgo to the NIAID. Those sums are nowexpected to rise further as a result ofthe terrorist attacks.

Among the areas outlined in the newinitiative are increased research into‘high-priority Category A’ biologicaldiseases, such as anthrax, botulism,plague, smallpox, tularemia and viralhemorrhagic fevers. More research intoanthrax vaccines, including what theNIAID views as one of the mostpromising types, a recombinant pro-tective antigen vaccine. Increased re-search into drug development anddiagnostics for bioterrorism pathogens,and more technology grants to enablescientists to either purchase new ge-netic sequencing equipment or to col-laborate with other scientists who havethe technology.

At the heart of many of the programsis a drive to encourage partner-ships between academia and pharma-ceutical and biotechnology companies.A quicker response to funding applica-

tions for bioterrorism research is alsopromised. The NIAID hopes to reduce decision-making time from the current9 or 10 months to 6 months after it receives the application. A web page

listing new bioterrorism research funding opportunities can be seen at http://www.niaid.nih.gov/dmid/bioterrorism/.Marlene Cimons, Washington, D.C.

Plans to step up bioterrorism research via the NIH…

US government laboratories specializingin infectious disease research are operat-ing on heightened alert in the wake ofthe anthrax attacks. In the midst of thisraised awareness, the country’s SurgeonGeneral, David Satcher, has castigatedworking conditions at America’s princi-pal public health agency, the Centersfor Disease Control and Prevention(CDC).

At a press briefing in Boston lastmonth, Satcher—who was himself director of the CDC from 1993 to1998—said the nation should be“ashamed” of the CDC’s out-of-date and poorly equipped labs and that theentire public health system urgentlyneeds the major infusion of cash thatwould be forthcoming from a 15November bill introduced by SenatorsEdward Kennedy (Massachusetts-D) andBill Frist (Tennesse-R).

As if to emphasize the material prob-lems facing CDC researchers, a powerfailure put its main lab in Atlanta out ofcommission for 15 hours in the earlydays of the anthrax scare, and on 5December it was claimed that confirma-tory diagnoses of new cases of West Nilevirus were suspended because the CDCwas over-stretched with anthrax testing.

The CDC is at the center of a web offederal public health agencies. C.J.Peters, former Head of the SpecialPathogens Branch at the CDC and nowdirector of a new Bioterrorism Instituteat the University of Texas MedicalBranch in Galveston, says, “In the caseof anthrax, the patient diagnostic sam-

ples, nose and environmental swabsshould have been sent to [other labora-tories]. Only the most important agents,such as the spore powder, should havebeen tested by CDC.”

Peters says that one reason the workwas not triaged out is that, “State healthdepartments are under-equipped, andwe as a nation are not ready to deal withbioterrorism.” CDC spokesperson LisaSwenarski insists that only one WestNile sample was delayed and this did notaffect the patient’s treatment.

Of the CDC’s $4.1 billion FY01 bud-get, $182 million is assigned to bioter-rorism research. HIV/AIDS andtuberculosis tops the list with $1 billionin funding. The Kennedy–Frist bill(Bioterrorism Preparedness Act of 2001(S 1715)) would provide $3.2 billion tofund a variety of measures related to ter-rorism, including food protection,transportation and vaccine production.In addition, it proposes to increasefunding for state and local public healthagencies by $50 million to $420 mil-lion.

Richard Feachem, director of theInstitute for Global Health, a joint insti-tute of UC Berkeley, UC San Franciscoand Stanford University, commentsthat even though the CDC is “the envyof the world” in terms of public healthinstitutions, it mirrors the imbalance inpublic health funding worldwide: totalhealthcare in the US costs $1.3 trillionyet the CDC’s $4 billion budget is only aminuscule proportion of that.

Potter Wickware, San Francisco

…and at the CDC

Faculty demands AIDS drugs for allSouth African medical education lead-ers have broken their silence and is-sued a public statement directlyattacking their government’s policy onAIDS. In the statement, released earlyDecember, the Faculty of HealthSciences at the University of

Witwatersrand (UW) in Johannesburgcalled on the government to acknowl-edge that HIV causes AIDS and imme-diately enact measures to respond tothe crisis. South African universitieshave not undertaken such a public rolein protesting government policy since

©20

02 N

atu

re P

ub

lish

ing

Gro

up

h

ttp

://m

edic

ine.

nat

ure

.co

m