Budget cuts more than $600 million from Bioshield program

“encountered great difficulty in procuring medical countermeasures.”

“Without significant increased investment in early stage development through NIAID programs and later stage advanced research and development through the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, products cannot move along the development pipeline to be procured through Project Bioshield,” the text of the House bill states. “This investment of the Reserve Fund in NIAID is essential to jump-start Project Bioshield’s activities.”

The Senate did not propose a similar transfer to the institute. A conference agreement between the two chambers sent $304 million to the organization. It does not specify how the institute will use the money.

Meanwhile, the White House proposed transferring $305 million from the reserve fund to support advanced research and development of countermeasures, a decision conferees ultimately approved.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases conducts “basic and applied” research intended to lead to treatment or prevention of a host of “infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases” — only some of which are considered terrorism threats. The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority is then supposed to take that research to the preproduction stage for drugs and therapies for public health medical emergencies. Bioshield was stood up to purchase finished products — but only for WMD countermeasures.

The move marks the first time an administration specifically requested money be withdrawn from the Bioshield account, according to Brad Smith, a senior associate at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Biosecurity. The reserve fund is “being used as a piggy bank for other programs,” he told Global Security Newswire this week. “The government needs to be able to show that it’s got those funds available. That kind of insurance and good faith by the government … is being undermined by the constant draining of that fund for various other things.”

He noted that last summer the administration floated the idea of using the fund to finance production of the H1N1 flu vaccine. The proposal met considerable resistance from Capitol Hill and industry.

While the two programs benefiting from the latest budgetary moves are “appropriate” recipients of the money because they are related to countermeasure development “we would argue that these things be funded in their own right” and that Bioshield “shouldn’t be drained for these other priorities,” Smith said. “We’re effectively robbing Peter to pay Paul here,” he added.

Matishak writes that the administration’s intention to move money away from the reserve fund was first detailed in