malice, weaponised microbes.
‘These agents are cheap and easy to obtain and their culturing and growth is well within the scope of the average hospital lab technician. A garage in the suburbs could harbour enough biological mayhem to wipe out an entire city. Keeping tabs on nuclear weapon facilities is child’s play in comparison to monitoring garden sheds. We cannot hope to detect and head off every threat, so where does that leave us?’
Williams looked up from his notes and paused for a moment before saying, ‘We have to take action before the threat becomes reality. Acquired immunity is the key to our survival in this war and, in practical terms, that means vaccination. We need vaccines to protect our people against these agents and we need them quickly but the fact is — and this is the reason you are here — we either do not have these vaccines or we do not have the capacity to produce them in the quantities required.’
Williams looked around the room. ‘I can see you are all thinking we just step up research and production facilities and everything will be fine. If only it were that simple. Vaccine development and production in western civilisation is the province of the pharmaceutical industry and, rather than increase development and production because of the threat… they are currently scaling it down.’
This time a hubbub broke out in the room and Williams had to wait until it had subsided. ‘Top level talks in the past week between the UK and US governments and major pharmaceutical companies on both sides of the Atlantic have broken down without agreement. Even personal appeals from the Prime Minister and the President of the United States have failed to convince the industry that their vaccine programmes should be accelerated and expanded as a matter of extreme urgency. In short, they have declined to cooperate.’
‘But why?’
‘This is where I’m going to hand you over to my American colleague, Dr Milton Seagate from the US Defense Department. Dr Seagate is their chief analyst on health matters. He is also an ex-vice president of Schaer Sachs Pharmaceuticals.’
Seagate was a full head shorter than Williams, stocky and short-changed in the neck department. He tugged at the edges of his jacket, pulling them together in an unsuccessful effort to conceal a bulging waistline, but when he spoke the clown image gave way to a sharp, articulate delivery. ‘I believe you British might refer to my position as poacher turned gamekeeper.’
Polite laughter.
‘While it’s certainly true that I can see both sides of the argument, I am frankly of the opinion — in my gamekeeper role — that we have only ourselves to blame. Chickens are coming home to roost at an alarming rate. Thirty years ago vaccine production was a welcome and lucrative pursuit for the pharmaceutical industry. There was healthy competition among companies for supply contracts and money to be made but over the last ten years the situation has changed dramatically. Successive governments have demanded compliance with an ever-growing raft of rules and regulations. On top of that, it has become fashionable for politicians from all sides to attack pharmaceutical companies. The more cynical among us might suggest that this be for self-publicising ends, but heaven forfend.’
There was muted laughter.
‘Whatever the motivation, there is no doubting the damage these people have done. Senator Hillary Clinton’s “Vaccines for Children Program”, which introduced the prospect of a freeze on prices and the introduction of bulk purchase contracts, may have won her a round of applause from the American electorate but the end result for the drug industry was a whole bunch of vaccine producers throwing in the towel and deciding to call it a day. Senator Charles Schumer calling for government seizure of antibiotic patents from drug companies didn’t exactly build bridges either… Currently, he’s calling for the seizure of Tamiflu patents so that the US government can make its own arrangements for fighting pandemic ’flu. Can you really blame the drug companies for not wanting to play ball with politicians in an atmosphere like this?
‘Such companies have to deal with regulatory bodies who demand ever higher standards in the realm of safety testing before they will even consider letting products near the market place while regulatory bodies introduce ever tighter restrictions… and all because the public will accept nothing less than one hundred per cent safety where medicines are concerned.’
‘Quite right too,’ said someone out loud. It drew murmurs of agreement.
Seagate paused. ‘Let me tell you a story. Some years ago a vaccine was introduced against rotavirus. It unfortunately caused severe side-effects in something like 150 children worldwide. The press, of course, concentrated on these cases rather than the millions of other children the vaccine had protected with the result that, when a new vaccine against rotavirus came up for licensing some time later, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) demanded that it be tested on a minimum of 60,000 individuals over a period of ten years before they would grant a full licence. A reasonable estimate would be that six million children a year died in the interim… in order to make sure that another 150 wouldn’t suffer side-effects. Still seem like a good deal?’
There was silence in the room.
‘There is no such thing as a one hundred per cent safe vaccine, ladies and gentlemen, but Joe Public’s refusal to accept that, along with the continual assertions by politicians that pharmaceutical companies are fuelled only by greed and self-interest, has led to the situation we now find ourselves in. There are now only a tiny handful of companies left with the will and the expensive, sophisticated set-ups necessary to operate in such a restrictive environment and even these are being squeezed because of the increasing threat of legal action against them from an ever more litigious society. No one in the business wants to get involved in vaccine production any more, let alone engage in the hugely expensive development of new ones… just when we need them most.’
‘But surely, if push came to shove, governments could take over the business of vaccine production for the vaccines we already have?’ suggested Linda Meyer. ‘I’m thinking of smallpox and tuberculosis.’
‘Forget it, Doctor. Vaccine production is a highly sophisticated business demanding specialised facilities and the knowledge and expertise that is only available in companies that have been doing it for many years. Smallpox vaccine production was run down in the aftermath of the disease being declared extinct by the World Health Organisation. We didn’t know at the time that the old USSR was full of labs stocking up with the virus which, in worst case scenario, is now being made available to terrorist groups. God knows what modifications have been made to the virus by genetic engineers. Likewise, there has been no general call for vaccination against tuberculosis for many years but the disease is making a big comeback and drug-resistant strains are becoming increasingly common. We need vaccines against AIDS and pandemic ’flu but there is no concerted effort being made to develop them. We’re running out of time, ladies and gentlemen. We need vaccines and we need them now.’
Seagate sat down.
Maltby thanked Williams and Seagate. ‘I think you can now see the problem, ladies and gentlemen. We desperately need new vaccines but nobody wants to make them. This is an impasse we have to break. Current intelligence suggests that if we don’t come up with new vaccines against plague, anthrax, botulism and tuberculosis very soon, we can say goodbye to western civilisation. The Prime Minister and the President have done their level best over the past few weeks to lean on the big players in the pharmaceutical industry and persuade them to step up their development programme, but without success. These people have decided that their shareholders come first, that there is no point in investing huge sums in developing vaccines when they’re just going to get bogged down in years of trials and testing with the added “bonus” of lawyers breathing down their necks all the time. This is why we summoned you here. We need to find a way out of this mess.’
‘Couldn’t you try a softer approach?’ asked a woman whose place card proclaimed her to be a senior adviser in the Department of Health.
‘We’ve tried schmoozing them,’ said the American sitting to the right of Maltby. He was George Zimmerman, Deputy Secretary at the US Department of the Interior. He had an air of aggression about him that Coates felt might warrant the euphemistic epithet, ‘does not suffer fools gladly’.
‘We’ve mooted tax breaks and grant incentivisation but maybe these guys are making too much money already. They’re not interested. It’s a no go.’
‘I was thinking about a more… relaxed environment for the companies to operate in…’ suggested the woman.
‘If you mean relaxing the rules and regulations about trials and tests, the FDA won’t have it. The public won’t have it. There’s already a great big spotlight shining on anything to do with drug safety. Committing political suicide isn’t going to help anyone. Our anthrax vaccine is a case in point. We’ve got the goddamn vaccine but we can’t use it to protect our boys because of some goddamned court room argument that’s been going on for years.’
