Homeland Security

DATE=11/26/02

TYPE=INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

TITLE=SOLOMON BIOTERRORISM

NUMBER=3-436

BYLINE=SUSAN YACKEE

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

INTERNET=

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HOST: President Bush says the new U-S Department of Homeland Security will increase America's ability to respond to any future attacks and prevent terrorists from taking innocent American lives. Mr. Bush has signed a bill authorizing the creation of the cabinet-level department, which was proposed after last year's September 11th terrorist attacks in the United States. In the country's biggest government reorganization since 1947, the new department will incorporate all or parts of 22 existing agencies and have 170-thousand employees and a 40-billion-dollar budget. Anne Solomon, with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has been focusing on terrorism from a Biotechnology perspective. She tells V-O-A's Susan Yackee, creation of a Homeland Security Department is an "excellent idea".:

MS. SOLOMON: The Department of Homeland Security gives us the kind of leadership focus, accountability, that we need to successfully pursue a whole range of homeland security needs, including the one that I have been working on, which is how we get the kinds of vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics we need to defend the American public from a bioterrorism attack.

MS. YACKEE: Now, you say this process is very complex.

MS. SOLOMON: Very complex.

MS. SOLOMON: First of all, there are a whole range of potential pathogens that bioterrorists could use in an attack. And although there has been a great deal of focus on smallpox and anthrax, there are other potential pathogens, like Ebola-type viruses, plague, a whole range of things, and they number up to 40 to 50 basically infectious diseases for which we don't have therapeutic drugs or vaccines.

MS. YACKEE: How unprepared are we?

MS. SOLOMON: I would say that we are significantly unprepared. As I said, for many of these pathogens, right now we do not have therapeutic drugs or vaccines. If there were an attack, the American public would be quite vulnerable.

MS. YACKEE: Do you think now we might be able to get up to speed pretty quickly?

MS. SOLOMON: No. It takes quite some time to develop these products. Just for any new drug, it requires years of research, development, and clinical trials before they can be used by the public. The research and development alone is very expensive and quite a lengthy process. The product develop, the clinical trials to test for safety, for efficacy, take years.

The usual rule of thumb estimate is that, on an average, to develop a drug and get it to market costs $500 million and could take 12 to 15 years.

HOST: Anne Soloman, senior adviser to the Center For Strategic and International Studies, in Washington.

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