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Archives | (May 2001)
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The Anthrax Vaccine: Making Our Soldiers Guinea Pigs Part One (cont.)
------------------------------------------------------------------ Page 5 of 6 The El-Hibris (Fuad and his father) set up I & F Holdings to purchase Porton Products Ltd., a British company that marketed various vaccines against biologic agents. They immediately began selling large quantities of anthrax vaccine and botulinum Type A vaccine to the Saudis. With the acquisition of the Institute, I & F Holdings had an effective worldwide monopoly on the anthrax vaccine. Defense experts suggest that the Pentagon would never have approved the purchase of a facility that was the sole producer of a product deemed vital to national security to a company controlled by a foreign national, so Crowe’s ownership position was critical to the sale. His share in the venture, combined with that of Mrs. El-Hibiri, who is also is a U.S. citizen meant that over 50 percent of BioPort was owned by American nationals. The fact that Mrs. El-Hibri’s husband was a foreign national with strong ties to the Middle East apparently didn’t occur to the DOD screeners. Citizenship wasn’t all that Crowe brought to the table. Just one month after the sale was completed the Pentagon granted BioPort a $29 million contract to produce, bottle and store anthrax vaccine. But that wasn’t all. The Pentagon also agreed to provide the $15 million for renovations the FDA wanted made to the plant. Moreover, experts familiar with the Pentagon’s plans concerning the vaccine estimated that over time the contract could be worth as much as $300 million. It all the earmarks of a sweetheart deal – and then another shoe dropped. Representative Brewer, still not satisfied with the purchase price filed suit to block the sale. In the course of his suit it was revealed that there was another group of investors involved in the sale: the two state employees who had been overseeing the bidding process! They wound up with a 32 percent stake in the new venture, but that’s not all. The details of the sale were remarkable. To begin with, the State itself provided much of the funding for the purchase through low-interest loans. Not only that, but a substantial portion of the purchase was to be paid for “in-kind” by providing various vaccines and other biologic products. In the end, BioPort only had to come up with $3.25 million in cash for their $25 million purchase! Over the next few years, however, the federal government’s largesse made the State seem like a piker. |
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