Drugs being tested to treat Ebola grew from Dick Cheney's post-9/11 biodefense measures: http://t.co/ewDNyRKIht
— Bloomberg News (@BloombergNews) October 23, 2014When George W. Bush signed the Project BioShield bill into law, he claimed Cheney "was the point man in the White House" on the legislation.◼ How Dick Cheney Joined the Fight Against Ebola Without Even Trying - Bloomberg
Thomas Geisbert spent the ’90s scraping together funds to work on an Ebola cure. Occasionally, he’d get enough to test a potential vaccine in primates, but the monkeys always died. There was just never enough money.◼ The U.S. Is Working on an Ebola Vaccine — And You Have Dick Cheney to Thank - Policy Mic
The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and Dick Cheney helped change that. Cheney, then the vice president, said he feared assaults by bioterrorists could be far more devastating than what happened that day, and became an advocate in the George W. Bush White House for the appropriation of billions of dollars to stop deadly pathogens. Congress agreed, funds began flowing to scientists like Geisbert and breakthroughs followed.
At least seven drugs now being tested -- including some used to treat Ebola victims in the U.S. -- grew from biodefense measures first approved after Sept. 11. The National Institutes of Health budget for studying potential bioterrorism agents has grown to $1.6 billion from $53 million in 2001, according to Crystal Boddie, an associate with the UPMC Center for Health Security in Baltimore, Maryland.
