Dodd Flu Pork Puts Vaccine Development in Hands of Financially Risky Firm

With great fanfare, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) announced that a Connecticut-based company named Protein Sciences Corporation had been awarded a $34.5 million contract from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services with the potential of it being extended to five years at a total cost of $147 million to produce influenza vaccines.

At first blush, one can read this as an elected official simply bringing home the bacon and helping a local company. As with a lot of different issues related to Dodd, there is more than meets the eye.

Protein Sciences Corporation is a company that has been in a very precarious financial state for some time. In fact, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) filed a complaint against Protein Sciences Corporation for making numerous misrepresentations when it negotiated and received $1 million from GSK. The complaint against Protein Sciences, which NowHampshire.com has obtained a copy of, accuses Protein Sciences Corp of, “fraudulent misrepresentation to make payment for the right to conduct due diligence on and negotiate a transaction regarding FluBlok; breach of duty of good faith and fair dealing.”

Dodd’s press release says, “I am pleased that the Department of Health and Human Services has finalized their contract with Protein Sciences Corporation. This major investment in a Connecticut company by the Federal government will create jobs and protect the public health.”

What Dodd doesn’t mention is that a company with serious financial liabilities may represent a huge risk to the American people if it proves incapable of producing a viable flu vaccine. This is not the first time Dodd has been at the helm of a ship pointed in the wrong direction. It is difficult to forget the central role he played in the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae scandals that resulted in billions of dollars in taxpayer bail outs and immeasurable damage to the housing industry and our economy.

Dodd’s strong support for the Protein Sciences Corporation should lead to serious questions about how the company received the contract considering its financial troubles, and more importantly, whether this huge investment is simply the government dropping more taxpayer money into another distressed company that won’t be able to produce.

Only difference, this time, our lives and those of children could be at risk.