Scientists Push to Finish Botulism Vaccine

Researchers are under heavy pressure from the Pentagon to complete work on an experimental vaccine to protect soldiers against deadly botulism, an organism believed to be part of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s biological weapons arsenal, the scientists said Wednesday.

Researchers at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, in collaboration with scientists at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Frederick, Md., have been racing to develop a more effective vaccine than now available to combat an especially lethal toxin that can kill within three to eight days of exposure.

This effort comes on the heels of a recent Pentagon decision to vaccinate the nation’s military against anthrax, another germ warfare agent believed to be among those in the arsenals of U.S. foes, including Iraq.

The botulism research effort has been underway for at least three years. But in the last six months--as tensions in the Persian Gulf have again escalated--researchers said they have been urged to accelerate their pace.

“We’re under a lot of stress here; the Pentagon wants this, and they want it fast,” said professor Michael Meagher, who is leading the research team in Lincoln. “The Army has made it clear they are very eager to get this [new] vaccine in place to displace what is currently available.”

Meagher said every request for funding, equipment and personnel has been agreed to without question. Although the military operates in an era of funding cuts, “this project didn’t get cut,” he said. “Obviously, it’s a high priority for the Pentagon at this point.”

A Pentagon spokesman insisted Wednesday that, “while we want to get a vaccine developed, certainly,” the research “is not directly related to current events.”

Botulism, more commonly associated in most Americans’ minds with tainted food, is a bacterium--Clostridium botulinum--that develops only in the absence of oxygen. As the bacterium grows, it produces a toxin that is especially dangerous. “It is one of the deadliest toxins in the world,” Meagher said.

Botulism in food typically involves improperly processed home-canned foods.

The toxin afflicts the nervous system and can result in blurred or double vision, general weakness, poor reflexes, difficulty swallowing, paralysis and death by respiratory failure. In germ warfare use, the toxin can be grown under controlled conditions in a special reactor, concentrated into a bomb and dispersed into the atmosphere, where it is inhaled or ingested, Meagher said.

There are seven strains of botulism--each labeled by a letter from A through G--and scientists are working to develop a vaccine to protect against each type, with the goal of eventually combining all seven vaccines into one. “We’ve done B, and we’re working now on A,” Meagher said. “From what we understand, A is the primary strain that Saddam has.”

Despite the feverish activity, the experimental vaccines are at least six to eight months away from human testing, researchers said. They have been tested only on mice and appeared to protect them against a botulism dose, researchers said.

There is an experimental vaccine now in use known as a “toxoid” that protects against five of the botulism strains and was given to many Desert Storm soldiers, said Dr. Leonard A. Smith, chief of the army institute’s department of immunology and molecular biology.

But the vaccine, while effective, is painful when administered, can cause unpleasant side effects and its production often results in a product that is highly impure, he added.

This is probably one major reason why the Pentagon is eager for new vaccines which, because they are made through genetic engineering, would ensure purity and could be made in large quantities. “The material we are making is so clean, so pure, and appears extremely efficacious,” Smith said.

Smith also said the vaccines would not necessarily be tested on troops deployed to the Gulf or other potentially vulnerable areas, regardless of imminent military action.