The Stench of the COVID and Anthrax Vaccine Politics Started in Lansing, Michigan with Emergent BioSolutions

LANSING, Mich. - Dec. 27, 2021 - PRLog -- Decried as an inside deal that bilked taxpayers in 1998. The debacle essentially gave away the Michigan Biologic Products Institute, with 16 major buildings on 40 acres, most of the pediatric vaccine licenses needed for school children, and the nation's only anthrax vaccine license. The purchasers have received FOUR BILLION, $ 4,000,000,000, from Pentagon contracts since.

Why care now?

The New York Times (NYT) December 23, 2021 investigative report by Pulitzer Prize winning authors Chris Hamby and Sheryl Gay Stolberg: "BENEATH A COVID VACCINE DEBACLE, 30 YEARS OF GOVERNMENT CULPABILITY" is "why." All written from far-off Washington. This bilking debacle didn't start in "the swamp." It incubated and then metastasized right here in Lansing, Michigan over 20 years ago.

"Tuebor" - I will defend - is the Michigan seal motto. Before it's too late, voters better understand that motto, and scrutinize who they elect, so Michigan's assets don't get drained before the swamp does.

The NYT article revealed a great deal, and, at best, will accelerate changes about Emergent BioSolutions' contracts and COVID contracts generally, that are ponderously taking place through the White House and Jim Clyburn's U.S. House Committee. We hope for the best.

No names are mentioned in the NYT about Michigan's role in the "DEBACLE." It also describes the "deal," very, very charitably, as "legal." If you call massive misrepresentation "legal," then, yes. The authors interviewed Lingg Brewer, former Democratic Michigan House of Representatives member and "reviewed thousands of pages of documents" from his archives. The article also referenced him with "the move was legal, but the legislator decried it as an inside deal that bilked taxpayers."

The bilking proceeded despite Brewer's documentation that $125M was waiting in the wings for the contract's ink to dry. Post-completion, the amount quickly increased to $300M, and Emergent BioSolutions has received, on average, $200M every year since for COVID and anthrax vaccines.

The bilking included insider dealing, price-fixing, non-disclosure agreements and corresponding violations, as well as inability to perform. All documented by Brewer. Bioport/Emergent BioSolutions' inability to perform was documented by the NYT, at the time. It was determined to be "legal" and engineered by a very smart, strong, adept, and dominant Governor John Engler, valued by an indifferent CPA firm, evaluated by a complacent bureaucracy, and ratified by, with few exceptions, a boot-licking legislative majority enthralled by the Governor. Additional exceptions included Brewer and a fractious, disorganized minority who came within two votes of scuttling. It was then legally examined and passed by an ambitious Attorney General, Jennifer Granholm, who wanted to "go along to get along." It was editorially supported by the Lansing State Journal, the local paper, with eyes wide shut. Probably because they, along with Chamber of Commerce types, thought it would be a good community economic engine.

It is – and was – at horrible cost, first to Michigan taxpayers, and now federal taxpayers.  Was the lab obsolete or was it a biotech juggernaut? Was the cost worth it? Voters of the future will decide.

Lingg Brewer is a retired Democratic Michigan politician who served in the Michigan State House of Representatives from 1995-2000. He attended Michigan State University, resides in Mason, Michigan, and authored the non-fiction Dreams Gone Wrong: Peace, War, and Murder at Michigan State University in 2013.