Politics death knell for vaccine facility

Ok, here's the situation.

For five years, Canada's top virologists, engineers, and architects work tirelessly to assemble four bids to host a federally funded vaccine-manufacturing facility to help research scientists prepare vaccines for clinical trials.

As a private, not-for-profit entity, it would be open to any and all scientists, which allows promising vaccines to develop sooner. This, in turn, helps scientists prosper without having to crawl into bed with drug companies, who ration access to their facilities.

The facility makes Canada a player in the global drive to find an HIV vaccine, and cements our reputation as a leader in medical microbiology.

The facility is such a good idea it draws the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is providing $22 million of the estimated $88 million cost of construction.

And for the winning bidder, the facility represents a $20-million annual operating budget and nearly 100 highly skilled, highly paid jobs.

In review, this facility speeds development of new vaccines, boosts Canada's profile in the global HIV vaccine enterprise, provides a huge economic return to the host, and, finally, draws $22 million of support from the world's biggest philanthropist.

For those of you scoring at home, that's win, win, win, and win.

With a scenario like that within our grasp, how did Canada come off looking like such a loser?

The vaccine-manufacturing facility appears to be dead. After a lengthy delay in announcing the winning bid, the Public Health Agency of Canada was forced one week ago to admit they were pulling the plug on the project. PHAC has not publicly killed the project, but in January the agency's website carried a notice indicating the facility would not proceed, and the money was being reallocated.

Sources now believe PHAC will ultimately claim that none of the four bids -- including one from Winnipeg's International Centre for Infectious Diseases -- qualified. As a result, Ottawa and Gates will announce they are changing direction.

How could this happen? Politics is to blame, but it's not clear which kind of politics killed this project.

The first theory is that Ottawa decided to funnel the project, or the money, to Quebec's Laval University. Laval is the only one of the four bidders (ICID, University of Western Ontario and Trent University) that has not spoken publicly about its bid.

This would be tragic for local cheerleaders who believe, with good reason, that ICID won the competition, and by a wide margin. The province and prominent business leaders were told this by reliable federal sources last summer.

However, if the project has been killed outright, then another kind of politics is likely to blame.

Rumours abound that PHAC and Gates will claim this facility was no longer a priority, or, as mentioned earlier, that none of the bids qualified.

Both claims are implausible given the quality of the virology research done in Canada, and the need internationally for a facility like this. This raises the spectre that Big Pharma convinced Ottawa and Gates to abandon a plan that would divert promising new vaccines away from private-sector facilities.

There is also a local politics to consider. ICID was in large part established by Terry Duguid, a prominent Liberal and current Grit candidate in Winnipeg South, a riding held by Tory Rod Bruinooge.

ICID proponents have for some time feared the Tories would delay or even kill the project to prevent Duguid from taking credit.

Tories will vehemently deny this theory, but sources confirm that Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, Manitoba's senior government MP, is obsessed with preventing Duguid from gaining any advantage from ICID.

When Duguid resigned last year to pursue politics, his board asked him for one month's notice. However, sources confirmed Toews' office told ICID to get rid of Duguid immediately. Duguid agreed to leave his job with no notice. He has, however, continued to do contract work for ICID.

This appears to be the worst kind of patronage. ICID receives federal funding, but it is not a government agency and garners financial support from many sources. It is highly inappropriate for the Tories to force non-governmental bodies to rid themselves of NDP or Liberal supporters as a condition of receiving federal support.

So, perhaps Ottawa is trying to funnel the money to Quebec. Or maybe the Tories caved in to Big Pharma. Or perhaps they simply refused to fund an organization with Liberal ties. Whatever the reason, by pulling the plug after years of work on this project, Ottawa has only succeeded in making Canada look scientifically inept, and politically immature.

And instead of winners all round, we look like a bunch of losers.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 1, 2010 A4