BRADENTON – Recent revelations regarding a government contract for a controversial new smallpox vaccine have once again put the Obama administration on the defensive over questions of government handouts to Democratic political supporters. Over the last year, the White House has been aggressively pushing for a $433 million deal to buy an experimental smallpox drug, despite a lack of evidence that it is needed or would even be effective. Political ties between the manufacturer and the Democratic Party are again raising questions of improprieties and political pay for play.

Senior officials in the administration seemed to have an unusually-high level of interest in the deal and took unorthodox steps to secure the contract for Siga Technologies, a New York company owned by billionaire Ronald Perelman. Perelman, who has owned stakes in companies across the entire specturm of the business world, is one of the wealthiest men in the United States (with an estimated wealth of $12 billion) and is also a major Democratic donor, though he's also been generous with Republicans who are sensitive to his causes.

So interested was the administration in the outcome of the deal, they even went so far as to replace the government's lead negotiator for the project after Signa complained that the Department of Health and Human Services weren't meeting their financial needs. It even appears that officials blocked other firms from competing at one point, when the contract was said to be in jeopardy.

The $433 million contract was awarded to Siga in a no-bid style deal in May. It called for 1.7 million doses at $255 each, an amount that greatly exceeded what specialists had previously deemed reasonable. Smallpox has been eradicated for more than three decades and there is no documented evidence that it exists as a terrorist weapon.

What's worse, the government already owns a billion dollars worth of smallpox vaccine that could be used in such a scenario. That vaccine costs the government $3 per dose and can prevent death when administered within four days of exposure. The plan was for Siga's drug, dubbed ST-246, to be used in some unforseen scenario, treating people who were diagnosed with smallpox too late for the other vaccine to be effective – though the inability to conduct human tests for obvious reasons, leaves it less than certain whether it would even work effectively. The scandal comes on the heels of a wave of green energy contracts that were also dubious in terms of both feasibility and donor investors.

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