Lilly funding government program to help fight bioterrorism
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Posted 8:47AM on Sunday, March 24, 2002
INDIANAPOLIS - Eli Lilly and Co. will fund a government program to help scientists from other countries fight bioterrorism and the natural spread of infectious diseases. <br>
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Twenty-eight visiting scientists will train in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention laboratories with U.S. researchers so they can better respond to outbreaks. <br>
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Overseeing the effort will be the National Foundation for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an arm of the federal agency that forges partnerships outside government. The CDC has a similar program for U.S. scientists. <br>
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``The CDC has wanted for many years to have the same program internationally,'' said C. Charles Stokes, the CDC foundation's president and chief executive. ``But it just hasn't had the funding to do it, and it isn't the kind of thing Congress would use taxpayer money to fund.'' <br>
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Lilly, an Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical maker, is providing $2 million for the program over four years. It planned to announce the effort in Atlanta at Sunday's opening of the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases. <br>
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Kei Koizumi, an analyst at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., said $2 million is a ``drop in the bucket'' in the federal government's counter-terorrism program. <br>
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But Koizumi called it ``a well-targeted program that could address a real need.'' <br>
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Dr. Gail Cassell, Lilly's vice president of infectious diseases, said the World Health Organization is beginning a similar program that focuses on training scientists from developing nations.