A senior federal scientist who oversaw the project said she sought authority to allow advance payment to VaxGen to help it work through the difficulties. Top administration officials blocked her requests, she said.
Finally, a year ago, officials canceled VaxGen's contract, all but capsizing the company.
Emergent, meanwhile, has won federal contracts worth at least $642 million for the old vaccine and is in line to win many millions more as the government expands the strategic stockpile.
Kimberly B. Root, a spokeswoman for Emergent (formerly BioPort Corp.), said the company's lobbying ultimately served the national interest.
"Had we just thrown up our hands, what position would we be in now?" Root asked. "Where would the government be? There wouldn't be, potentially, a vaccine in the stockpile."
Bill Hall, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said VaxGen's "poor performance" sealed its fate. In canceling the contract, Hall said, officials acted "as effective custodians of government finances."
Yet Dr. Philip K. Russell, a vaccinologist and retired Army general who was a senior biodefense official in the Bush administration, described the outcome as "a big, dramatic failure."
"National security took a back seat to politics and the power of lawyers and lobbyists," said Russell, who supported the decision to award VaxGen the contract.
If officials had granted the company a bit more time, Russell said, it would likely have solved its scientific problem and delivered a superior vaccine. He noted that setbacks are common in developing vaccines and said VaxGen appeared capable of overcoming this one.
"It wasn't an insurmountable problem," said Russell, who after leaving the government did not lobby for or advise either of the competing vaccine companies. "It was a solvable problem."
Effort to contain threats
On the Sunday night after Sept. 11, 2001, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson convened an urgent meeting of health officials and leading scientists.
"Tommy Thompson was really, really concerned that something could happen," recalled Dr. Donald A. "D.A." Henderson, a former World Health Organization physician who led successful efforts to eradicate smallpox. "There was intelligence information coming through and some chatter coming through, suggesting there was going to be a second event, that the second event could very likely be a biologic event.
