Sylvester Turner: “To win the war on terror, we must do everything we can to protect the American people from the threat posed by…”

“To win the war on terror, we must do everything we can to protect the American people from the threat posed by terrorists using weapons of mass destruction. We know that our forces in Afghanistan uncovered plans by al Qaeda to engage in bioterrorism. We know from recent arrests in Europe that terrorist groups have the means and the will to carry out such attacks. It is without question that bioterrorism is a clear and present danger to the American people, perhaps one of our greatest threats. In response to this threat, the administration is proposing this legislation, commonly known as Project BioShield. This bill is a first step toward ensuring that we protect Americans from the horror of bioterrorism. The purpose of the BioShield legislation is to provide incentives to private companies to produce the medicines, the vaccines, the antidotes we need to counter a biological attack. Quite frankly, this concept is an experiment, a grand experiment, but no less an experiment. We do not know if the incentives will drive our pharmaceutical industry to invest the resources needed to truly prepare our country for the full range of possible biological attacks.”