DARPA and SIGA

Several leaders of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) were in town today for some meetings. I was unable to go but would loved to have asked this question:

Siga Corp. is a small pharmaceutical research and development company that has developed a new anti-viral drug, ST-246. This drug can treat people successfully if they have contracted Smallpox. There are some theoretical problems with ST-246, not the least of which it can not be tested on people because that would mean giving them Smallpox first. But there are significant lab studies, animal studies, and some real life instances where the drug has been shown to be effective and safe. The DARPA and the Defense Department have made commitments to buy and storehouse this drug.

Recently the drug has come under fire from two sources, politicians and newspapers. (Of note, Siga has long been a short target where people sell the stock and then harass it publicly to drive the stock price down.) The politicians, especially Claire McCaskill (D) and Darrell Issa (R), argue that the drug has been developed against a disease that has been eradicated and thus has no target. The newspaper attack came from the LA Times which wrote, "The government's pursuit of Siga's product raises the question: Should the U.S. buy an unproven drug for such a nebulous threat?" More ammo has arrived because of our anxiety over wealth and political convictions: Siga's controlling shareholder is billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, one of the world's richest men and a longtime Democratic Party donor.

Smallpox immunization has been remarkably successful, so much so that vaccinations are not done any more. But thinking its absence means it is no threat is naïve, especially when we know that Smallpox was the lead bioweapon developed by the Russian Biopreparate weapons lab and elaborated upon (they tried to link it to Ebola to increase its infectivity) until the Russian Communist political structure dissolved.

So my question is this: What do you think the motives of this campaign against such a reasonable and needed drug are? Is it a financial link to short-sellers, treasonous allegiance to some foreign entity or simple stupidity?