Bush signs bill with $4.3 billion for vaccines, tightening security

WASHINGTON -- President Bush signed bioterrorism legislation Wednesday that devotes $4.3 billion to stockpiling vaccines, improving food inspections and boosting security for water systems, calling it his "urgent duty" to prevent germ warfare.\nIn a Rose Garden ceremony with the bill's sponsors, Bush said last fall's anthrax attacks were a wake-up call for the federal government. \n"We must be better prepared to prevent, identify and respond (to bioterrorism threats)," he said.\nThe measure, passed overwhelmingly by Congress, became law as Bush pressed lawmakers to create a new Homeland Security Department.\nDespite grumbling from Congress, Bush said his proposal is the best way "to make sure that we have an effective response to the enemy that still wants to hit America. This bill ... is part of the process of doing our duty to protect innocent Americans from an enemy who hates America."\nTom Ridge, the White House director of domestic security, was to brief the entire House membership later Wednesday on the proposal and follow up with senators Thursday. The closed-door sessions are intended to answer a growing number of questions about issues such as sharing of intelligence and the projected costs of transition.\nBush met for the first time with his new advisory council on homeland defense, a group that includes former FBI Director William Webster and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., and pledged to rally the American public behind his proposal.\n"I'm going to take my case beyond Washington to the real influence-peddlers," Bush said one day after promoting his plan in Missouri.\nCongress has been working on the bioterrorism bill since September's attacks on New York and Washington and accelerated the process after suffering a bioterrorism attack.\nMail service to Capitol Hill was stopped for six weeks after anthrax-contaminated letters were discovered in October. Five people, including two postal workers, died from anthrax. New scares have occurred recently at the Federal Reserve and World Bank. Nobody has been arrested in the case, though investigators suspect the terrorist is from the United States.\n"Terrorist groups seek biological weapons. We know some rogue states already have them. It is important that we confront these real threats to our country and prepare for future emergencies," Bush said. "Protecting our citizens against bioterrorism is an urgent duty of America."\nThe bioterrorism bill would spend $640 million to produce and stockpile smallpox vaccines for vast numbers of Americans should terrorists reintroduce the eradicated disease. The measure also would expand availability of potassium iodide for communities near nuclear plants to treat radiation poisoning in case of terrorist attack.\nThe bill also would pump more money into the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile, secret stashes of medicine at locations throughout the United States.\nIt would provide $1.6 billion in grants to states for hospital preparedness and assessments of the vulnerability of local water systems.