| COMMENTS |
However, critics call the government's approach ad hoc and uncoordinated, involving as many as 40 different agencies and departments. "The political response in Washington has been to throw money at the problem without critical assessment of strategic needs or in-depth technical evaluation of the likelihood of success. To avoid wasting time and money, the government urgently needs "a stringent filter to separate worthwhile R&D efforts from opportunism and greed ... in the light of the feeding frenzy now under way in Washington as government laboratories, universities, and private companies seek to capitalize on their share of the new billions allocated to bioterrorism defense," Poste wrote in the May issue of Prospect, a British news and analysis magazine
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