The Department of Defense had strict systems in place to ensure compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention. Those restrictions limited the Pentagon’s freedom to undertake new research programs, particularly those referred to as “the leading edge of biodefense.” Cheney’s response, recalls Professor Richard Ebright, “was to transfer this research from the Department of Defense to the National Institutes of Health, specifically to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). By about 2004, this transfer was complete, and NIAID had been transformed into an arm of the
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