Interview with Philip K. Russell,MD Acting Director,Office of Research and Development Coordination,Office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness,U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

After the 9/11 attacks and anthrax mailings, when American officials starkly realized that bioterrorism was no longer a hypothetical threat, they turned to a public health eminence for guidance. Dr. Philip K. Russell, whose scientific quest was inspired in junior high school by Paul de Kruif's The Microbe Hunters, knows vaccine development as well as anyone. More important for the new post, he has mastered not just the bench science, but the bureaucratic maneuvering that brings laboratory insights and clinical spadework to fruition.

In the wake of the attacks, Russell, now 72, had been enjoying a relatively peaceful period of consulting after an illustrious career in the military and academia. From 1990 to 1998, he was a Professor in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. During that decade, he also advised the Children's Vaccine Initiative and the National Vaccine Program. In 1990, Russell had retired as a Major General from the U.S. Army Medical Corps, after a stint as Commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Earlier, he had directed the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington, DC.

Just weeks after 9/11, the legendary D.A. Henderson, MD-himself lured back to government from academiaÑ called up his old friend to join him in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Together, in an effort that President George W. Bush dubbed Project BioShield in his 2003 State of the Union address, they would help build the nation's bulwark against biological weapons of mass destruction. As Anthony S. Fauci, MD, Director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Congress later that year, "The need for medical countermeasures for biodefense is exigent and real, and we have a responsibility to the American people to make these products available now." In July 2004, Congress awarded Project BioShield $5.6 billion to purchase and stockpile by 2013 next generation countermeasures against the most lethal terrorist agents.

Russell says returning to government "was a very difficult decision. I thought I had set conditions that they couldn't meet." The tactic didn't work. "D.A. called me up and said, 'We have met all your conditions.'" Eventually, Russell would manage the project's drug and vaccine acquisition arm.

Dr. Russell spoke on August 13, 2004, with Madeline Drexler, a Boston-based journalist and author of Secret Agents: The Menace of Emerging Infections.