If you thought Solyndra was bigtime corruption, wait until you read the details of the Siga scandal. David Willman of the Los Angeles Times reveals a huge no-bid contract bearing all the signs of intervention from above, that could dwarf  Solyndra.  It involves the health and safety of the American poeple, and a squandering of taxpayer resources.

The Department of Health and Human Services has signed a no-bid  contracted with Siga Technologies for as much as much as 2.8 billion dollars' worth of a high priced drug, for a terrorism threat that may not exist.  The drug's effectiveness is unknown because it cannot be tested on humans.  The threat it is intended to counter is an attack based on Smallpox (which has been eradicated and only "is known to exist only in the locked freezers of a Russian scientific institute and the U.S. government.")

A large stockpile of effective and inexpensive smallpox vaccine already exists. The new drug is intended to be used after exposure to smallpox in the event of a bioterrorism attack.

Dr. Thomas M. Mack, an epidemiologist at USC's Keck School of Medicine, battled smallpox outbreaks in Pakistan and has advised the Food and Drug Administration on the virus. He called the plan to stockpile Siga's drug "a waste of time and a waste of money."

Even if the threat were real, and the drug actually effective, the expensive (estimated $255 per dose, a price that bears no relationship at all to production cost) stockpile only has a shelf life of 38 months. If Obama is re-elected, the gravy train rolls along for another profitable round for Siga.

By coincidence, Siga is controlled by Billionaire Democrat mega-donor Ronald Perelman, who used his McAndrew & Forbes holding company to buy into the business of selling antiviral anti-bioterrorism drugs to the government.

The long and detailed saga told by Willman reveals a path strewn with political interference from above, to benefit Siga. This long piece deserves a careful read, and a call for Congressional hearings.

Add this to Fast & Furious and Solyndra, and the Obama has a hat trick of major scandals. I do believe it is time to call it the "scandal-plagued Obama administration."

Hat tip: Michael Savage