Other medical bills would add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, limit medical malpractice insurance costs and make it easier for drug companies to manufacture vaccines.

"Connaught was one of the few left at the time that continued to manufacture vaccines."

Currently companies use eggs to manufacture vaccines, a slow process that can lead to contamination.

It calls for increased surveillance efforts globally to spot a pandemic early, the creation of large national stockpiles of vaccines and antiviral drugs, increased capacity within the United States to manufacture vaccines and cooperation among federal, state and local governments.

It is unclear how many, if any, poor countries can learn how to manufacture vaccines in time to mount a rapid offense.

No Manufacturing Here That will make it possible to manufacture vaccines against exotic animal infections in the United States.

His textbooks are required reading worldwide, and he allows their distribution royalty-free in developing countries, which allows companies and governments in developing countries to manufacture safe and effective drugs and vaccines at an affordable cost.

He pointed out that a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that liability concerns are not the reason that pharmaceutical manufacturers do not want to manufacture vaccines.

Dr. Cyrus S. Poonawalla is the Chairman of Poonawalla Group which includes Serum Institute of India, which is an Indian biotech company that manufactures pediatric vaccines.

Connaught, which already manufactures traditional vaccines, is now conducting the first phase of human clinical trials for a new whooping cough vaccine and is exploring others to block the form of influenza that causes croup, the respiratory infection that infects many infants.