Ryan's District Boards

By Sharon Begley and Toni Clarke NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - All three U.S. facilities established to quickly make vaccines and therapeutics in the event of a major public health threat say they are standing by to support any U.S. government effort to scale up a treatment for Ebola. The facilities, called Centers for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing (ADM), were set up by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in partnership with private industry, to respond to pandemics or chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear threats. They have the expertise to quickly switch production lines to manufacture, for example, a smallpox vaccine if that scourge were to re-emerge, or an anthrax vaccine, and other life-saving compounds against both natural outbreaks and bioterrorism.  "They know our number and they can call us 24 hours a day," said Brett Giroir, chief executive of Texas A&M Health Science Center, site of one of the facilities.