The production of a second-generation smallpox vaccine has caused a political row in the UK. In mid-April, it was revealed that the British government had awarded a £32 million ($46 million) contract to Oxford-based PowderJect, a vaccine company that donated £50,000 to the Labor Party last year. In placing the contract with PowderJect, the Labor government has bypassed Cambridge-based Acambis, which is to produce 155 million doses of smallpox vaccine over the next 12 months for the US government.

Some members of Parliament are now demanding an inquiry into the PowderJect deal. In addition to determining whether there was any impropriety in awarding the contract to a company with financial links to the government, they want to know why the government has opted for a vaccine against a different strain of the virus than that selected by the US government, and why only enough doses are being made to vaccinate half of the adult population—16 million.

Government ministers insist that PowderJect is the only company that can produce doses of the vaccine quickly; however, Acambis's John Brown says, "I think it is unlikely anyone is going to be able to get a fully tested vaccine and make it available before us." PowderJect is reported to be purchasing supplies of its vaccine and the manufacturing technology from Danish biotechnology company Bavarian Nordic.