HHS Seeks Birth Control... For Deer

    These days, mentioning birth control and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the same sentence will likely draw some strong reactions. But a recent contractor inquiry by HHS for its National Institutes of Health (NIH) campus in Bethesda, Maryland adds a new wrinkle. This time, the focus is on deer.
     The NIH site in Maryland is a 500-acre research facility, fully enclosed with a nine-foot perimeter fence and access gates. Lately, the campus has been, relatively speaking, overrun with deer; in this case, overrun means an estimated population of thirty to forty. A Youtube video taken earlier this year on the campus near the access gates illustrates the dilemma in which NIH finds itself:

    As the video shows and the documents say, "[t]he campus is densely developed with few remaining open spaces suitable as deer habitat.  The property is surrounded by high density residential and commercial development."  After mentioning that hunting has never been permitted on campus, the HHS document deadpans that "there are no non-human predators present that are capable of limiting a deer population," a fact for which NIH employees are no doubt grateful. So now that the deer population has reached "a level that is incompatible with some local land uses," NIH is seeking a solution and seems to have settled upon birth control: specifically, ovariectomies.
    Apparently thinking long-term, NIH is not looking for a contractor simply to perform the initial work, but one that can train NIH veterinary staff to perform the operations in the future:

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), Office of Research Services (ORS), within the Office of the Director (OD) has a requirement to provide the NIH with wildlife expertise for the control of the deer population on the Bethesda Campus.  The contractor will perform ovariectomies on adult female deer, provide tagging and provide expert advice for humanely controlling the deer population.   Additionally, the contractor will provide training of NIH veterinary staff in the performance of ovariectomies in deer.

    The NIH plan includes using tranquilizer darts to catch an appropriate number of does to sufficiently regulate the size of the deer population. After the operations, the does will be monitored for infection and treated for pain as well before being released. And although hunting is still forbidden on campus, NIH is taking no chances. One of the requirements of the contract is that "[a]ll ovariectomized animals will be fitted with livestock ear tags labeled 'Do Not Consume'."

Note: A version of this post first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

Defense Dept. to Spend Up to $4B for R&D on Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction

    A Request For Information by the defense department's Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) in July 2011 culminated this month in contract awards to seven different companies worth up to $4 billion over the next ten years.  The contract awards, posted in a notice entitled Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction Research and Technology Development, went to some well known defense contractors including Raytheon and Northrop Grumman.  Despite the $4 billion ceiling, the contracts come with a guaranteed minimum of only $100,000 for each of the seven companies as the work will be parceled out on an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) basis, which is typical in these types of projects.
    The documents with the original Request For Information give the background on the project:

The mission of the DTRA Research and Development (RD) Enterprise is to reduce national defense and homeland security WMD threats by conducting innovative research and development supporting the nation's WMD-related counterforce, consequence assessment, defeat and arms control objectives. Potential WMD threats include Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and High Explosive (CBRNE) materials. In support of this mission, the RD Enterprise is seeking a multiple-source capability for performing research, technology development; technical, scientific and program analyses; and systems integration efforts that will provide scientific and technological solutions to meet the Department of Defense’s nonproliferation, counterproliferation, consequence management and warfighter mission objectives.

    The process stretched over more than two years and included various briefing, an Industry Day for potential contract recipients, and dozen of revisions and amendments.  And the Defense Department is not through.  Just a day after the awards were released, the DTRA announced another Industry Day as part of its "market research" entitled "Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Situational Awareness,Intelligence, Operations, and Data Visualization Support" to be held December 17 in Arlington, VA.


Note: A version of this article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.

W.H. Touts $30 Million Award for Technology that Led to 3D Gun

    Just this week, news broke that the "world’s first entirely 3D-printed gun" was successfully built and test-fired by an engineer in Texas.  The technology involves a special printer that uses melted polymers to generate plastic components for a variety of uses, now including working firearms.  Today, in a press release announcing a $200 million program for a "Competition for Three New Manufacturing Innovation Institutes," the White House also touted a $30 million award in a similar competition in August 2012 for the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute.  President Obama mentioned the new institute in his February State of the Union speech.  The purpose of the institute is to help develop the very 3D technology used to produce the newly revealed 3D gun:

Pilot Institute 

In August 2012, the Administration announced the winner of an initial $30 million Federal award to create a pilot institute, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII).  Headquartered in Youngstown, Ohio, NAMII consists of a consortium of manufacturing firms, universities, community colleges, and non-profit organizations primarily from the Ohio-Pennsylvania-West Virginia ‘Tech Belt’.  NAMII was selected from amongst twelve teams from around the country that applied for the award.  The members of NAMII will co-invest $40 million against the initial Federal award.  

Additive manufacturing, often referred to as 3D printing, is a new way of making products and components from a digital model, and will have implications in a wide range of industries including defense, aerospace, automotive, and metals manufacturing. Like an office printer that puts 2D digital files on a piece of paper, a 3D printer creates components by depositing thin layers of material one after another using a digital blueprint until the exact component required has been created. The Department of Defense envisions customizing parts on site for operational systems that would otherwise be expensive to make or ship. The Department of Energy anticipates that additive processes would be able to save more than 50% energy use compared to today’s ‘subtractive’ manufacturing processes.

    This announcement comes in the midst of the ongoing gun-control debate led by the White House and spearheaded by Vice President Joe Biden.  Some lawmakers, including New York Senator Chuck Schumer, have already called for legislation to ban the plastic guns and regulate the technology involved.  Rep. Steve Israel, D-NY, renewed a call to pass his recently introduced Undetectable Firearms Modernization Act which renews the current ban on undetectable weapons that expires this year.


Note: This article first appeared at The Weekly Standard.