Taxpayers Inoculated Against Wasteful Spending?

LANSING —The Engler administration is pressing ahead with plans to sell a state-owned laboratory that dates back to 1907. The Michigan Biologic Products Institute manufactures vaccines and blood products, and is the only remaining state-owned facility of its kind in the country. All other states have ended or privatized similar operations.

The highest bidder will get more than two dozen buildings, vaccine-production equipment, a colony of 80 rhesus monkeys, and hundreds of guinea pigs and mice. Currently, more than 150 salaried and hourly workers are employed at the Institute.

The administration hopes that a pharmaceutical company or a biotech firm will be interested in purchasing the facility, which by some estimates could yield the state as much as $10.5 million in a sale.