Tamiflu and other 'vaccines'

Today, the New Zealand Herald has reported this:

Tamiflu is available without prescription from today until September, but it will cost flu sufferers at least $60.

A full course of the unsubsidised drug, which is available over the counter for people showing flu symptoms, is priced at between $60 and $80.

People have been trying to sell it over NZ's version of E-Bay (TradeMe) as mass hysteria begins to grip that unfortunate little isolated and insecure nation. What they are paying for, however, is not a cure or a vaccine, it is a tax. If you don't purchase any Tamiflu you will get through flu season just as well as if you do... And I must say, if this is the be all and end all of pandemics, I wouldn't be hanging out near any pharmacy as all the infected leave their beds and rush out to grab their magic beans 'over the counter.'

Tamiflu was invented by a biopharmaceutical corporation called Gilead. They own the patent rights and licence the drug to Roche, who market and distribute it. All that Gilead, and indeed Tamiflu.com, say about their drug is that it "helps" to treat and prevent both Influenza A and B. They make no remarks about pandemic strains, and certainly don't use any words like "Bird" and "Swine" when talking about their product's effectiveness.

Tamiflu has helped Gilead achieve incredible growth as an organisation. In 1999/2000, the same time that the FDA approved Tamiflu, Gilead had a stock price of little over $3 a share. Once Europe approved the drug by the end of 2002 the share price had tripled to almost $10. Bird flu scares over recent years have helped the company achieve its all time high of $57.63. Indeed, today the stock is down to $45.80 so anyone with a spare couple of grand should add this to their portfolio - it may well tip $60 by the end of this "pandemic."

But there is someting a little more fishy about Gilead and Tamiflu. Gilead was founded in 1987. From 1988, Donald H. Rumsfeld sat on Gilead's Board of Directors, and was Chairman from 1997 until he resigned in 2001 to serve the Bush Administration as Secretary of Defense. Now, personally, I think this is quite wrong - that a man who has his finger in the pie of vaccines and pharma wonder-drugs can also have another finger on the button of quite probably the most devastating biological weapons depository in the world.

I'm sure I'm being alarmist. Rumsfeld was a professional after all. He'd even had the job before. Rumsfeld had previously been the youngest ever Secretary of Defense in the Ford Administration. This from Time Magazine:
In 1976, an errant outbreak of swine flu at Fort Dix, New Jersey, caused scientists to worry about a possible pandemic, so President Gerald Ford announced that the federal government would vaccinate the entire U.S. population. Unfortunately, several hundred people developed Guillain-Barré syndrome, an illness characterized by nerve damage and paralysis, after receiving the vaccination. The Ford family tried to alleviate fears by televising their flu shots, and in the end 40 million Americans were vaccinated for a strand of influenza that only had a handful of documented cases of human infection.
(Pictured: Rumsfeld with Ford, centre, and Chief of Staff Dick Cheney, right, in 1975... wonder if they were discussing how business and politics shouldn't mix?)


Even if Rumsfeld's transition from politics to pharma-business and back to politics again has been nothing but benign, I wonder how his influence was used in convincing governments around the world to stockpile Tamiflu during a succession of Bird Flu scares while he held the position of Secretary of Defense under the Bush Administration - a time when Gilead's share price has increased six-fold.

Marketing company Roche have experienced similar growth in yearly dividend payouts over the same period, from a little over 1.00CHF in 2000 to 5.00CHF last year. Compare the following statements from annual reports as the pandemic thing lifts off (while previous Gilead Chairman Rumsfeld sits in office as Secretary of Defense, I might add)
Roche's Annual Report 2001: Sales of Tamiflu increased 58% to 97 million Swiss francs in 2001. Despite modest sales, attributed to last year's mild flu season, the product has established itself as the market leader. Annual Report 2005: Sales of Tamiflu rose to 1.6 billion Swiss francs. Over 60 countries have now placed orders of pandemic stocks of Tamiflu. Roche will be able to produce over 300 million treatments annually by 2007. Annual Report 2007: Sales rose to 2.2 billion Swiss francs. Roche have the capacity to produce 400 million treatments if required.

By 2008 sales had dropped off dramatically as governments had all the stockpiles needed. This, however, begs the question: if Roche can produce 400 million treatments, and governments are sitting on stockpiles with 7 year shelf lives, what's the best way to get production and sales moving again? A viable answer would be another pandemic scare, like the Bird Flu scare that was so profitable between 2005-2007. Stockpiles will be spent, sales go up and stockpile replishments needed. Really, I suggest you invest in Roche shares right now, the coming year will be very good.

It's another example of the cyclical economics our twised society engages in. Only now it's not every 10-20 years. Now it is so brash and so greedy, cyclical consumerism is no longer confined to household cleaners and fast foods - our public health systems have become FMCGs: Mark my words, there'll be another pandemic outbreak in 2011.

More later...