Rumsfeld Cashing In on Bird Flu Scare

[luna_k]

This is almost as bad as Halliburton's Katrina profiteering.

From Pam's House Blend:
Since you might have missed our dear leader's newsflash plan to combat the bird flu, let's take a look at the major points, which will cost the taxpayers $7.1 billion. (AP):

1. $1.2 billion to stockpile enough vaccine against the current H5N1 flu strain to protect 20 million Americans, the estimated number of health workers and other first-responders involved in a pandemic.
2. $1 billion for the drugs Tamiflu and Relenza, which can treat and, in some cases, prevent flu infection. Enough to treat 44 million people and prevent infection in 6 million others is headed for the federal stockpile. States were told to buy 31 million treatment courses, but Bush is funding only a quarter of the states' anticipated bill.
3. $2.8 billion to speed production of pandemic vaccines - including better-matched strains - by learning to manufacture them in easier-to-handle cell cultures, instead of today's slow method that relies on millions of chicken eggs.
4. $251 million for international preparations, including improving early-warning systems to spot human infections with novel flu strains.
5. $100 million for state preparations, including determining how to deliver stockpiled medicines directly to patients.
6. $56 million to test poultry and wild birds for H5N1 or other novel flu strains entering the U.S. bird population.
7. A call for Congress to provide liability protection for makers of a pandemic vaccine, which unlike shots against the regular winter flu would be experimental, largely untested.

Let's take a look at who stands to benefit from #2. Guess who has a stake in Tamiflu - Donald Rumsfeld.

UGH. I think I'd rather die from the bird flu than give Donald Rumsfeld even more money.