Donald Rumsfeld's controversial links to drug company behind Tamiflu
Flu kills more people everyday of every year!
There is another way of looking at swine flu...it is good for "business"...heard of Tamiflu?
The drug company behind the swine flu medicine Tamiflu is at the centre of controversy over its links to former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Mr Rumsfeld, a former chairman of the company, has refused to comment on whether he still holds shares in Californian firm Gilead Sciences, which developed the drug now being desperately stockpiled by governments around the world to combat the threatened pandemic.
Mr Rumsfeld has previously been accused of a potential conflict of interest over his links to Gilead Sciences, which sold the licensing rights for the medicine to Swiss giant Hoffman-La Roche in 1996. Under the terms of the deal Gilead, headed by Mr Rumsfeld between 1997 and 2001, still receives between 14 and 22 per cent of the income from the wholesale trade in the drug, depending on the volume of sales.
Four years ago the value of Mr Rumsfeld’s shares in Gilead Sciences saw a huge hike from an estimated £3million to an estimated £17million over the avian flu scare. It was partially sparked by a warning from President Bush’s top health adviser Mike Leavitt that a pandemic could cause nearly two million deaths in the US alone. [thanks SR]
There is another way of looking at swine flu...it is good for "business"...heard of Tamiflu?
The drug company behind the swine flu medicine Tamiflu is at the centre of controversy over its links to former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Mr Rumsfeld, a former chairman of the company, has refused to comment on whether he still holds shares in Californian firm Gilead Sciences, which developed the drug now being desperately stockpiled by governments around the world to combat the threatened pandemic.
Mr Rumsfeld has previously been accused of a potential conflict of interest over his links to Gilead Sciences, which sold the licensing rights for the medicine to Swiss giant Hoffman-La Roche in 1996. Under the terms of the deal Gilead, headed by Mr Rumsfeld between 1997 and 2001, still receives between 14 and 22 per cent of the income from the wholesale trade in the drug, depending on the volume of sales.
Four years ago the value of Mr Rumsfeld’s shares in Gilead Sciences saw a huge hike from an estimated £3million to an estimated £17million over the avian flu scare. It was partially sparked by a warning from President Bush’s top health adviser Mike Leavitt that a pandemic could cause nearly two million deaths in the US alone. [thanks SR]
posted by temporal at 5/05/2009
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