Bird Flu: A Corporate Bonanza for the Biotech Industry - Tamiflu, Vistide and the Pentagon Agenda

On November 1, President George W. Bush went to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland to hold a high profile press conference, to announce a 381-page plan, officially called the Pandemic Influenza Strategic Plan.

It was no ordinary Bush photo opportunity. This one was meant to be a big splash event. The President was surrounded by almost half his cabinet, including Secretary of State Condi Rice, joined by the Secretaries of Homeland Security, Agriculture, Health & Human Services, Transportation and, interestingly enough, Veteran Affairs. And, just to underscore that this was a big deal, the White House invited the Director-General of the World Health Organization, who flew in from Geneva for the occasion.

The President began his remarks with the now-obligatory scare-story from 1918: 'At this moment, there is no pandemic influenza in the United States or the world. But if history is our guide, there is reason to be concerned. In the last century, our country and the world have been hit by three influenza pandemics -- and viruses from birds contributed to all of them. The first, which struck in 1918, killed over half-a-million Americans and more than 20 million people across the globe...'

He was remarkably candid about the imminent danger to the American people: 'Scientists and doctors cannot tell us where or when the next pandemic will strike, or how severe it will be, but most agree: at some point, we are likely to face another pandemic. And the scientific community is increasingly concerned by a new influenza virus known as H5N1 -- or avian flu...'

Mr. Bush went on to stress, 'At this point, we do not have evidence that a pandemic is imminent. Most of the people in Southeast Asia who got sick were handling infected birds. And while the avian flu virus has spread from Asia to Europe, there are no reports of infected birds, animals, or people in the United States. Even if the virus does eventually appear on our shores in birds, that does not mean people in our country will be infected. Avian flu is still primarily an animal disease. And as of now, unless people come into direct, sustained contact with infected birds, it is unlikely they will come down with avian flu.'

Despite the admission of absence of a clear and present danger to the American public, the President called on Congress to immediately pass a new $7.1 billion in emergency funding to prepare for that not-imminent, not-pandemic, possible-in-the-future danger. The speech was an exercise in the Administration's now-famous 'pre-emptive war,' this one against Avian Flu. As with the other pre-emptive wars, there is a multiple agenda—one might say, killing two birds with one stone, were it not so tasteless.

Prominent among the President's list of emergency measures was a call for Congress to appropriate another $1 billion explicitly for Tamiflu.

Conflict of interest or insider trading?