It is interesting that everyone complains that Big Pharma will not make vaccines because there is no money in it. Then when a company like Rouche Pharmaceuticals comes along and figures it out; that is to say a way to help the common good and themselves to a profit we pounce on them.

Recently Rouche has been condemned by the Boston Globe for buying up all the Star Arise fruit crop , a component of tamiflu they say. The condemnation is because in doing so, no one else can make the tamiflu and thus Rouche is trying to engage in price fixing? Of course industry analysts say, well they are simply shoring up their supply chain as they already have huge orders on hand, for instance the United States is buying 2-billion dollars worth.

If we condemn such companies for making vaccines and insuring their supply chain to meet demand we will be sorry later. Either way the citizenry and common stake holders of the World loses in this, having to go without the vaccines, medicines and cures or the Multi-National Conglomerate like Rouche loses from lawsuits, creating vaccines whose disease, virus or pathogen never comes and whose shelf life is pre-determined, as the viruses evolve or the vaccines become no longer effective after sitting too long. We may wish to consider this in 2006.

Lance Winslow