Sunday, November 06, 2005
Well, it Made the Financial Pages
While international media outlets; liberal, libertarian and even satiric web sites have noticed that Donald Rumsfeld, George Shulz and who knows who else stand to profit immensely from the administration's decision to spend $3Billion stockpiling Tamiflu, that fact seems to have largely escaped the major American news outlets. A search of The New York Times' web site yields nothing and all I could find on The Washington Post's site was a couple of brief items (one in response to a reader inquiry): link and link. For the most part, it seems to be purely a financial news item to be covered by CNN MONEY and FORTUNE.
This isn't to knock the administration for trying to prepare for a potential crisis, but one has to wonder whether the money is really being spent to enhance The Department of Health and Human Services' ability to respond to public health crises. Or is it just being spent in an expensive game of CYA and to enrich a large pharmaceutical company and a politically connected bio-tech firm? This from a government that's looking to cut billions in domestic spending and is demanding $3.7B from the State of Louisiana for Katrina Relief. Make your own judgement.
This isn't to knock the administration for trying to prepare for a potential crisis, but one has to wonder whether the money is really being spent to enhance The Department of Health and Human Services' ability to respond to public health crises. Or is it just being spent in an expensive game of CYA and to enrich a large pharmaceutical company and a politically connected bio-tech firm? This from a government that's looking to cut billions in domestic spending and is demanding $3.7B from the State of Louisiana for Katrina Relief. Make your own judgement.
