- With Big Pharma raking in billions off swine flu fears,
the last thing they need is a government handout.
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- Yet Uncle Sam is busy playing Daddy Warbucks with YOUR
lunch money, helping Swiss drugmaker Novartis open a new vaccine plant
in North Carolina. You've generously contributed around $700 million to
help Novartis build their shiny new drug factory -- $220 million three
years ago, and $486 million this year.
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- And I'll bet you didn't even get a thank-you card.
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- In return for this bad investment in a foreign company,
the U.S. government gets the right to PURCHASE vaccine for 17 years. Not
only that, but these vaccines will be created using a new and unproven
biotech method that relies on dog kidneys instead of chicken eggs.
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- In other words, this plan really is a dog.
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- I'm a doctor, not an economist. But if this is someone's
idea of stimulus, you do the math: The plant now employs 191 people making
an average of $50,000 per year. At that rate, it would take around 75 years
for the government money put into this joint to make its way back into
our own economy.
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- Slice off a few years if you believe them when they say
they'll ultimately employ 350 people when the plant is fully operational
in 2013 -- in any case, it'll be decades before Americans ever see that
cash again.
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- But don't worry -- I'm sure somewhere, a poor Swiss ski
resort is hosting a group of free-spending Novartis executives.
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- Maybe they'll be joined by their yodeling friends at
the World Health Organization. A report at World Net Daily says at least
three of the WHO's top flu "experts" have financial ties to vaccine
makers.
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- That sure explains a lot.
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- Meanwhile, anyone who doubts that money is the real driving
force behind swine flu fears only needs to check out Business Week magazine.
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- A recent headline there tells whole story by itself:
"How Big Pharma Profits from Swine Flu."
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- Careful there, Business Week. That kind of thinking would
have gotten you branded a radical conspiracy theorist just a few months
ago!
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- Just check out these big paydays off swine flu vaccine
sales:
- $1.7 billion for GlaxoSmithKline
- $700 million for Novartis
- $500 million for Sanofi-Aventis Those figures are for
the fourth quarter of 2009 alone -- analysts expect them to grab similar
piles of cash for the first quarter of 2010 as everyone from President
Obama to Santa Claus push these needless vaccines on you and your children.
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- Business Week also notes that vaccine sales are booming
just in time: Patents on prescription drugs worth a combined $135 billion
in annual sales are about to expire... with no new meds ready to replace
them.
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- And that means you can expect another phony swine flu
scare any moment now.
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- That's not the only sickening swindle. Keep reading for
the latest on Tamiflu...
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- Hide and seek with Big Pharma
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- Get ready for some more flu funny business -- except
you won't be laughing when you hear about this one.
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- Drug giant Roche is being accused of hiding key data
from eight unpublished studies on its flu drug, Tamiflu... and, as a result,
researchers now say there's no evidence that the drug can reduce the risk
of flu complications such as pneumonia.
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- What are they hiding? Who knows -- but you don't lock
the smartest and most attractive kids in the attic.
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- The Cochrane Collaboration tried to update their earlier
review of the research -- but the company demanded a confidentiality agreement
in exchange for access to those eight shady studies.
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- I'm thrilled to say the researchers told Roche where
to stick that agreement. Too bad that kind of integrity is all too rare.
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- In an editorial that accompanied the new review in the
British Medical Journal, editor Fiona Godlee tore into the company. She
wrote that the studies originally used to back Tamiflu were written by
Roche employees and consultants, and that one researcher named in a study
even claimed no involvement in the project.
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- Shady? You bet. Surprising? Not at all.
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- It's par for the course when it comes to Big Pharma.
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- So here's about all those researchers can say about Tamiflu
now: It could reduce flu symptoms by about a day.
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- And here's what I can tell you about this dangerous drug:
Its side effects include nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea. Some
patients experience severe allergic reactions, confusion, bizarre behavior,
hallucinations, seizures, fever, sore throat and more.
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- Some of these reactions are far more common than anyone
wants to admit -- especially in children, as I've warned you before.
- http://clicks.douglassreport.com//t/AQ/wis/yBo/AAEZ2A/Ag/AuOyAg/Xppn
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- Worth it? You decide -- but I think you're better off
investing in another box of tissues and that extra day of rest.
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- Never feeding the flu fears,
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- William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.
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