The headline of the Reuters article “Countries re-think swine flu vaccine orders”, by Maggie Fox, doesn’t leave much to the imagination.  As the much-hyped disease fades into memory, dropping out of the public’s awareness, people have finally been able to take stock, to put numbers to things, and they’re finding that the drug companies are sittin’ fat.

While I’m not one to begrudge a corporation making a profit, this is crazy.  From page 2:

The United States has received 136 million doses of H1N1 vaccine from its five suppliers — CSL, Glaxo, Sanofi, AstraZeneca unit MedImmune and Novartis, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says more than 60 million people have been vaccinated.

70-76 million unused doses? (Some people were given two doses)  In the US alone?  How much did each dose cost?  When you begin multiplying even small numbers of dollars by 76 million, you quickly reach the “boatloads of money” level.  On page 1 of the article, we’re told that one (1) of the US’s five (5) suppliers was awarded a $180 million contract.  That’s some serious loot, and I don’t care if people in DC like dealing with trillions.

Another way of looking at it is this: CSL, the supplier which is our focus at the moment, got $0.58 from every man, woman, and child in the US.  Hot damn, thank you, Uncle Sam!

Every one of the other four suppliers probably took a similar amount, with the industry racking up roughly $3 from every person in America.

Now, at this point many people would begin to get angry at the drug companies, and I’ll admit to some level of populist disgust with the idea that the drug companies were willing to go after as much money as they could on the backs of an overinflated crisis, but I lay the real blame on the politicians.  They’re the enablers, the gate keepers, they are the ones who make it possible for the major corporations to take profit from people indirectly, even if those people don’t use their product.  The corporations are simply being rational when they buy a politician.  The politician may cost $4 million dollars, but if they can net you a $180 million dollar contract, well, hey!  The politician is the one who actually does the deed.

The product of using a crisis to push your agenda, to secure sweet heart deals for your lobbyists, it isn’t just limited to the Democrats (or America, for that matter).  I don’t see too much difference between 70 million unused hits of H1N1 vaccine and Bush’s rotting FEMA trailers down in New Orleans.  What kills me is that the taxpayer is footing the bill for this nonsense.  Bridges to freakin’ no where, and I’m supposed to get excited when Congress is in session?

But what really kills me, what really makes me skittish, is this, also from page 2 of the article:

The U.S. government was still promoting vaccination, reminding people that influenza is unpredictable and that H1N1 could come back in a third wave.

One potentially large market for the vaccine is children. Children under 10 need two doses of vaccine to be fully protected and some U.S. school districts were planning more vaccination clinics this week to get children a second dose.

So what is a government going to do with 70 million un-needed, but apparently paid for, doses of vaccine?  Continue the crisis and force feed it to the kiddies while telling their parents they can’t send their child back to school unless they get the vaccine, but that attendance to school is still mandatory…

Prozac, Ritalin, Adderall, H1N1 vaccine, we’re drugging our children like a bunch of lab rats.

It’s gettin’ crazy out there.

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