Bird Flu: Tamiflu: National lab + ignore patent, is what we must have

[oscar111]

5 million doses to be in stockpile, 73 million infected.

5 and 73. That tells it all.

Huge shortage if bird flu hits and the projected 73 million do get infected.

NEEDED:
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1. National Labs to make Tamiflu, the antiviral pill which hinders/prevents it. {we have National Labs - Brookhaven National Lab, Oak Ridge National Lab, many NASA National Labs, many Agriculture Research Stations}

2. Ignore the Roche patent. This is an emergency. 73 minus 5 is 68. With 5O % fatality rate, 34 million dead. That is my amateur's calculation. Virologist in the LA Times sees only 1/2 million dead, however. Take your cynical pick.
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Brazil shows how to ignore a patent. They are threatening to ignore the AIDS drug patents if the sky-high prices arent lowered. So it can be done.

Pay Switzerland's Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Roche a bit, if you really feel the need to.

Flu season's leading small edge begins in late September IIRC. We have two months before the leading small edge.

TWO MONTHS.

Will we sacrifice lives to save Bush's ancient ideology?

I'm not a virologist, so i invite comments on that aspect.

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Los Angeles Times: Will we be ready?

http://www.latimes.com/news/health/la-he-birdflu25jul25,0,5448965,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines

snip
>>> Vaccine development and production methods remain largely unchanged since the 1950s,... and the number of drug makers making flu vaccine has dwindled to a handful, most operating outside of the U.S. {oscar -- both vaccines and antiviral pills are in short supply. Just one world lab for Tamiflu pills - it is in Switzerland. We need National Labs for both vaccines and pills. FAST! }

>>"The vaccine enterprise is very fragile, if not broken," says Fauci. {head of NIH's office dealing with this issue}

>>>>Bush administration and Congress are considering measures that would provide incentives to vaccine manufacturers.

{oscar calls that, "the old, totally broken 'private model' "}

>>That, says U. of Minnesota's Osterholm, is not good enough. Osterholm says... officials... need to ...get ready for a public health disaster ... This is a critical point in history... {After} the next pandemic... a Commission... will {determine} how well... leaders prepared the world for the

%%%%%
catastrophe
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when they had clear warning.
>>> snip
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NASA has National Labs. Isn't this as important as dead rocks on Mars? Toss ideology. Build labs.

[Ian David]

1. The three major vaccine producers all have same-sex partner benefits

Tell the anti-gay fundies to boycott all the flu vaccines, including Tamiflu.

[oscar111]

2. kick

kick

[eridani]

3. France, Canada and Australia stockpiling

http://www.menrohm.com/2005/09/in-face-of-killer-flu-threat-bush.html

While France and Canada and Australia have been amassing doses of Tamiflu, we've been fixated on preventing bioterrorism threats such as anthrax. France has a population of 60 million, but will soon have 12 million doses of Tamiflu on hand. For our own population of nearly 300 million, we have a paltry 2.5 million doses. That's a 24 to 1 advantage for the French... It would be a tragically ironic legacy for the president to leave office having made us safe from Saddam Hussein, only to leave us vulnerable to the devastation of a flu pandemic. It would be doubly ironic if the French were better prepared than we to face the catastrophe that world health officials are calling inevitable.