Tamiflu (the trade name for oseltamivir) has been touted as THE answer to fight any pandemic that may arise from a mutation of the H5N1 virus and vast stocks have been bought by western governments. Why has it been so touted and who by? These are relevant questions when you consider the fact that a) there is no mutation or pandemic yet, and b) no-one knows what form any future mutation of the virus might take and therefore can not know for certain which drugs (if any are actually needed) might be effective.

Look into the background of the companies and the people who own this drug, and you begin to understand “Why” and you find the fingers of the US White House dipping deeply into the profits:

From the Grain Report on Avian Flu - http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=194
“Tamiflu has, however, been a big money-spinner for its owners. The patent is owned by Gilead while Roche has the sole licence. Roche’s sales of Tamiflu - a drug that hardly sold prior to the WHO announcement - went up 400% in 2005 while Gilead’s royalty earnings from the patent grew by 166%. In the US, the drug industry is intimately connected with the highest levels of government. In November 2005, Bush announced a set of domestic measures to fight the possible pandemic which included an envelope of US$1.4 billion to go shopping for Tamiflu. This was a gift, not only for Roche and Gilead, but also for people like US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, board member and former chairman of Gilead. He currently owns somewhere between US$5 million and $25 million of Gilead equity, making him possibly the largest shareholder. Other people who stand to gain from this policy are Gilead board members George Schultz, former US Secretary of State and Bush campaign advisor, Etienne Davignon, Vice-Chairman of Suez-Tractebel and Honorary Chairman of Bilderberg, and John W Madigan who among other things is on the Defense Business Board, a corporate advisory council to the US Department of Defense.”

“Tamiflu’s effectiveness is highly contested, and it carries important side-effects as well. It does reduce the symptoms of influenza, but taken in low dosage it could actually exacerbate the spread of the disease through a rapid emergence of resistant strains and/or because sick people feel better and let their guard down against infecting others. The low dosage risk is very real. One reason is that there is a worldwide shortage of Tamiflu. Roche’s version is produced with shikimic acid extracted from Chinese star anise pods, the best of which comes from only four provinces of southwest China. (A full 90% of their production is bought by Roche.) And Roche has been reticent to sublicence the rights to produce it. The other reason is that Roche recommends prophylactic use of Tamiflu for human influenza, though this is not effective. Numerous people taking Tamiflu in Viet Nam have died of H5N1 because the drug only helps if you take it within 18 hours of infection.”