Rumsfeld Exploits Bird Flu Fears for Stock Market Windfall

Well, let's see...

Rumsfeld made money selling weapons to Saddam in the 80s.
In the 90s, Rumsfeld made money with Halliburton in the Gulf War.
We all know how well Halliburton has been doing in Iraq recently.
You may have also heard how Halliburton won huge no-bid contracts in the wake of Katrina.

Well, if you thought this was the end of the war and disaster profiteering by Rumsfeld ...
you're wrong! Rumsfeld has been, since he got into office, promiting Tamiflu - a product by Gilead - as a way to stop the Asian Bird Flu - without hard scientific proof and ... oh yes ... millions of dollars of stock in the company. Gee, what a shocker.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/31/news/newsmakers/fortune_rumsfeld/?cnn=yes

Rumsfeld's growing stake in Tamiflu
Defense Secretary, ex-chairman of flu treatment rights holder, sees portfolio value growing.
October 31, 2005: 10:55 AM EST
By Nelson D. Schwartz, Fortune senior writer

NEW YORK (Fortune) - The prospect of a bird flu outbreak may be panicking people around the globe, but it's proving to be very good news for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other politically connected investors in Gilead Sciences, the California biotech company that owns the rights to Tamiflu, the influenza remedy that's now the most-sought after drug in the world.

Rumsfeld served as Gilead (Research)'s chairman from 1997 until he joined the Bush administration in 2001, and he still holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to federal financial disclosures filed by Rumsfeld.

The forms don't reveal the exact number of shares Rumsfeld owns, but in the past six months fears of a pandemic and the ensuing scramble for Tamiflu have sent Gilead's stock from $35 to $47. That's made the Pentagon chief, already one of the wealthiest members of the Bush cabinet, at least $1 million richer.

Rumsfeld isn't the only political heavyweight benefiting from demand for Tamiflu, which is manufactured and marketed by Swiss pharma giant Roche. (Gilead receives a royalty from Roche equaling about 10% of sales.) Former Secretary of State George Shultz, who is on Gilead's board, has sold more than $7 million worth of Gilead since the beginning of 2005.

Another board member is the wife of former California Gov. Pete Wilson.

"I don't know of any biotech company that's so politically well-connected," says analyst Andrew McDonald of Think Equity Partners in San Francisco.

What's more, the federal government is emerging as one of the world's biggest customers for Tamiflu. In July, the Pentagon ordered $58 million worth of the treatment for U.S. troops around the world, and Congress is considering a multi-billion dollar purchase. Roche expects 2005 sales for Tamiflu to be about $1 billion, compared with $258 million in 2004.

Rumsfeld recused himself from any decisions involving Gilead when he left Gilead and became Secretary of Defense in early 2001. And late last month, notes a senior Pentagon official, Rumsfeld went even further and had the Pentagon's general counsel issue additional instructions outlining what he could and could not be involved in if there were an avian flu pandemic and the Pentagon had to respond.

As the flu issue heated up early this year, according to the Pentagon official, Rumsfeld considered unloading his entire Gilead stake and sought the advice of the Department of Justice, the SEC and the federal Office of Government Ethics.

Those agencies didn't offer an opinion so Rumsfeld consulted a private securities lawyer, who advised him that it was safer to hold on to the stock and be quite public about his recusal rather than sell and run the risk of being accused of trading on insider information, something Rumsfeld doesn't believe he possesses. So he's keeping his shares for the time being.

AP News also reports that Rumsfeld is perhaps the most evil American alive.

(okay, that last line was made up)

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"There is a balm in Gilead." Sing it with me, folks.

OMG! Rumsfeld caused the avian flu so he could make money!

This is very typical of the currupt and illegal George the Second administration.

Thats right

I believe that I will start saying incrementally more insane things, and see how far I can go and still have you agree with me.

Seriously though... how exactly is Rumsfeld responsible for the freaking avian flu in Asia?

It's ok to dislike people for rational reasons... and there are plenty of rational arguments you can make against the man. But when you make such utterly insane statements, such as suggesting that having stock in a company that helps fight avian flu is a sign of corruption, you start to take on the appearance of a lunatic.

I mean, hell.. are ALL the shareholders in that company corrupt? Did they all somehow cause the avian flu?

No, he's responsible for hyping Tamiflu as the "cure" for the bird flu, while hard studies on whether or not this is true are inconclusive, and for ordering up shots of this for all the troops, and now looks like 1.2 billion with Bush's "more money to pharmaceutacals in a spend-don't-think giveaway"

Uh.. How exactly has rumsfeld "hyped" tamiflu?

Tamiflu was developed way back in 1996.. And it's been used as an effective anti-flu drug for years now.

The science behind the drug doesn't really have anything to do with the government.

how many other drug makers produce a bird flu vaccine?

Nobody makes a 'bird flu' vaccine for humans. There isn't one.

They can't make one until it's actually started affecting humans, which it hasn't.

Thank you for answering Roland's question.

Wait wait, I MISSED this, how did I MISS this... You thought Tamiflu worked on Avian flu?!

You didn't KNOW it was a porkbarrell appropriation

Heh.

When viewed in context of recent business/government dealings it seems like it could be a money-making scheme on Rumsfeld's part. But on a global scale, where Tamiflu was already being stockpiled elsewhere long before the US got on the bottom of the waiting list, it seems unlikely. Also, the company Rumsfeld has stock in only gets royalties from sale of the drugs that Roche produces, and only 10% at that, according to the article. I find it unlikely that Gilead controls distribution of a foreign drug manufacturer with only a 10% royalty ---and the fact that the U.S. was late jumping on the Tamiflu bandwagon means that they were probably just following suit and Rumsfeld was already making bank as the rest of the civilized countries poured money into the drug.

Considering the above and that the majority of the wealth and power in the world resides in the hands of a small number of old, rich white men (which increases the probability that chance will fall in their favor), I'm willing to bet that this turn of events is more like a good stroke of luck (funny how good strokes of luck for our officials' pocketbooks always involve death ) than a Rumsfeldian conspiracy. I'm not saying the money didn't hurt (and why wouldn't you hype the shit out of an opportunity that fell into your lap, especailly for a drug that still works?), but Tamiflu was one of the only two drugs that was effective in improving mortality rates long before h5n1 was even a word on the American media's lips.

Money-making scheme or conspiracy, I think not.

Now Diebold on the other hand...