I’m beginning to wonder if there’s any tragedy or potential tragedy our leaders can’t profit from…
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.
The Administration just demanded that we spend $7.1 billion to produce a vaccine for a disease that doesn’t exist (human-human transmitted bird flu simply hasn’t happened, despite the Media scare). Coincidentally, Donald Rumsfeld just got $1 million dollars richer because he owns a great deal of stock in the one company that just happens to produce the only medicine on earth that purportedly vaccinates against bird flu. Echoing the Cheney/Halliburton relationship, Rumsfeld RAN the company until he joined the Bush administration in 2001 (coincidentally, it was around this time that Bush suddenly became interested in pandemics). Based on the recent Administration track record of war and disaster profiteering, it’s hard not to suspect this is, in part, a big heaping handout to Rumsfeld.
…Until I put on my tinfoil hat and tune in Fox News. That’s when I realize — hey, coincidences happen, especially when you’re governed by the super-rich.
One passage that caught my eye was the part about multi-millionaire Rumsfeld being among the richest members of the cabinet. The key members of this administration are gaining second and third (hell, fifteenth) fortunes as a direct result of the actions of this administration. This administration is one giant conflict of interest.
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