dla wrote: Take for example the rush to aquire Ciprio: Our government had to admit that nobody had enough – those without would die.
Nonsense. The rush was due to media hype and some irresponsible, panicked politicians, particularly Tommy Thompson, who should have known better, given his role at HHS. Cipro was hyped because it was the only drug that had completed a formal clinical trial for anthrax at the time, but it’s been known for years that such such exotic drugs as penicillin (!!) and the tetracyclines are also effective against anthrax. Not to mention that Cipro was just one of several drugs in the fluoroquinolone family (other examples being Levaquin, Avelox, etc.), all of which are likely to be roughly as effective as Cipro.

What this really demonstrated was the utter failure of the media and politicians to serve the population by presenting balanced, reasonable information. It was much easier for politicians to jawbone about revoking the manufacturer’s patent than to get accurate facts out to the public. Naturally, none were held to account for spreading unnecessary panic.

PS. It’s Cipro, not Ciprio.