[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 58 (Friday, May 12, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E812]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              ON AVIAN FLU

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                        HON. DENNIS J. KUCINICH

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 11, 2006

  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I made the attached remarks regarding the 
Avian Flu on May 11, 2006.
  You're on your own.
  This has been the credo for the Administration's approach to health 
care and it summarizes their approach to Avian Flu. The Implementation 
Plan gives a little guidance to state and local governments and 
businesses and then wishes them luck.
  First, there is the leadership vacuum. The plan calls for HHS to 
coordinate the medical response but calls for Homeland Security to 
coordinate federal operations and resources. A bipartisan report out of 
the Senate, released in April, found that the Department has lagged in 
fixing the problems that plagued its atrocious response to Hurricane 
Katrina. It found that major structural reforms were necessary and that 
little has changed in the Department so far. So we can expect Homeland 
Security to adopt a similar motto to the one they adopted last Summer: 
you're on your own.
  What's more is that the plan has been called the mother of all 
unfunded mandates. While 7.1 billion dollars for avian flu preparedness 
is a step in the right direction, it is simply not enough. Dr. Irwin 
Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at 
Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, called the 
budget ``completely unrealistic.'' A big part of the reason it is 
insufficient is that it has to make up for years of steady erosion of 
the public health infrastructure due to lack of funding. In fact, Dr. 
Redlener points out the need for 5 billion dollars just for ``staffs, 
equipment and supplies, and general resiliency.'' Yet the vast majority 
of the Administration's funding is going toward the anti-viral and 
vaccine stockpile.
  This plan, therefore, gives us inadequate leadership and inadequate 
funding, which leaves the clear impression that we truly will be on our 
own in a pandemic. And a crisis is precisely the time we need to look 
out for each other the most.
  However, we can be assured that everyone is not left to their own 
devices.
  On November 4, 2005 during a House Government Reform Committee 
hearing on Avian Flu Preparedness, HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt 
responded to my questioning by saying that he would not be issuing a 
compulsory license for the anti-viral drug, Tamiflu. He also declared 
that he was in negotiations with Roche, manufacturer of Tamiflu, over 
the cost of the drug being purchased for the national stockpile. On one 
hand, Secretary Leavitt has a Congressional mandate to stockpile enough 
Tamiflu for 25% of the nation. On the other hand, he withdrew the 
threat of compulsory licensing, even if Roche tries to price gouge. In 
so doing, Leavitt undercut his own negotiating power and effectively 
surrendered control of price to Roche.
  On November 10, six days after the hearing, the New York Times 
reported that Roche announced what they would be charging developed 
countries for Tamiflu: 15 Euros, or about 19 dollars for a course of 
treatment. Wondering how the price negotiations between HHS and Roche 
went, my office recently asked HHS what they were paying for Tamiflu 
for the stockpile. The asking price of 15 Euros, or 19 dollars. Even 
with the bulk purchasing power of 810 million pills, HHS did not bother 
to get a better deal than the asking price.
  Lest you get the impression that this price is fair, allow me to 
point out that Roche did not sink a dime into research on the drug. 
They simply license it from its inventor, Gilead Sciences. That means 
there is no need to recoup research costs. Furthermore, we know it can 
be sold for a profit for much less. Cipla, a generics manufacturer in 
India, for example, is selling Tamiflu for only 12 dollars. That is 36 
percent less than what the Federal Government is paying. If we paid 
Cipla's price instead of Roche's, we would save over a half a billion 
dollars. I bet local health agencies and hospitals could save a lot of 
lives with that kind of money. Think of what we could do with a half 
billion dollars--we could reduce the deficit, put teachers in 
classrooms, invest in renewable energy, provide health care to some of 
the uninsured, brace ourselves for the effects of climate change.
  Those that stand to gain from inflated prices for pandemic 
pharmaceuticals are doing well. Roche's sales for the first quarter of 
2006 are up 22 percent to 7.7 billion dollars. Gilead Sciences, the 
company that originally developed Tamiflu and continues to receive 
royalties on its sales, outperformed RBC Capital Markets estimate of 
350 million dollars in Tamiflu Sales by 163 million dollars.
  In essence, we are telling state and local governments that there's 
not enough money to fund things like medical personnel and equipment 
while we're giving away bags of money to the already incredibly 
profitable pharmaceutical industry. In other words, you're on your own, 
unless you're big Pharma.

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