For all the paper-shuffling going on in the White House, an awesome story in this morning's USA Today points out the ultimate fallacy behind America's plan to fight a non-existent avian flu pandemic.

The Bush administration's $7.1 billion plan includes almost $2 billion for vaccine research, development and purchase and about $750 million for useless drugs like Tamiflu, yet it doesn't address funding for the implementation of services after a pandemic occurs.

Of course, that pesky little detail didn't stop federal officials from planning for the worst, including stockpiling 75 million doses of antiviral drugs and 20 million vaccines and developing protocols for local police departments and the National Guard.

Fact is, purchasing large amounts of useless drugs for a pandemic that will likely never happen benefits very, very few people like U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who also railroaded the approval of aspartame through the FDA in the early 1980s.

USA Today May 4, 2006

New York Times May 3, 2006 Registration Required