Flu Shots, Fox News & George Bush
Reported by Melanie - October 19, 2004 -
Could it be that Neil Cavuto's trying to deflect responsibility away from the Bush administration for the fix we're in over the lack of flu shots this fall? Heaven forbid I would have such a shocking thought, but here's why I do.
Neil Cavuto hosts Fox News' "premiere business and financial" program, Your World w/Neil Cavuto. It airs at 4:00 p.m. weekdays, immediately after the close of the financial markets. According to Neil Cavuto's bio, posted on the Fox News website, Cavuto was named "editor of business news" at Fox News in l996 (Fox News' debut year, by the way), is now vice president of business news and "oversees all business coverage for FNC." He once worked at CNBC, and prior to that worked as the New York bureau chief of Investment Age Magazine and made occasional appearances on the PBS program "Nightly Business Report."
In other words, he's been in the business of business for a long, long time.
Today (October 19, 2004) Tommy Thompson, the Secretary of Health & Human Services made a brief appearance on Cavuto's show to say that Canada will be sharing an additional 2.6 million flu vaccine doses with the US come January. (Interestingly enough, Bush said this during the second debate: "When a drug comes in from Canada, I want to make sure it cures you and doesn't kill you.") Thompson said we'd have 58 million shots and 2 million nasal mist doses, for a total of 60 million vaccines.
Cavuto asked: "Are you surprised this became a political hot potato, Secretary, as if your administration could control what is happening to a country, a company in Britain, ah, over which the US or anyone else, for that matter, has control?"
Here's the problem: the company at the heart of the flu vaccine shortage is not "a company in Britain." The company is Chiron Corporation. Here is the page from it's website giving the address for its corporate headquarters. The headquarters are in California. Here's the page from the Securities and Exchange Commission's website listing Chiron Corporation's recent filings. (Type "Chiron" into the company name box and then click "find company.") Chiron Corporation is a US corporation, incorporated in Delaware.
Here is an article from the New York Times titled Campaigns Battle Over Vaccine as U.S. Seeks More Doses which says, in part:
This month, the Chiron Corporation, an American company that produces the vaccine in England, had its manufacturing license suspended by British regulators who cited concerns over the sterility of the vaccines. Chiron was responsible for making roughly half the 100 million shots planned for use in the United States.
Here's an article from Forbes, dated October 12, 2004, stating essentially the same thing.
Here's the link to the Google page which results after a search for news on Chiron. You have to go back about 17 pages to get to the start of news on Chiron's involvement in this debacle.
COMMENT: Much has been published about Chiron since this news first broke on October 5. I simply cannot believe Neil Cavuto is under the impression that Chiron is a "company in Britain." It looks instead as if he's willing to sacrifice his professional integrity to help push this scandal as far away from George Bush as possible.
