as reported at The Best Years in Life

Vaccine Makers Ready New Push

by William Campbell Douglas II, M.D.

Think you've seen a hard sell when it comes to swine flu vaccine?

Well, you ain't seen nothing yet!

The vaccine makers are just getting warmed up -- and now they're coming right out and boasting to their investors about how much money they're going to rake in from vaccines in the next few years.

Sanofi-Aventis is telling its investors that it plans to double its vaccine business by 2013. In 2010 alone, they're hoping to sell nearly $5.76 billion in needless needles.

That's not just significant. That's a bombshell -- because this company owns Sanofi Pasteur, the world's largest vaccine maker. That should tell you everything you need to know about these drugs. The vaccine business is not a noble effort to end disease... but a relentless push to boost profits.

There's a simple reason for this: The drug kingpins are running out of patents on their blockbuster meds. And with nothing in the works to replace them right now, they're turning to vaccines for quick and easy cash.

You just need to look at Merck to see how it works: After spending billions to settle Vioxx lawsuits, they turned to a vaccine to soften the blow.

That's how we got Gardasil, the dangerous needle being forced on little girls from coast to coast. The vaccine is supposed to protect against some strains of
HPV -- but it's been dubbed "Help Pay for Vioxx."

But let's get back to Sanofi Pasteur, because this French company typically makes 45 percent of all the flu vaccine sold in the United States, and 40 percent of the world's flu vaccines. They've sold us half a billion dollars' worth of swine flu shots already, and expect to sell half a billion more by spring.

Call that fair warning, because you can now expect every sniffle that comes along to become the "next" swine flu.

Don't believe it -- not today, not tomorrow and not in 2013.

Fighting for the future,

William Campbell Douglas II, M.D.