Indonesia has dug in its heels on this one. If a pandemic happens, I bet they will be one of the first ones to knock on our door for help just as they had their hands out to receive the Tamiflu we gave them.

I do understand their worry over being unable to access vaccines for their population. They have chosen the wrong path to address this issue. Blackmail is a very poor choice on their part.

It would be nice to see some other WHO countries address this stand-off with them, as you have, by meeting in person. It must have been a frustrating experience for you.

Perhaps NAMRU-2 could provide resources to a different country?
Surely other ‘incentives’ could be used as well.
Just a thought.

Sixty days left to walk softly and carry a very large stick.

You never took me up on my offer to privately fund a two year CMS demonstration project which has the potential of saving Medicare $386 billion over the next 20 years. What does it take to get to this project off the ground? CMS has nothing to lose and everything to gain. Check out my web site.

David Haley

I am relieved to hear that Indonesia’s leaders have been unsucessful in extorting payment for viral samples that may be of vast importance to the world. I hope the U.S. will indeed quickly move on to securing samples elsewhere to begin work on pre-pandemic vaccines that, even if only partially effective, are better than nothing.

I am particularly glad you have directly addressed the issue of Dr. Supari’s book, in which she apparently claims the U.S. is deliberately using disease and the high cost of vaccines against them to keep third world nations in some sort of impoverished neo-colonial state. As you mentioned in your blog, she has even gone as far to insinuate the U.S. is, or would, use avian flu to this end. This is exactly the kind of inflammatory rhetoric that engenders fury against the U.S., something we surely don’t need in areas that are becoming more and more Islamist. Thank you for mentioning this conflict directly; I hope you will continue this conversation with Dr. Margaret Chan of the U.N. from whom Dr. Supari says she’s derived her information.

Thank you once again for providing your thoughtful and well-spoken window to the international affairs that affect all Americans. I appreciate this blog!

In the case of an influenza pandemic in the U.S., and assuming a vaccine is available, it would be poor public health practice to vaccinate only those who can afford to pay for the vaccine…doesn’t the same hold true on the international scale?