Swine flu offers a new lift to booming vax business

With virtually round-the-clock swine flu news on cable these days, all sorts of news organizations are taking a crack at analyzing the business side of the pandemic equation.

ABC News concludes that whatever else H1N1 means, it's been good for the vaccine industry. The network news program starts with the $1.5 billion spent on the 250 million doses of vaccine purchased from five big manufacturers for the U.S. market. Then there's $10 billion lawmakers budgeted for viral research, tracking the spread of H1N1 and educating the public on the need to get vaccinated. Even doctors and pharmacies seem to be getting a boost from the influx of new business.

One other beneficiary: Vaccine critics and advocates. Trust for America's Health, for example, gets into the ABC spotlight with its projection that a severe pandemic would depress the GDP in the U.S. by five percent, or $683 billion. "We're not seeing a pandemic that's this severe," says Jeff Levi, director of the nonprofit group. "We've dodged a lot of bullets."

- check out the ABC story

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