Of course someone had to try to make money from this media scrum:
Flu scare triggers rash of fake drugs | smh.com.au
Quote:
DESPERATE people are paying up to $150 for fake Tamiflu, the drug used to treat swine flu victims, because they are frightened pharmacies will run out of supplies if a pandemic hits.
Spam emails for the fake drugs, which are being sold on the internet, have become more common than those for erectile dysfunction and preyed on people who did not realise that Tamiflu would be distributed free if a pandemic was declared, the Pharmacy Guild of Australia warned yesterday. "No one can be sure where these sites are but some of the emails are even coming out of places like Mexico, which is ludicrous because they don't have any supplies of the drug," the guild's president, Kos Sclavos, said yesterday.
He said Tamiflu, which is not listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, costs about $50 "so there is no reason why anyone should be paying three times that and there is no guarantee it is a legitimate supply".
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I also heard a government spokesman in Oz on the radio saying that if there was a huge outbreak here, the drugs would be made available free of charge.