Refer: http://www.econ-pol.unisi.it/quaderni/454.pdf
This article was written by two Italian academics in 2005, ostensibly about the failure of the precautionary principle with respect to the possible pandemic of avian flu.
Admittedly, I can sound knowledgeable writing about their paper in 2010, when the dread of a flu jumping from chooks to humans has passed, but in 2004 this must have been scary indeed.
The thrust of their article is that the world governments should have taken the precaution of investing heavily in the production of Tamiflu vaccine so that when or if the pandemic came, there would be sufficient doses to protect the general population.
When they wrote their paper, there was indeed much uncertainty about how the avian flu would unfold, and the possibility of a catastrophe, both in medical terms (loss of life) and economic terms (collapse of international travel, tourism, destruction of birds). This is classic precautionary principle: uncertainty of a future event, and the threat of a serious damage, so cost effective measures need to be taken without delay.
Their measures included taking the commercial risk for avian flu vaccines from pharmaceutical companies and passing it on to governments, so the big pharmas would take steps to produce adequate vaccines in the face of a possible pandemic. Interestingly, the authors seem to think big pharma will play ball with costs, won't abuse their position and won't go for super profits underwritten by the world's taxpayers.
The performance of big pharma with the supply of AIDS medicines in Africa would indicate the shareholders have a bigger say than the sufferers.
There is lots of heavy maths in the article, don't say you weren't warned!
