Dan, I don't think Greenpeace et al came out of this very well, but the biggest losers are the British public and UK biotech firms. The hysteria shown by the British public and the British media, at least some of them, who so indiscriminately swallowed everything fed to them by "bad science", makes them a laughing stock in the world stage. Everyone in the UK, except the PM and the mainstream scientific community, bought into this frankenfood silliness (local councils banning all GM food; Big Ears, who I doubt has much of a science background having majored in history, opposing GM food etc). I think some of the media reports are to blame for this sad state of affairs. I don't believe the British people is more (or less, for that matter) gullible than the average American or Canadian. Though there are a few negative reports here, we don't see the negativism towards GM food among the North American media, hence we don't have the mass hysteria here. There's always choices available. Buy organic food, make your own mayonnaise, even grow your own fruits in your backyard if you so want. And talk about unproven safety in GM food. How many of us are taking alternative medicine (herbs etc) with blind faith after reading about them somewhere in a newspaper article, the web, or hearing about it from a friend. Do these people ever question the scientific data connected with these herbal medicines, though there are studies being done on some of them?
MTC won't come out of it unscathed. It would hamper their marketing efforts to the UK, EU and third world countries (India, for example). As you mentioned earlier, this fiasco is the main reason holding back the stock price. Celebrex should be bigger than most analysts expect, and Vioxx should be less of a threat than any analyst expects. MRK is a good company, but I doubt whether Vioxx is a better drug than Celebrex or that MRK's marketing can make it the best-selling Cox-2 inhibitor on the market.
Anthony |
