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Politics : America Under Siege: The End of Innocence -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scrapps who wrote (8403)	10/23/2001 2:28:15 PM
From: Michael Watkins	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27734

Wow...and the taxpayer takes it in the shorts. My understanding is Bayer said they'd license their patent to other drug companies should the need arise, which seems acceptable. You bet. Bayer isn't going to make enemies of the public in a time of crisis either. Simple, reasonable responses. We need our government to think this way too. Sure - someone in Govt mishandled it, and even if Rock wasn't the one that gave the order, the truly embarrassing thing is that he didn't immediately recognize and admit the problem. Why can't politicians do that? Imagine: "Mr. Speaker! The opposition poses a very good question. We should not be contravening patent laws unless our own procedures to declare a state of emergency have been followed first. We are not declaring a state of emergency. My department has made a mistake in going forward with this arrangement as it clearly contravenes Canadian patent laws and governmental procedure. I will find out how the mistake came about and report back in 60 minutes". He could have saved himself a world of hurt and better yet, upheld simple principles by being honest. But instead we get a controversy, the nations business is sidelined by dealing with this, there will be an inquiry no doubt to determine if campaign contributions or other influence played a role. That inquiry will take months, involve the time of dozens of individuals and affect their productivity. Direct costs of witnesses and investigators will add further to the mess. Even if nothing comes out of this it will still set the taxpayers back hundreds thousands if not millions of dollars not to mention the lost opportunity of the work efforts of all involved that could have been directed at something more productive. Or he could have told the truth, or obtained the truth quickly (how difficult is this really!), and the nations business gets to advance to something more worth while, in minutes. Sheesh!