“Scientists who drew up the key World Health Organisation guidelines advising governments to stockpile drugs in the event of a flu pandemic had previously been paid by drug companies which stood to profit, according to a report out today.”

This is the first sentence in the Guardian’s article on the trio of experts who wrote the WHO report. The news article authored by Randeep Ramesh, the Social Affairs editor at the Guardian finds all three scientists has ties to drug companies that would profit by the stockpiling recommended by their report.

Britain alone spent more than a billion pounds stockpiling medicines like tamiflu. All together the stockpiling of drugs by the various countries involved wound up costing more than seven billion dollars.