According to this report
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/04/24/cold-fx-edmonton.html?ref=rss
Edmonton is ‘stockpiling’ Cold-fX to protect it’s residents in case of a flu pandemic. Sounds very progressive and positive. Except…
Well, except for the fact that they are buying “enough product to help 5,000 people”.
Edmonton has a population of around 750,000 (1 million if you count its overall metropolitan area. So, do the math for yourself. That means they have enough to help 0.6 percent of the population at the most. This is surely a jest; no one would think that amount is going to help in a pandemic situation?
The article also states that the Edmonton Medical Officer of Health (strange title – do they have a non-medical Officer of health too? Or maybe a medical officer of un-health?) did NOT recommend stockpiling the ‘ginseng-based remedy’.
So what is going on here exactly? This is some nutty ‘herbal’ remedy, with a serious lack of hard evidence on its efficacy and yet the city is spending a fairly large amount of money on it without a recommendation from its own medical advisors.
Later in the article we find out that the product has “been endorsed by several physicians and some high-profile athletes, including Olympic competitor Clara Hughes and the National Hockey League and the league’s players’ association”
In other words this is pure hype, the company has managed to persuade some brain dead idiots living off the backs of taxpayers misguided politicians and City officials that this product is amazing and they have sold it to them in a deal that has one and one benefit alone – that the company can now used this as a further endorsement of their quack nostrum.
What’s in it for the company? A huge endorsement and boost for their advertising campaign. What’s in it for the city officials? They get some big headlines showing how ‘progressive, forward thinking and caring’ they are.
Meanwhile the taxpayers pick up the not-insubtantive bill, and get almost no practical protection.
I only have one question really – who got the kickbacks?
