It’s a Chinese-made ‘Christmas’ in all our shops today

Have you noticed? In all the stores, particularly in SM, True Value, National Bookstore, the shelves are awash in Christmas items – all manufactured in the People’s Republic of China, where they’re supposed to believe in Mao, Marxism, Mao-tai – not Santa Claus nor the Child in the Manger. Indeed, the only thing red in Santa’s entourage, if you’ll recall, was Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer.

Today, China’s manufacturing powerhouse has zeroed in on the money-making potential of Christmas ala carte. In our display windows, you’ll find automated Santas doing the hula-hoop, dancing a merry jig, or winding around ersatz snow trails in a magnetically operated sleigh (just like the Maglev train from Pudong International Airport to Pudong station, halfway to Shanghai). There are gingerbread houses which light up, turning windmills bearing X’mas bears, light-blinking gingerbread churches, ice-cream parlors, even a lighted Wal-Mart, Joe’s diner, etc., all made in China. Santas and snowmen in balls of glass, with "snow" flying around, and music boxes spinning out Jingle Bells, or Joy to the World, all manufactured in China. Christmas trees, pine trees, you name it. Everything, from Christmas lights to red-and-gold trimmings, made in China.

There was a time when the Philippines used to export such things to Europe and the United States. I’d find them being sold in such odd places as Harrod’s in London, or in the Heathrow Duty Free, or in American malls in Woodbridge, New Jersey, or Cerritos, California. Now, the Chinese have taken over – why, they’re manufacturing the American flags, yep, the Star Spangled banner flying from many a flagpole in the USA.

"Give us a prototype of the Patriot Missile," a Chinese friend from Shanghai quipped to me – perhaps only half in jest – a few months ago. "And within one week or two we’ll be able to produce a clone of it."

I believe it. From pirated DVDs to cunningly-duplicated knockoffs, ranging from watches to Louis Vuittons and Burberrys, the Chinese can do it. Even your genuine Samsonite suitcases, plus other US and European brands, are now outsourced to Chinese factories. Once technology is transferred, the original manufacturer is sunk – so, before technology is pilfered for knock-offs, "orig" firms make deals to manufacture in partnership or by license in China. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em.

So, I say there’s too much ado over Tamiflu. The world has run out of that anti-viral drug touted as the only "answer" to the life-threatening avian flu or bird virus. The panicky worldwide demand for Tamiflu has made the Swiss drug company Roche insanely rich – with governments begging for more of Tamiflu. The international stockpiling of the anti-flu treatment against a feared pandemic increased Roche Holding’s third-quarter sales 20 percent. Sales rocketed to 8.82 billion Swiss francs, the equivalent of US $6.79 billion in this quarter, up from 7.37 billion francs a year earlier.

Roche says sales of the drug Tamiflu were more than double, up to 279 million francs from 110 million francs a year earlier because of the anxious demand. (The firm claimed it had donated to the World Health Organization’s stockpile enough doses of Tamiflu to treat 3 million people and was marketing the dose to governments at big discounts.)

Pressure is strong on Roche to "share" the technology with other companies so more anti-flu doses can be farmed out to combat a bird flu epidemic which could cost millions of lives. The sense of dread has heightened when it was "discovered" (as reported in the daily, USA TODAY a few days ago, that the terrible "Spanish flu" pandemic which has killed 50 million people in Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia in the World War I period, between 1917 and 1919, had actually been "bird flu"! By golly.

Well, panic no more! If anybody can "duplicate" Tamiflu, the Chinese can and will do it – just like they did poor Pfizer’s "viagra."

* * *

The race is on to find other anti-flu remedies, specifically against H5N1, the bird flu virus.

GlaxoSmithKline, for one, is developing a vaccine which it hopes might offer broader immunity, protecting against any human-to-human strain of H5N1 which might emerge – like the recent suspect-case in Indonesia. Glaxo already has a drug, Relenza, which reduces the symptoms of flu. Unlike Roche, Glaxo is offering to issue special licenses to other companies to produce Relenza since its own laboratories, it admits, can’t cope with the demand.

Other drug research firms and manufacturers are already questioning Roche’s allegation that it would take years for any rivals to produce a copy of Tamiflu. Since US President George Bush has asked Congress to approve $7.1 billion for measures to combat a possible bird flu pandemic, you can be sure that the US, with already a substantial stockpile of Tamiflu will be demanding more. Bush doesn’t want a repeat of his abysmal failure to go to the rescue of the Hurricane-drowned city of New Orleans and flooded Louisiana, or handle its disastrous aftermath – a lapse which sent his approval rating plummeting. He intends, quite obviously, to slay the "bird flu" vulture before it strikes.

According to yesterday’s The Wall Street Journal, scientists at Taiwan’s National Health Research Institutes and at Cipla Ltd., an Indian generic drug maker, "have finished reproducing Tamiflu, according to both entities." I quote the journalists Nicholas Zamiska and Jasan Dean directly. The Wall Street Journal banner headline quite directly stated: "RIVALS CHALLENGE TAMIFLU CLAIM," and the subhead asserts: "Generic-drug makers say to Roche they can copy therapy in days, not years."

So there you are, my fellow Filipinos, who’re wailing they didn’t get to the drugstores on time, before Tamiflu vanished from the counters. Help is on the way.

Generic Tamiflu is called "oseltamivir", if you want to know. In fairness to Roche, it has recently begun negotiating with other companies and says that more than 100 firms have expressed interest in making the drug.

The world still wants Tamiflu most: the other day, Washington DC revealed it wants enough antivirals to treat at least 25 percent of the population. To swell its reserves, the US has also ordered the other antiviral drug Relenza from GlaxoSmithKline, but the US government admits it won’t have the target amount of 81 million courses before the summer of 2007. Only those two drugs have been licensed by the US Food and Drug Administration.

My view is – why panic? Just observe precautions. Stay away from migrating live birds or live poultry. Remember, bird flu or H5N1 has killed only 65 people over the past two years – a tiny fraction of the 250,000 to 500,000 people who die every year from regular flu. By the way, have you got your anti-regular-flu "shots" already?

Four years, ago, everybody was in a tizzy over SARS which was touted to be capable of killing several million people worldwide. We in the media contributed to spreading fear far and wide. This didn’t happen.

Incidentally, Tamiflu’s main ingredient is a supposedly "rare" herb found only in China. Which brings me back to my main argument. Leave it to the Chinese – both the mainland Chinese and the brilliant Taiwanese, who share more technology than they admit.

If the Chinese can’t get enough of this rare herb they’ve got at home, they’ll duplicate it.