I understand the law of supply and demand (Econ 101), but I also understand the law of price gouging and just plain bad P.R. Unfortunately, it seems that these lessons have not been learned by certain companies. As noted in my post yesterday about Chiron and how the manufacturing plant for its vaccine had its license pulled thus stopping production, there is going to be a shortage of flu vaccine doses this year. This has been huge news, and one would think that perhaps a company that is distributing any available flu vaccines might take a bit of advantage of the situation and charge a tiny bit more to make up profit it thought it was going to lose, but not ten times the price.
Florida's Attorney General, Charlie Crist, has opened an investigation into ten Florida companies, and has filed suit against ASAP Meds, Inc. (d.b.a. Meds-Stat), one of those companise. The complaint in that action, charging deceptive trade practices, can be found here.
On Tuesday, Kansas' Attorney General, Phill Kline, also filed suit in Kansas against Meds-Stat. Each lawsuit seems to stem from the same sales of vials of the vaccine. While the price for a vial of the vaccine was usually about $63 to $85, Meds-Stat allegedly charged a nursing home $900 for the same vial on Oct. 11, after the shortage was announced.
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