Newsletter 2009/08/25 - Important Customer: The PentagonWASHINGTON/LEVERKUSEN/MUNICH (Own report) - German companies are backing up their million dollar business deals with the Pentagon by providing special benefits to personnel of the US armed forces, according to NGOs in Germany and the USA. Employees of US military hospitals have their travel expenses to "congresses" and "trainings" paid particularly by pharmaceutical and medical technology companies. These include a prosthetics firm, but also the Bayer and Siemens Corporations, which have been business partners of the US defense department for years. The Pentagon's medical care budget for US soldiers has sharply increased with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Observers are estimating that by 2015, the annual drug budget alone could double to reach $15 billion. Even producers of sportswear, suchas Adidas, are among the companies, sponsoring trips in support oftheir lobbying the US military. Boehringer Ingelheim is another company interested in the war business. It had already been involved in business operations with the Pentagon during the war againstVietnam, supplying the basic component for the herbicide Agent Orange. The dramatic effects of Agent Orange are being felt by hundreds ofthousands of Vietnamese still today.
more http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/56270
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