Just in case this is not the panicky story of 2006, it appears that Yule may provide further joy this year:

"Our research has shown that 2-to-3 per cent of the biomass from various pine, spruce and fir trees is extractible shikimic acid," Biolyse principal Claude Mercure said yesterday... To get started, next month it will receive some 500,000 Christmas trees to be donated by Toronto-based Gro-Bark, a forestry recycling company. Most shikimic acid is now extracted from star anise, the fruit of a slow-growing evergreen in China, which is harvested for several months each year. That's why Roche's production of Tamiflu takes about 12 months and there isn't nearly enough of the drug to go around for government stockpiling. "What makes our process more viable is the fact that the particular species of pine, spruce and fir that we are working with are far more abundant than the seedlings of star anise," said John Fulton, Biolyse's vice-president for new product development. Mr. Mercure said Biolyse has no plans to make Tamiflu unless Ottawa grants compulsory licences under the Patent Act in a national emergency. In such a case, he said the company could produce the drug in five weeks.

You are aware that each of us knows nothing about any of this but doesn't it strike you as a wee bit odd that no one checked the Christmas tree needles before this point. It sounds like the shushed idea of the summer job guy - the biology student who mows the lawns - leaning against the wall scratching his head at the back of the room when the power point is showing the executives of BigCo flying off to western China find a new grove of wild faster growing star anise.