A closer look at the nature of Meridian’s business may shed some light on the counter-intuitive market result. Meridian’s annual report states that the first of its three principal businesses is "the development, manufacture, sale and distribution of diagnostic test kits, primarily for certain respiratory, gastrointestinal, viral and parasitic infectious diseases." The report later boasts, "Meridian offers one of the broadest product lines available for diagnosing respiratory infections including those caused by influenza A." It turns out that H2N2, the deadly strain distributed by the company is a strain of Type A influenza.

This strain released by Meridian bioscience killed an estimated 1 to 4 million people in the 1950s, according to the Post article, and could potentially infect anyone born after its last outbreak in 1968. The World Health Organization issued recommendations to labs worldwide to destroy the virus.

"This virus could cause a pandemic," said Klaus Stohr, the World Health Organization's (WHO) top flu expert. "We are talking about a fully transmissible human influenza virus to which the majority of the population has no immunity. We are concerned."

We could locate no public statement Meridian Bioscience as of this writing as to the curious market result.  The company appears to do well, however, when diseases like influenza and SARS flourish, driving demand for its diagnostic products. Analysts at market research firm Robert W. Baird concluded that influenza tests are significant to Meridian’s bottom line. Baird’s analysts downgraded the company to a "Neutral" rating in December 2004 when it appeared that the flu season was particularly mild. This mirrored an event from August, 2003, when market research firm Hilliard Lyons reported that, "…the SARS tests in Asia extensively employed Meridian’s diagnostic tests, which resulted in higher revenues for the company."

Outbreaks of infectious diseases typically occur naturally. However, the Washington Post noted that laboratory releases accounted for all but four of the known SARS cases.

When a company does or may profit from its own errors, it raises public questions of conflict of interest.