It's an awful tragedy. Three infants dead within two weeks of being given shots of the anti-infection vaccine Prevenar.

If you were in charge of the situation, what would you do? Stop all Prevenar vaccinations until all of the data from the use of the drug could be examined? Reopen the debate on vaccinating all infants against rare diseases?

Of course not. We can't be too hasty, can we? Not when it made Wyeth (now part of Pfizer) $2.7 billion last year.

So what did Dutch authorities do when faced with these infant deaths? They pulled the batch, leaving the rest of the supply to be used by happy new (unsuspecting) families.

Of course, the cynical side of me is thinking, well, at least they pulled the batch instead of chalking it up to pre-existing conditions (as has been happening with a certain HPV vaccine lately). But the rest of me is thinking this response really isn't good enough.

Especially when a more powerful version of the drug is right around the corner.

Prevenar might sound familiar to you. That's because in the U.S. it's known as Prevnar, charmingly called "the ear infection vaccine" by some parents.

Of course, it wasn't always known as the ear infection vaccine (of course, it's not approved for that, but that doesn't stop doctors from using it against ear infections, anyway). It was supposed to be used to protect high-risk populations from rare diseases.

But where's the money in that?

Pfizer is actually waiting for an FDA approval decision on Prevnar 13, a more powerful version of the vaccine, which should come by the end of the year. Prevnar 13 contains the 13 serotypes responsible for pneumococcal disease, which includes invasive infections like meningitis, pneumonia. And, of course, ear infections.

They're also looking to expand the use of Prevnar 13 to adults, which could cinch sales growth of the Prevnar franchise for years to come. Even if it means lining up babies, kids, and adults to play Russian roulette with a vaccine they most likely don't even need.